Why I’m Becoming a Hermit, Pts 1 & 2
Posted on | September 30, 2005 at 11:01 pm | 6 Comments
When did it suddenly become okay to be rude? Case in point: wrong numbers. If I call someone and I don’t recognize the voice on the other end, I always say “May I speak to [so-and-so] please?” Sometimes I start out that way even if I’m mostly sure the person who answered the phone is the one I’m trying to contact. It’s just good etiquette, and allows me to save face if I’ve dialed the wrong number (which is increasingly hard to do in these speed dial days anyway). I thought everyone was taught this, or realized the common sense of it.
Yet lately every time someone has dialed my phone as a wrong number and I answer “Hello”, they always reply “Who is this?” Like I’m really going to give out my name to someone who has obviously dialed (punched?) my number in error. Even then, I try to be polite by saying something like “Who are you trying to reach?” or “Who do you wish to speak to?”, which sometimes actually makes them belligerent. Though by then they are starting to get the idea that they’ve messed up. Yet rarely do they even apologize. I swear, next time this happens and the caller is a man, I’m going to say “I’m the mailman. Do you want to talk to your wife?” If it’s a woman, I’m going to say “Baby, I’m the guy you’ve been looking for all your life”.
I’m trying to think of some way to blame this rudeness trend on the Neo-Cons.
It’s also rude to reveal the plot twist of a movie to people who haven’t seen it. Don’t worry, I’m not going to do that. Which is more than I can say for the newscaster on the local news this morning. Remember how I mentioned the movie Flightplan a couple of weeks ago? That movie, which I have not seen, obviously has some plot twists in it. It also has been undergoing some criticism from flight attendants because of the portrayal of some flight attendants in the movie. I’m not going to link to any articles about this flap, because some of them contain spoilers. But at least the print articles sometimes say “spoiler warning”. No such luck on the newscast this morning – the newscaster blurted out the spoiler before I had a chance to cover my ears or anything. Oh well, I guess that’s one movie I don’t need to worry about seeing.
People suck! Latre.
Comments
6 Responses to “Why I’m Becoming a Hermit, Pts 1 & 2”
October 1st, 2005 @ 4:56 pm
I assume you meant “may I speak to so-and-so please?” or something like that. Anyway: what irks me are the people who call you out of the blue and say, “you called me.” Uh…no, I didn’t. “This number was on my caller ID.” And then they actually don’t believe you when you say, nope, sorry – you probably misdialed, or some freak nanognome screwed up the circuitry. This is annoying enough at home – but at work, it’s like, no, sorry, if no one left an actual message, I am not going to poll the entire company to find out if anyone called you – especially if you won’t tell me who the hell you are calling me and claiming I called you. Hrmmph. Again, these folks actually get belligerant when you deny having called them. “Okay, you’re right: I did call you, but now I’m denying it because it’s part of an elaborate plot to totally gaslight you. We’ve also installed a monitor in your bedroom so that, the moment a laser detects that you’ve just fallen asleep, the phone will ring until you get up – and then it’ll stop. We’ll program your caller ID to list a non-working number. Oh – and we’ll remotely unplug your fridge for about four hours while you’re at work, then turn it back on a couple hours before you get home, so you won’t suspect a thing – until a while after you’ve eaten a sandwich with mayo you suddenly are all BLURRRGGHHHH…”
October 1st, 2005 @ 5:57 pm
The nice thing about caller ID is that I needn’t pick up the phone if I don’t recognize the name/number. 99% of the time, when I ignore the ring, the caller doesn’t leave a message, proving how right I was not to answer.
October 1st, 2005 @ 6:15 pm
Weird, the “so-and-so” was in there, but got interpreted as a tag, since I had it surrounded by angle brackets. I’ve fixed it.
2fs, I’ve never had that “you called me” thing happen to me, that I can recall. That’s weird. Why are you a target for that? However, a couple of weeks ago someone called me as a wrong number and tried to convince me they had dialed the right number (which was obviously his home number). I kept saying “I’ve had this number for 15 years” and he was like “No, that’s MY number”. He kept telling me the number he dialed, and it was my number. We kept arguing about it until I finally figured out I was hearing him say a “0″ (”oh”) as “8″, and that was the digit he had misdialed. Sheesh. Really surreal. I think he thought I was some unknown person camping out at his house or something. At least he did finally apologize.
Sue, I oftentimes have to answer numbers/names I don’t recognize on the caller ID because it could be a work emergency. I especially get a lot of cell phone calls from people at work that doesn’t show their names – it will just say “wireless caller” or “denver, co”. I suppose I don’t have to answer cuz they can just leave a message or call my cell phone. Usually if there’s a name and I don’t recognize it, I don’t answer and they don’t leave a message. I think like 90% of those are charities in these days of the no-call list. Don’t get a lot of telemarketers any more, luckily.
October 2nd, 2005 @ 10:50 am
i get that all the time…i usually say..”who dat who say who dat.”….? then they hang up….i get this automated call about 3 times a month for some financial group ..usually on my machine when i get home..but sometimes i pick up and its such a good recording i start to tell him to fuck off when i realize its that “SCOTT” guy again….i went os far as to call the number he left and its ANOTHER recording!! Arggg….
at work at my old job when we got weird calls or anything when they started to argue I would hand the phone to a coworker ,who delighted in speaking hindi to the person on the other end….until they hung up in frustration…..;)
October 2nd, 2005 @ 9:52 pm
Did he look like Robert Blake with his hair slicked back and white makeup on? “As a matter of fact, I’m there right now…”
October 2nd, 2005 @ 10:20 pm
Well, since I didn’t have a video phone, I couldn’t really tell what he looked like. I did find this mysterious videotape of my house the next day though…