I pay the expensive phone bill, even though the vast majority of the money goes to non phone conversations. The bulk of my calls these days come from telemarketers, job offers from commission only sales places, or else junk calls from companies I have a business relationship with. These, of course, are not telemarketing calls, they are calls to improve my business relationship with. They’re bullshit telemarketing calls.
I have to talk to customers at work. I don’t have to talk to people I don’t want to talk to on my own free time.
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It amuses me that people will get angry with me if they ring me for days and got no answer.
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Are these people leaving messages? Because if I was a friend of yours trying to get hold of you for days, I might not be all that pleased. Or are you more contactable via another method?
Okay, that’s fair. I really don’t get a lot of calls at all, and certainly very few unwanted ones. So, yeah, if that happened to me, I’d likely change my views.
(I’d also take some protective measures, in extremis being to get a new phone number.)
Only if I’m specifically expecting a call from someone, usually a friend or the pizza dude on the porch waiting for me to come down and get my food. Otherwise, I never answer the phone. I’ve had persistent problems with both getting weird calls for the last person who had my cell number, and from people whom I’ve explicitly told to buzz off who have decided their desire to talk to me overrides my desire to not ever talk to them again. Add to that a problem with parsing speech, particularly on a crappy mobile network, and answering is just not worth it. You want a call back, leave a message. If someone important has died, they’ll still be dead when I check my voicemail.
I shut the ringer off an hour after I bought the phone and have never turned it back on. People I want to talk to know it’s much easier to get me via email or SMS. The only reason I own a device that makes voice calls to begin with is that 911 doesn’t accept text messages.
Way way back in the '90s when people used to call each other on land lines, I’d check in with my sister about every weekend. She had a system where there’d be a click if someone else was ringing her during our call.
She would ask if I minded being put on hold while she checked on the other caller. I would tell her I’d call back later. She seemed put out at this.
If I can see who is calling, then I decide if I want to talk to the that person. If it’s an unknown number, then depends on what I’m doing and what I feel like. I turn off vmail because I hate that shit as a big waste of time and can remember when it was a slave driver. If it’s a customer, I answer by the fifth ring about 18 hours a day. I don’t leave my cell phone on 24/7. If it’s important, you know how to text me or email me. If you don’t know how to text or email me, then obviously you don’t know me or I don’t want to talk to you.
If I’m driving, I never answer the phone. If it’s a call from work, I always answer (part of my job involves occasionally having to quickly get into work at odd hours of the night with minimal heads-up). If I’m in the middle of something and see that the phone call is something most likely less important (friend calling while I’m in the middle of a work conversation, etc.) then I’ll send the call to voicemail and get back to the caller later. If I’m in a meeting, the phone is usually silenced or in airplane mode. If I miss a call, I’ll usually text a reply.
Oh, and to add to my previous reply: When I call someone else at work, if they don’t answer the first time, I leave a message. Then I call again later. If they don’t pick up that time, I hang up and call again later.
Why do I keep calling if I’ve already left them a message? Because I don’t know how to answer voicemail on my own office phone, so why would I assume anyone else could? If it was important enough to call them once (instead of just launching an email at them), it’s important enough to call them three or five times until I have time to just show up in person at their desk to get a hold of them.
I have a law office. When the phone rings, it may be Money* calling. I want that call to be answered promptly and professionally. If no one is available to answer, then I want the voicemail checked and any message acted on as may be appropriate. If I don’t do that, Money is going to call the next lawyer on the list.
*Money may be a potential client, or another lawyer calling to offer me work as a Guardian ad Litem, or various officials in two counties that may offer me appointed work as GAL or Public Defender.
The only people who call my land line are my parents or my mother-in-law. Since they’re all elderly, it’s a good idea to answer it in case there’s a problem.
[old fart alert] There used to be a time when people (maybe just women!) loved nothing more than to gab on the phone with their friends for hours at a time. I get irritated when there’s too much back and forth with email and sometimes actually need to talk to someone. Nowadays I feel like I have to email for permission and to set a time to call because people act like it’s such a pain in the ass to talk on the phone. [/old fart alert]
No they just expect me to be available at the end of a phone call. I usually reply to a SMS as soon as I can.
If you send me an SMS or an email, to any of my many accounts, and indicate that you need to talk I’ll ring you as soon as I can.
But I’m kind of ratty in most people’s opinions with messages.
Say you leave a message like this, "Hi don’t ask (strike one I know who I am) this is **StrangeBird ** (strike two I know whose call I am listening to)…blather designed to remind me that we are friends (strike three…get to the point.) I have now deleted your message.
Sure it gives people the shits but it has never caused any permanent harm and it makes my life way easier.
Answering the phone when it rings is the default. Although, under certain circumstances (don’t recognized the number, too busy, etc) they won’t. This is the group I’m in, although my criteria for not answering is narrow (it’s an 800 number, or I’m already talking to someone).
Not answering phone is the default. Only under certain circumstances (they’re waiting for a call, it’s a specific caller) will they answer their phone.
I think if I knew anyone in the second group I’d probably just stop calling them. Calling them, leaving a message, then waiting for them to call me back anytime I wanted to talk to them it just too much hassle. And honestly, if the mentality that led them too insist that all conversations with them must take place when it’s most convenient for them carried over into other aspects of their personality, I’d probably just stop dealing them altogether (if that’s an option). Life’s just too short for that.
On the other hand, maybe that’s why I don’t have any problem answering the phone when it rings: I generally don’t associate with people who don’t value my time.
Years ago I got a new number (cell). Since that time I’ve been extremely careful (anal, actually) about who I give the number to. When my phone rings, my caller ID shows the name. I still do not answer, preferring to listen to the VM and 90% of the time respond via a text.
I kinda agree with this. For customers the standard is to leave a message. For anyone else if I know they don’t answer their phone I usually won’t call. I don’t generally leave messages for friends, they’ll see I’ve called and call me back. If I know someone doesn’t like answering the phone or is usually busy I text them instead. I feel no obligation to respond to texts in a timely manner, if it’s important they’ll call.
I MIGHT get 1 phone call a month on my cell. So yeah, I’ll answer it, it’s probably important. I’ll answer the landline too. We get very few solicitors calling, so that’s not a problem. Again, we don’t do the phone that much, so it could be important.
Yeah, sad thing is, this non-stop telemarketing/spam call industry has changed the way I deal with my phone. I grew up in a non-caller ID, no voicemail, always phone answering household. And that was my default until about 10 or so years ago. Then I slowly began getting telephone spammed, I got on the DNC list, and that helped briefly, but over the years, has simply become useless. Nowadays, I pretty much never answer the landline (the only other non-marketing/campaigning person who knows my landline number is my wife) and it rings 1-3 times a day. As for my mobile phone, if it’s from an area code I don’t recognize, I don’t answer it. Local calls, even ones that I don’t recognize, I generally will answer, though. Anything blocked/withheld or unknown goes to voicemail, as well. Answering the phone has gone from a pleasant “oh, I wonder who’s calling!” to a “who the fuck is bothering me now?”
If I’m too far away from the phone, I don’t answer it. Or sometimes if I don’t think it’s for me (the shared family phone that is.) I’ll answer it if I"m expecting an important phone call.
Though I have a bit of a phobia of talking on the phone anyway.
What pulykamell said goes for me. I won’t change our landline number, we’ve had it since the Kennedy administration. But I don’t answer it if I don’t want to.
Sometimes when I’m feeling jolly, I’ll answer an unknown number, and if it’s someone trying to sell me something or take a poll, I’ll implement the phone script from Stephen King’s short story “1408”. If I’m really feeling puckish, I’ll run my electric razor on the side of my trachea while talking.
Me too. I only have a cell phone, and 99% of calls I receive are from people with whom I want to speak. Even numbers I don’t recognize are usually from someone I need to speak with for one reason or another, so most of the time I answer. I usually don’t answer during dinner. Occasionally, I’m too busy to answer, but it’s more likely that I’ll answer and tell the caller (often my sister) that I’m in the middle of X, I’ll call her back. In the unlikely event that it’s an emergency, she has an opportunity to tell me that (though that doesn’t cross my mind when I answer; answering is just my default).