Phone calls are rude. They demand your immediate attention with a loud alarm and no regard for where you might be or what you are doing. Texts/email are respectful. They make a small chime just to let you know they are around, then wait patiently for you to read and respond.
That's the point. You get an answer immediately. Also it's way faster than texting since it's synchronous
Which is great when people use a phone call in situations where an immediate response is warranted -- not so great when I realize I've had the device occupying one of my hands and my attention for 10 minutes, and the speaker has yet to make a point
There are certain people who when I see calling, I just won't pick up. On the other hand, when the phone rang at 4am and it was my brother, I knew something terrible had happened. If he had been a frequent caller/offender, I'd have silenced and ignored the call, but I'm really thankful that I picked up. It's like a "boy who cried wolf" situation.
Wish I could get my elderly relatives to understand this.
Why not just mute the phone while you're not interested in being contacted synchronously, and rejecting calls when you don't have the ability to talk synchronously?
Wild take to be honest, it's essentially the equivalent of saying that in-person conversations are rude and that people should send you a physical letter instead.
Because some things warrant my immediate attention, and most don't. I am never interested in being contacted synchronously unless it's something actually urgent. And because of that I can tell people that if they need me, they can call me and if I'm at all able I will answer immediately, otherwise I will probably answer later, aka whenever I happen to see it.
Yeah, it's not like we have complex social rituals, informal rules and elaborate signs and calls designed to establish the appropriateness of in-person interactions. I just punch anyone in the face that I don't want to talk to me, that usually gets the message across. And if I want someone's attention I just scream my demands at the top of my lungs an inch away from their face. If they don't punch my face I assume they are fine with the conversation.
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In my experience, the younger you are, the more likely you are to find phone calls to be irritating at best. People in their 20s and under almost always would prefer you to text them than call them. And I'm in my 40s and I agree. I've never liked the phone. I didn't like it when it was all landlines and I don't like it now. Texting was a godsend.
Well my opinion is that there is no reason for a company to call me unless it's actually urgent and in my own best interest, at that point it is perfectly fine to call.
Some companies call regardless of the reasons with no care at all about the customer/client/potential customer, all just to make sure to force a response. Just send the damn message instead of disturbing me at work, and If I have any sort interest, opinion, or care what so ever, then I'll get in touch at my own discretion.
Having customers isn't a "right" for companies, but they do seem to believe so.
How about you explain why do I need to be contacted by a phone call
Explain why you cannot be contacted by telephone call
deaf496/500
⚠️ Did you realize you are buying a mixing table? don't tell me how to live my life.
You wouldn't sell Beethoven a new piano either?
I’m not saying I wouldn't. I’d just give him a “⚠️” look.
"It's for a friend" 😒
Introverts unite ٩( ᐛ )و
^oh, wait...^
Introverts unite... online. Separately.
I'm a fairly strong extrovert and telephony services are almost entirely unused and blocked.
Maybe if I were somewhat intoxicated and hadn't socialised in the past 3 hours, I'd consider answering...
"Hey, I don't give a shit about whatever you called about. But if your shift is close to end, happy to chat about stuff so you don't have to call anyone else. What are you into? Where you at? How's work going? Do you like gaming?.... Hello?... Awww."
Meanwhile I'm an introvert and I would rather a 10 minute phone call than an email chain back and forward.
If it's going to be more than 2 emails, call me.
Writing an email is just as socially draining for me - sometimes even more so if I don't know you well and I'm over thinking the tone or how much context to include. Having to send more than 2 emails is just elongating the interaction, especially if the other person is in and out of the office so they don't reply quickly and I keep having to come back to the same conversation and shift my headspace in and out of "socially mode"
Of course, being in and out of the office is a big reason why email is great, you get to it when you get to it and no one is entitled to your immediate attention.
I am an introvert but haven't made up any arbitrary rules about communication for myself. There are absolutely times that life becomes more complicated if a text is chosen over a phone call and there are absolutely times when the reverse is true.
I would put "You can try. Many have."
"Because I won't recognize the number and therefore never answer a call."
My entry would be "I won't answer it."
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"I'll just assume it's spam"
Hello, we have been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty
Anyone that actually know me knows I wouldn't answer an unknown number.
Explain why you cannot be contacted by telephone call
No.
My dentist has started texting about appointment reminders and reschedules. It's an automated system but also a person can manually jump into the conversation. I love it because it means I don't have to talk to them on the phone.
Basically our entire healthcare system has had that for years. We can't reschedule with SMS though. Sometimes clinics support rescheduling via the national E healthcare service, though.
I’m in the uk and rescheduled an appointment at a large hospital via text with an automated system a couple of weeks ago. It was great!
"All calls go directly to voicemail" would be my response.
I want everything in writing so I can refer back to exactly what was said and when.
Personally, this kind of thing is part of how I control the phone rather than have the phone control me, all of which reduces stress and even increases productivity at a professional level.
An SMS or similar kind of message always gets stored, and I can check it when its convenient for me.
Phone calls only get stored if the other side actually records a voice mail, so there is pressure to pick up a phone call immediatelly, "just in case they don't leave a voicemail" which might very well be interrupting work on a complex task that shouldn't be interrupted.
My philosophy is that if it's important, they'll leave a voicemail. If they don't leave a voicemail, then sorry, I'm not calling back.
My philosophy is: I don't leave voicemails and I also don't listen to voicemails.
I text first and call later in most cases. If it's important call me twice
Yeah, I also use that to further segregate things by level of importance: there's lots of unimportant stuff coming in via that channel, so if a person on the other side can't be arsed to leave a voicemail, it's not important enough.
The SMS option just allows further segregation of important-non-urgent from important-urgent: for me an SMS might have something I should know or is good to know (say, confirmation of a doctor's appointment) but have plenty of time to deal with (say, it's in 2 weeks) so it works well for automated messages (plus it's faster to read and SMS message tend to be a lot shorter and to the point than voicemail)
In the old days of WFH I would further segregate it by "if it's really really urgent come to my desk" which further filters for importance based on the effort others are willing to put on it by coming to me with it.
In my professionally life I've concluded that a lot of unecessary stress comes from unimportant, important-urgent and important-non-urgent all coming in via the same channels and me having to treat everything as "possibly important and urgent" when most of it is no such thing, hence my filtering by-effort-required, which is not perfect but works way better than most people's approach to it.
My philosophy is that only important people have my phone number.
Everyone else can contact me by mail.
It's against all I stand for...
I recognize this... it was part of the "Public Health Passenger Locator Form" which was required to enter the UK during covid times.
Nicely spotted. I thought it had a certain G-O-V-dot-U-K-ness about it.
Whenever some service asks for a phone number of which I know they do not need it, I just enter 0123456789.
They can contact me on my email address (on my spam, not my official mailbox)
This is why they invented email.
Nah you explain to me why you can't just text.
they called me once and i blocked the number. didn't even get asked.
Had to block my bank's number. They called me for some bullshit, I told them, I prefer text messages, they called again -> blocked.
