Sarah's pre-Christmas Rant: If you don't know how to use the phone: DON'T TOUCH IT!

Good evening!

When I was in third grade, we had a class in school on phone etiquette.  It was part of our social studies class:  you know, the class that taught us how to function in an every day world without angering those around us?  Yes, social studies.  The study of a society.  And in that class I learned how to answer a phone properly, how to take a phone message properly, how to dial a phone, and how to communicate with someone on the phone. 

Almost 40 years later, I have a job because I can do what, apparently, fewer and fewer people are able to do:  Operate a telephone.

In this day of texting, email, and other forms of non telephone communication, I don't have to look too far to see that future generations are going to not know how to use a phone.  And I don't have to look too far back to find a generation...still living...that has always been clueless "about them new- fangled telephone voice machines."

Every day I dial a phone, and let it ring, and I either leave a message with the voicemail/answering machine on the other end or I talk to the person who answers the phone.  What shocks me, and what the source of my rant is today, is how few people know how to manage a telephone or a telephone conversation.

I've managed to narrow the categories of people who answer the phone to five.  All five are annoying, all five are clueless, and everyone in each of these five categories needs to go take Mrs. Carol Zimmerman's "phone etiquette" class.

1)  Can't be bothered because "Maury" is on.  But then again, Caller ID is just too hard to deal with because that involves reading and whatnot.

I'm shocked...SHOCKED at how many phone calls I make land into this category.  Seriously, if the phone rings, now that we have a little thing called CALLER ID, if you don't want to take a call from someone, you don't have to.  Your voicemail can pick it up.  So there's really no need, if you're deep into a multi-layered plot twist of a paternity test on Maury Povich, for you to answer the phone.  Really. No need. In fact, we as telephone professionals would PREFER you NOT pick up the phone, and then drop it on the floor, and leave it there while your television blares for three minutes which is about the length of patience most telephone professionals have with this nonsense.

This category also includes the people who will answer then immediately hang up the phone without bothering to say anything.  I realize I've been guilty of this in the past, but now I have to think:  Are we really that busy or that anti social that we can't possibly be bothered to say, "No Thank you?" (I guess "No Thank you" falls into the same category as "Thank you."

2)  Two ears, one mouth...can't shut the one and won't open the two.

I love it when people call me to ask questions and then simply will not SHUT UP to let me answer them and then get angry at ME because I'm not answering their questions.  The flip side of that fun coin is that when I do start talking, they immediately start talking again, making any attempt at answering questions impossible.  If you want answers, SHUT UP.  And if you can't shut your yap long enough to take a breath, then don't get bent out of shape when the person on the other end of the line doesn't start talking immediately...leaving a bit of dead air where your voice has been for the last ten minutes.

3)  Doesn't understand how to conduct a phone conversation from stage one.

Okay, let's review:  Your phone rings. You push a button or whatever, opening the line to the person who is calling you.  What next?  Well, obviously you say, "hello?" acknowledging that you're ready to speak to the person on the other end of the line.  Obvious, right?  Wrong!  Many of the people I call simply open the line... and say nothing.  And then I have to say, "Hello?"  And sometimes I get a live person, but more often I get nothing. More dead air.  So I say "Hello" again and then something will finally click in the person's brain and get the ball moving.  Now, what I'd like to say is this:  I say hello and then you say hello and we can start."  But I don't dare.  I have to go through this little dance because the person who picked up the phone maybe has some sort of social phobia  and can't speak into the phone.  I can sympathize, if that's the case, but I have to think there just aren't that many people with that specialized a phobia.

4)  Sure you can take a phone message.  Sure you can...

I leave a lot of phone messages.  A LOT of phone messages.  I will listen to a recording and leave a voice mail message a hundred times if I don't have to talk to some dimwit who picks up the phone but isn't the person I am calling and can't answer the one question I'm asking. I'll say, "Can I leave a message with you?"

Before you correct me, remember, I'm an English major.  Yes, I fully know I probably should say, "MAY I leave a message," but I've done this job long enough to know the problem isn't a matter of manners.  It's a matter of skill.  And rarely does the person on the other end have the skill it takes to write down a name, a phone number, and a four word message.  I say, "Can I leave a message?"  They always say yes.  I say, "This is Sarah from Stuff,Installed, and my number is..." and that's when 99 out of 100 times, the person on the other end will say, "Just a minute."

What follows is a multi minute search for a writing tool.   During this time I want to shout all sorts of colorful things into the phone about how telling a person they can leave a message is a verbal contract and by making said person wait and then repeat 2/3 of the message because you didn't have a pen is clearly a breach of that contract.  But then I realize that a person who agrees to take a phone message without having clear view of a writing tool is probably not going to know what I'm talking about when I talk about contracts.

5)  Drunk, angry, stoned, asleep, and driving.

I realize this seems like a repeat of the first category, but it's not because this includes those who dial me and get me, and then are furious because they got a live person on the other end of the phone.  Or, and this is always my favorite, I dial the phone and get the person who is clearly in the middle of some sort of personal crisis, so they start screaming at me and demanding to know where I got their number.  "Um, you gave it to me yesterday and told me to call you back today."  

I love being called a liar.  Because, see, I have nothing better to do with my day than to open the phone book...(what's a phone book, grandma?)  and start dialing random numbers.  Yes, that's exactly what I do.

This category also contains third shifters who need service calls, but refuse to answer their phones until they are dead asleep and therefore they get to rage at me about calling them when they are asleep.  I worked third shift.  If you don't want to answer the phone, you don't have to answer the phone. No one has a gun to your head.

As for those who are in an impaired state of mentality...stop.  Stop using the phone.  Stop filling my voicemail with incoherent mumbles and then stop complaining to my corporate office that I don't return phone calls.  Stop calling my number and hanging up just as I answer. And if you're in a bad mood, how about if you sit down with an episode of Maury?

Stop yelling at me when you answer the phone when you're driving.  You're breaking the law, not me.

And by the way...if you're in the middle of a domestic dispute, don't dial the phone, don't answer the phone, don't look at the phone.  I don't want to hear you and your significant other scream at each other.  Well, I do, because it's sort of entertaining, but really, it gets old when you decide you're going to treat me like some sort of free couples' therapy.

6)  You might be old, but you have had a telephone in your house since you were a child.  Stop pretending you don't know how to use it!

I've done the math.  Every person alive today (and I'm talking about industrialized nations here, I'm sure there are people on an island someplace where this isn't true.) has had a telephone in their home at very the least their entire adult lives.  My grandmother is 97 years old.  She's almost blind, she care barely hear, and she knows how to use a phone.  Ad if my grandma can manage it, everyone else can, too.  That means you don't get to pretend you don't know what to do when someone calls you.  You don't get to yell, "WHO? WHAT?  HUH?"  every time I try to say something.  I'm not Alexander Graham Bell.  Phone reception is pretty awesome these days.  Stop pretending you can't hear me.

Also, stop pretending you don't know what a phone is for.  Believe it or not, I'm not buying the idea that a darling little old lady is just randomly picking things up in her house until the ringing stops.  Don't answer that phone and then start shouting at your house mate that you "don't know what the hell the call is about. It's some damn thing or another."  Stop.  You know how to listen.  I know this because the minute I mention a big old discount you're able to focus in on what I'm saying.

And for the love of all that is holy, don't pretend you didn't get my 77 previous messages.  If you have voice mail or an answering machine, you've probably had it for eons and therefore you know how to get the messages.  The only person I've ever met who couldn't retrieve her voice mail message was Elsie W.

Do you really want to be in her category?

And finally, this isn't so much a category as it is a pet peeve of mine and since I'm giving you my pre-Christmas rant, I may as well throw this in:

Answering machines have been around for a long time now.  And yes, we've all fallen victim to wanting our outgoing messages to be personalized, funny, cute, whatever.  That said, let me just clue you in on how things are in 2013, now that we have voicemail, and digital everything.  I can speak to this because I've made about 1600 phone calls this month and this is what I run across all the time:

A) Sound clips taped from the TV or your favorite radio station are terrible.  No one can understand that garbled mess.  Erase and start over, this time with your own voice in a normal volume level saying normal adult things. you might be the biggest Princess Bride fan  (but you're not...because you're not me) but listening to some fuzzy, echo mess of you telling us you'll call us back and then Wesley saying "As you wish" from across the room is only a good idea in your head.  In real life it's terrible.  Stop it.

B)  Your children/grandchildren might be the apple of your eye, but their goo-goo gaa-gaa mess on your outgoing message only annoys everyone.  Yes, everyone.  Yes, even your best friend.  I'm the only one honest enough to tell you.  They aren't cute, they aren't adorable, they make everyone who calls you want to poke their ears out. And oh yeah, unless your pets have developed opposable thumbs, stop putting their names on the outgoing message.  I have four cats.  Do you really want to listen to, "You've reached the home of Sarah, Hubby, Peaches, Skippy, Jasper, Tacocat, Belle, and Jude" every time you call me?  Are you planning on leaving a message for the cats?  Then STOP!

C)  Only Dr. Suess is allowed to speak in rhyme.  You are not Dr. Suess.  Stop trying to come up with a cute rhyme on your outgoing message. It's terrible.  Stop it.

D)  The "press this number for this person"  Really?  Is your land line THAT busy that you have to have multiple lines for each child and each pet?  (true story)  I'm not pressing six to speak to Mr. Cuddles.  And chances are, if I want to talk to your kids, I'm not calling them on the phone.  So unless you are a business, stop it.

Well that's enough rant for this eve before Christmas Eve...I await your angry retorts or your comments of praise.  Whichever you prefer!

Laundry List Friday: Strange things that make me mad!

Good morning!

So I've had a couple of posts rattling around in my head this week, and haven't had the time to put fingers to keyboard.  Actually, since I just got a cortisone shot in my left hand, I've been a little crippled in the typing department.  But now I'm back and ready to share with you another fun list of stuff.

This time around, I'm sharing with you the top five things that make me mad.  While that might not sound like a funny list, as I was thinking about it, it made me laugh...which I guess should be another list:  Things that make me laugh that probably shouldn't.  Anyway, I'm not a person who gets angry about too much, so the fact that I came up with five things is also sort of funny.  But here we go.

1)  A ringing phone.

My kids will tell you that every time the phone rang in out house, I would spend the first three rings yelling, "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"  before I picked up.  We solved part of that problem when we ditched the home phone and went to a cell phone only house. Now I just do it when my cell phone rings...or when my work phone rings...and since I'm a customer service rep, I'm sort of paid to answer the phone.  Which is why this is funny...I'm enraged roughly 8 times an hour.

2)  People who are supposed to be writing down what I say, but don't bother to pick up a pen until I'm done saying it.

Again, this ties in with the fact that I'm constantly giving out messages over the phone.  You know how it goes.  Someone calls and you have to give them an address or a phone number, and then you finish giving them all the info and THEN they say, "Oh wait, I need a pencil."  Yeah, that.  This happens to me roughly half the phone calls I get every day.  So lately I've been saying, "I will give you our mailing address.  GO GET A PEN AND A PIECE OF PAPER.  Then I wait.  And I wait.  Now the best one was a guy who made me wait several minutes, and then came back and said, "I couldn't find a pen.  Will a pencil do?" 

3) People who don't listen to everything I say before they start telling me I'm wrong.

My whole family and my boss would be guilty of this.  I know this happens to you guys, too.  The other night, Skippy, Hubby and I were discussing the recent closing of a local private school.  I mentioned that the school had two buildings, both the men in my house loudly informed me I was wrong, that they had one building and that the building I was thinking of had been a bank.  Yes, it was a bank, I said, then it was a school.

After several minutes of Hubby and Son informing me that I didn't know what I was talking about...we had to go to the grocery store...and drive by the building in question.  I pointed it out, "Is that the building?"  They both agreed it was.  Then I pointed out the name of the school on the side of the building. 

They both shut up. 

Somehow I'm not ever given any credit for having a brain.  Generally this doesn't bother me.  People who are funny are rarely credited with being intelligent.  But every once in a while, I wish the people around me would listen to all my words before they spout off.

4)  Getting my boss's personal mail.

My boss is either the most paranoid person on the planet, or he lives in a really bad neighborhood.  Since  I've been to his house, I can promise you, it's more likely the former.  He travels a lot and since he travels, he generally isn't home to get his mail.  So he asks me to get his mail.  Let's forget for a moment that his driveway is a 40 degree angle up and I can't drive up it most of the year, and focus on the fact that his house is on the opposite end of town from my house or from the office.  He tells me he can't get a neighbor kid to get his mail because he doesnt' trust his neighbors.  See, he truly believes everyone is out to steal his stuff.  We've now worked out a deal that if he expects me to pick up his mail, he's going to have to pay me to do it, and if it's icy or snowy, I'm taking his mail to the office. 

5)  People who park in handicapped spaces when they are clearly not handicapped.

I realize we are a society bent on evolving to a point where we have no legs.  But seriously, will it kill you to walk an extra seven feet so you don't park in the handicapped space? 

Just because the car has as sticker on it doesn't give you the right to park there.  The space is for a handicapped PERSON, not for a car that has a handicapped sticker.  The next time I see a perfectly healthy person pop out of a car parked in a handicapped space I'm going to lose my mind.

Better yet, I know the post office in Waukesha has lousy parking, but the other day there was a delivery van parked in a handicapped spaced, left RUNNING.  (That's two strikes...taking up a space and wasting fuel.)  I should have taken a picture of the van because I had time.,  The driver didn't come out for about five minutes.  Which completely destroys the "I'm just running in for a minute" argument.

People who park in handicapped spaces without being handicapped should be physically MADE to be handicapped.  Cut off a toe for the first offence, a foot for the second, until they legitimately need the spaces.

But that's just my opinion.

Got something odd that makes your blood boil?  Let me know!