i want to know when it became acceptable to make someone who is sitting or standing in front of you wait while you answer a phone to talk to someone who is not. it’s been bugging me for a while now, this whole pavlovian reaction to the telephone. we jump to answer it, regardless of what else we’re doing at the time. every time i pick the phone up while i’m talking to someone face-to-face i feel guilty and i wonder why i bother.
\ni’ve noticed people’s reaction to their ringing phones a lot lately, mostly because i’ve stopped answering the other phones in my department. the other two data entry clerks still hop-to and pick up the calls of absent co-workers, but i’ve stopped. i have work to do and if the call isn’t for me, why should i waste my time with it? if it’s important, the person will call back.
\nthey will call back.
\nit’s a little different in business, where if you don’t answer the phone call you may lose a sale which could ruin your business, but what about when you’re at home. you’re having a pleasant evening, talking and laughing or just hanging out with someone. don’t you think it says “hey, you’re not important enough for 100% of my attention” when you pick up that ringing phone? i do. unless you’re expecting someone who’s a part of your plans, let it ring or let the machine get it.
\nmy father has never had an answering machine and only just recently succumbed to the evil that is voice mail. he always said “if it’s important, they’ll call back”. yeah, it pissed me off when i couldn’t reach him, but he’s right. i called back.
\nit’s all part of our NOW culture. i want to talk to you, so you must be available for me to talk to or you must leave me an avenue to deposit my message immediately. you can’t possibly expect me to wait<\/i> for you. that will throw everything out of whack. i’ll have to adapt<\/i>. we can’t have that. you must satisfy my wants NOW! patience? that’s a girl’s name, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
i want to know when it became acceptable to make someone who is sitting or standing in front of you wait while you answer a phone to talk to someone who is not. it’s been bugging me for a while now, this whole pavlovian reaction to the telephone. we jump to answer it, regardless of …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fubsy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}