And I was raised in the 80s and would also say “bye” in this situation, so can we please understand it’s how you were raised and not when you were raised? Old fart!
I always say bye in the conversation and find it rude when people don’t, even in the above case of the wrong number. I get this all the time at work:
ring ring
Me: “Good morning _______?”
Them: “Is this Telecheck*?”
Me: “No, I’m sorry, you have the wrong number.”
Them: click
Ugh! No need to be rude!
*Telecheck somewhere down in Georgia somehow prints our 800 number on their receipts. BUT - it only gets misdirected sometimes. The rest of the time, it works just fine.
ETA: And I hate being called a Yank just because someone thought it was cool. I don’t even like the Yankees.
A couple of points – at work, I am loathe to say “bye” when disconnecting a call. I used to work for a major cell phone company in the call center. We were never to say “bye” or any variation of it – even if the customer said it first. Since I work in a call center again, I don’t like to say it, but I will if a customer says it first. I usually end a call with “thank you, have a great day!”
My husband can be a total dork sometimes. He refuses to say “goodbye” or “bye” because, thanks to Duran Duran, he seems to think “goodbye is forever.” Ugh. Double-ugh, actually. It’s rather embarrassing. He will say “talk to you later” or “love you.”
I guess what I am trying to say that just hanging up without some sort of ending the call phrase is rude and tacky, but may be part of the job description, depending on who you have called. I’ve never watched House, so I donno what’s up with that.
Oh, and as a side note, anyone with a British, Irish or German accent can call me whatever he likes, even “Yank” and it won’t bother me one iota.
Looking back, I guess I do say “Mmmmbye” pretty often. “Good bye” can be so ackward- ever get in one of those “good bye” matches where everyone ends up saying it like twenty times? Better to get that phone hung up and get one with life ASAP.
I do some sort of a closing…“later”, “bye”, “see ya”, etc.
What’s really annoying is the Very Important Person who greets a phone caller with the simple “GO!”, as if they had a stop watch and were allotting you just a few, pre-determined seconds to state your business before they hang up and move on to the next caller.
Yeh, if someone answered my call that way, I would hang up on them. That’s just beyond rude and indicates that only their time, and not personal courtesy is important – in which case, I would simply not waste their time.
I’ve worked for some real jerks, that would take the cake, though. Seriously. The CEO where I work now has actually taken the time to know every employee by name. We’re not a huge company, but big enough for me to be impressed with him doing that.
He was actually a really nice guy when he wasn’t trying to be hip and with it. I can only hope that someone called him on it and forced him to see the error of his ways. I saw someone on TV use this silly greeting recently, so I assume it’s actually still being done in some circles.
Hey!! I resemble that remark. But, I’ll agree it might be a little bit of both. I just remember how courteous and considrate my third grade teacher was when she politely asked me to bend over so she could whack me on the butt with her paddle ( I think I pushed a girl off the monkey bars ). So, yes I was being taught a lesson but also being taught in a time when enforcement like that was allowed.
Then of course, there’s the people who can’t take a hint.
My sister will call, blather on (get to the point woman!), I’ll answer, we’ll trail off, I say bye and pause, she doesn’t answer, so I hang up. Then she calls me back, pissed off! I paused! If you had something to say, you should’ve said it then!
