Your name and company as part of your opening sentence is a gamut of time consuming explanations?
I have one that thinks he’s so funny. I say “May I ask who’s calling?” and his response is always “yes.” That’s it.
You know. I wish my boss didn’t want me to screen his calls, but he does, so must you bust my balls about it?
ugh, not funny the first time and not funny the 100th time.
One I find much annoying is people who call YOU and then want to put YOU on hold. If you want to talk to someone else don’t call ME.
‘This is Donny and June, we’re leaving on the flight tomorrow, just wanted to confirm’ :smack:
I deal with people who are on holiday - by the end of their stay they think they’re on first name terms with everyone on the island. I always feel a twinge of sadness when I have to ask for their last name and the date and day of their flight.
Drives me up the fucking wall. I just hang up. I have too much to do to waste my time waiting for you to finish chatting with Brenda about her weekend.
Also ran:
‘Don’t you recognise my voice?’
Have you had anyone claim that you’ve ruined their holiday by breaking the illusion of everyone on an island existing to cater to them and them only? 
I kid, I kid. They sound more polite than most people, so at least they’re trying.
On an unrelated note to that, before caller ID I would have friends or family call me and play the “Guess who?!” game. Telling voices on the phone apart is very difficult for me, so inevitably I would get it wrong and somebody would get miffed. Well, sorrrrryyy, maybe if you just stated your name like a normal person this wouldn’t have happened!
After nearly 7 years working a phone-based job, I believe I have perfected the art of leaving a message. It goes like this (items in <these brackets> indicate where I say the relevant specifics, items in [these brackets] indicate where I am explaining why I do a particular thing):
“Hello, this is a message for <client’s full name> [verifies that I have called the correct number, also important in the case of more than one person having access to the message], my name is <my full name> calling from <company name> [important to establish this is not a cold call and what the recipient is to expect] on <phone number on which you would be best off calling me back> [giving this early in case they need to come back to it] at <time> on <day and date> [not all voicemail facilities make it easy to see the date and time the message was left]. I am just calling regarding <as much detail as possible without going into anything at all confidential, in case someone else picks up the message>. If you are able to give me a call back, the number again is <number> [repeating number in case they have been searching for a pen and don’t want to listen to the message again], that line is open <opening hours>, if I am not available when you call one of my colleagues should be able to help or they can arrange for me to call you back. However, if it’s not convenient for you to call, don’t worry as I can send you an e-mail [this last part is optional but usually relevant].”
That’s a bit hard to read so let me give a fictitious example without all the parentheses: “Hello, this is a message for Mr Barack Obama, my name is Dead Cat calling from the Straight Dope Message Board on 01234 567 890 on Thursday 3rd July at 6.45pm. I am just calling regarding the message you sent to us earlier on today in relation to your recent application. If you are able to give me a call back, the number again is 01234 567 890, that line is open until 8pm today or from 9am tomorrow, if I am not available when you call one of my colleagues should be able to help or they can arrange for me to call you back. However, if it’s not convenient for you to call, don’t worry as I can send you an e-mail.”
OK, it’s a bit long, but it covers all the important details in the correct order, in my view, and is still well under a minute.
Yeah, at work I always answer internal calls that have been made to a group number (rather than to me personally) with “Hi, it’s <my first name>.” But many people don’t - why not?
I make a point of giving my name and number in the first sentence, and then repeating the number again at the end (and of course enunciating the phone number carefully). I’ve gotten voicemail messages in which the caller drones on for several minutes and then at the end says their phone number very quickly and just once. So I have to listen to the whole damned thing again just to get the phone number.
Having to ask me is a burden on the receptionist?
Yeah, “what’s up with that?”
I had a guy call me once and he asked me who it was. I told him that I wasn’t sure he understood how a phonecall was supposed to work. Then he got uppity and I hung up on him.
His parents really failed him.
As an officerat I would answer my phone, “Mr. Dub”, and I’d get people who’d ask “Is this Mr. Dub?”. You have no idea how much self-restraint it took to simply just say “Yes”.
I had a a lawyer boss once, raised on the East Coast, who was (and still is) an arrogant and annoying prick. He used to have his secretary call people up and ask them to please hold for “Mr. X” while he finished whatever he was doing. Apparently it usually worked. No one has ever tried that with me. I suppose I’d do that for the President of the United States or a judge on one of my cases, but anyone else would get a “no”.
Hugely.
If you call me, I’d like to know “This is Ms. Y, and I’m calling about the M file.” That is what I actually do.
Have any of you realized that, seeing as pretty much nobody does it, it’s probably no longer standard procedure to identify yourself when you call someone?
The procedure, as far as I know, is
“Hello. I would like to speak to so-and-so.”
“And who(m) may I say is calling”
“BigT.”
If you don’t do that, almost certainly, the call will go like this:
“Hi. This is BigT. May I speak to so-and-so?”
“Sure. What was your name again?”
“BigT.”
The only time I’ve ever not had that happen when I choose that option is the person already know me or I’ve called many times and they’ve gotten used to my name.
I also do not know anyone who identifies themselves for personal calls, save for my mom’s best friend, and she only does it when she knows it’s not my mom talking. I’ve always seen it as a little quaint thing. Yes, I already know who is calling. That’s the only reason I answered the phone.
Plausible deniability in case the call is for you and you don’t want to take it.
I just wonder what kind of marvellous secretarys are out there transferring calls with “Mr. X, Mr. J from Y Company is calling. He says that it’s in reference to Z product.”
99.9999 percent of all calls I get, at home or at any of my jobs from the last 25 or more years have been transfers w/o a go-between’s explanation of who is calling.
This whole thread reeks of “Mr X is here for some people, and not for others – how important should I say you are?”
Rude not to identify yourself. My phone rang a couple of days ago while I was driving, so I answered it on speaker to a guy saying, “Um… hello. Who is this?”. I mildly replied, “I believe it’s generally considered polite to say who you are first.” He revealed that he thought he had the wrong number, so I politely agreed with him and then hung up. My partner, who was listening, laughed for a good five minutes. It’s possible that this story might appear elsewhere, written by another, with the words “mildly” and “politely” replaced by “snootily” (or possibly “camply”) and “sternly”.
You cannot expect rationality from someone who has just endured several layers of voice mail and is astonished to be talking to a human being. And why should I give my name to someone who is almost certain to pass me on to someone else? I don’t know your company’s policies, but that might be the explanation. Mostly I hate making business calls these days. When I had a problem with Delta Airlines a week ago, I called their help line, went through a couple of layers of voice mail (one requiring an oral response from me) till I finally got a human (after being on hold for 10 minutes) only to be told I should have called their web help line–if it was on their web site I didn’t notice, besides which since their web site failed, I was hoping a human could correct it. At any rate, I was transferred to their web help site, which put into another holding pattern from which they eventually disconnected.
Everybody has Caller ID, and when I phone a service center with whom I am a subscriber, they already know who I am.