Slashdot Mirror
How To Make Friends on the Telephone
Dan writes "What a wonderful find--it seems since the internet, we've forgotten the correct way to communicate with people. So here is a book to teach us the proper etiquette, as well as how to handle complex modern communications devices."
prank calls are pretty much all I use a phone for nowdays. Anything important gets logged via email or some propritary messaging service the company gives out so theres no claiming you never saw/heard it or any ambigutiy in the wording. The only real use phones have is long distance talking to significant others where you want to try to get some personal touch in via voice but nowdays a webcam and voice over ip is the way to go. I don't even have long distance phone service at my house, for the few long distance calls I do make long distance I just use one of the 10-10+code series of deals.
What makes you think this isn't exactly what's going on? Story placement is a *big* part of any PR department's job...
I learned my phone skills in the military. But telemarketers who ignore the do-not-call list have forced me into a corner. Now, I simply hang up on them rather than waste more than 10 seconds on trying to be polite. I feel for the person on the other end who is often just some low wage person trying to make a living, but that's not my problem.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Sometimes technology can cause people to forget the obvious ways of doing things.
She was probably trying to avoid pissing you off. Over the years, I've rarely gotten someone upset by calling them or sending them a message, but I've had many who stopped talking to me or chewed me up on the spot because I knocked on their door (yes, even when there was an emergency). Your friend had probably thought of the idea but dismissed it because she's had similar experiences.
It's sad but most likely, your friend wasn't as much the problem as our collective attitudes tending towards anti-socialism.
-hadohk
The article is slashdotted and I don't see a pointer to a mirror, but based on other people's comments, it sounds like it is a rehash of '50s rules and ettiquette and if it isn't how does it respond to questions like:
1. If you have call display, is it polite to answer the phone with the caller's name? I couple of years ago, this freaked people out, now it's very common. Older people tend to think of this as an invasion of privacy; but these same people consider it acceptable to have a peephole on their door and only open it to people they know.
2. What about call answer? Should you take the incoming call and how long should you be on it before returning to the original call? What happens if you consider the second call to be more important than the first?
3. Is call screening using an answering machine polite?
4. I give telemarketers one chance to hang up before I slam the receiver down on them. Is this polite or should I listen to their pitch? Can I blow a Fox-40 whistle into the receiver?
5. What are cell phone rules? Is it acceptable to have a social call while in line at the supermarket? What about a heated business call?
I suspect that a lot of these answers are based on how old you are and what your workplace experience is.
Enquiring minds want to know!
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter