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
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.
Actually landlines was better… hear me out.
“Fuck you, I’m not at the house.” ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Wham bam thank you ma’am, you can’t contact me unless it’s on my terms.
Counter: “sorry, left my phone at home”
Same excuse can still be used.
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Yeah and there are also times when texting makes the situation a lot more annoying but a 2 minute phone call does the opposite.
I honestly can’t think of one. I’d rather spend five minutes writing a text than two minutes on the phone. That’s two minutes I have to talk to someone without looking at them.
Occasionally we have to set up events and doing a conference call is a hell of a lot less annoying than doing a group chat. Anyone who doesn’t want to be part of the planning can just opt out of the call rather than have their phone bing a million times in five minutes.
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That insult was definitely warranted and appropriate to the discussion. Clearly this is the way forward.
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Instead of telling me what to do, why don’t you explain your position?
Telling someone “no” is rude without supporting thoughts, which makes me think you aren’t a good authority on rudeness.
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You have added nothing to this conversation.
You are as rude and intrusive as unexpected phone calls are.
Telling me to get therapy is hilarious, you keep trying to tell me what to do.
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You are very bad at estimating other people’s emotions. Or you’re projecting…
Go back to enjoying phone calls, there’s no shame!
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.
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How about you explain why do I need to be contacted by a phone call
I would put “You can try. Many have.”
“Because I won’t recognize the number and therefore never answer a call.”
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.
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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
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.
“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.
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: 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
I recognize this… it was part of the “Public Health Passenger Locator Form” which was required to enter the UK during covid times.
This is why they invented email.
they called me once and i blocked the number. didn’t even get asked.
