How often is too often?
I’m talking about a desk job, where you can sort of keep mulitasking while on the phone. Still, if you did it all day, you would start to seem unprofessional. Question is what’s the limit?
On the phone? Five minutes, tops. Ten or fifteen if you’re on a break. Via text or IM? It can go on for hours, if it’s not bothering anyone.
For the record, I work an office desk job with minimal face-to-face interaction, other than with my coworkers.
I’m also wondering about how many separate times a day.
While you’re texting or IMing, you’re not working. One or two exchanges like that per day aren’t a big deal, but your phone constantly buzzing with incoming texts and you constantly picking it up, reading, then responding - too much.
On the phone - one or two calls per day is plenty, even if you’re multi-tasking.
Just my opinion, of course. 
Texting back and forth with my wife helps keep us both sane. Couple quick conversations a day is fine.
IMO, it depends on where you work. But talking on the phone can be disruptive to your coworkers, and may make them think unkind things about you and your SO.
(I have a coworker who talks to her husband for 15 or so minutes every few days, about how unhappy she is with her in-laws living with them. It makes me stabby.)
So please, keep the conversation text-based.
We only speak on the phone during work hours if it is urgent. Otherwise, breaks and lunch only.
If you share an office…
Tell your wife how amusing it is when one of your co-workers gets a call from his wife with a question or information that clearly could have waited until he got home and how funny he was with the facial expressions and gestures and witty story to co-workers about the call afterwards.
When she asked if YOU ever do the same thing, deny that you would ever do such a thing. Say “OF COURSE I WOULD NEVER ACT IN SUCH A WAY!!!”
This will cut down on the calls.
I talk with my wife numerous times a day (phone, text, IM). Married 23 years and I have to hear her voice and tell her that I love her.
We keep a running e-mail conversation going on most days, unless we’re out of the office for some reason.
I get my work done, so does he, so meh.
Just to talk? Never. She calls me if its important and vice versa.
When I’m at work, I only talk to my family (SO, parents) if it’s important and time-critical. That means it’s usually less than one personal call a week. However, I do text and email during the day. That’s usually kept to less than 10 exchanges over the course of the day.
For other people, I think the limit is a call or two per day (barring an emergency), with each call lasting 5 mins or less. Text or email, I don’t notice unless your work isn’t getting done or your phone is consistently buzzing every few minutes.
I don’t believe I could survive with a partner who needed to talk/text/email me, multiple times in a day.
I am baffled that anyone would want to, but more power to them. If the boss doesn’t mind, and it works for them, great!
I would soon pack my bags and flee, I fear, from anyone who needed this much constant input from me. It’s amazing to me that people do it, mostly because I could not force myself to, I suspect.
I’ll only call my husband at work if there is an emergency and I need to get some information to him or from him RIGHT NOW! The only time this has happened is when one of our dogs had a stroke and needed to be put to sleep. I wanted him to be there if he wanted to. He came home and we took Ginger to the vet.
Non-emergency communication takes place via email or text.
Chit-chat happens at home.
People who have to talk to their SO multiple times a day baffle me.
I only call if there is an urgent scenario, and I keep it under a couple of minutes. If I needed to have a longer conversation, I’d take a break and find a private location.
If work is slow, I will IM on and off through the day. I do a lot of research and writing and it’s not the sort of thing you can just plug away at nonstop. Sometimes you need to let something sit for a while and come back to it, and I’ll IM while I clear my head.
I’ve never been married, but I don’t think my parents even knew each other’s work phone numbers (of course, this was before cell phones).
I share an office with three others. I get or make calls two or three times a week. Two of them will get calls two or three times a day. One gets calls two or three times an hour. Well he did until she filed for divorce. I guess he has control issues.
At three an hour he wasted two hours of eached day. He also has a buddy would call from back east.:rolleyes:
We don’t usually talk to each other during the day. Sometimes we’ll message each other on Facebook about random things. I would only call him if there was something specific I wanted to say.
We live together, so we have plenty of time to talk outside of work.
My husband is currently out of town for work… again… No way am I going to call him for less than an emergency. He always calls when he’s on his way back to his hotel, and occasionally later at night. During the day, if I need to let him know something, I’ll send an email - it goes right to his phone and he can respond when he’s free.
When he’s working at the home office, I almost never call him. He’ll call me occasionally during the day, and if he remembers, he’ll call before heading home so I know how to time dinner. Even when I was still working, I’d rarely call him - we often worked in different area codes and long distance personal calls were strongly discouraged - at least where I worked. Anyway, we were usually both busy - no time to natter away!
I might call my husband once a week or he might call me but our calls would last about thirty seconds to one minute. Work isn’t the place for chit chatty calls home.