The Phone MI-5

Questions provided by me! We got a new phone system at my office this week. This MI-5 is inspired by that event.

1) When you answer the phone, do you say anything special?

When I’m at the office, I say “Good (Morning/Afternoon/Evening), this is Bill.” For some strange reason, people occasionally think I say my name is “Doug.” I’m not sure how they get it, but when people mis-hear my name, 70% of the time, they think I say Doug, and 30% of the time they think I say Phil (which is understandable). At home, I just say “Hello.”

2) Other than “Bye” or “Bye-Bye,” do you say anything else when you end a conversation? Do you ever use any other closing?

If I know the person I’m speaking to well, I might say something like “Rock on” or “Later.” I sometimes catch myself telling customers “See you later,” when in fact I probably won’t see them later. Just this week I said “See you later” to someone I’ve never even met!

3) How about your cell phone… Do you use a lot of minutes, or do you hoard them? Love your cell, or just a necessity/tool?

I use a tracfone, and I don’t use many minutes. It’s a tool for me. I need to have it for when I need it. Other than those times, I don’t care about it. I know someone who is always on her cell phone. She’ll be at her desk–which includes a very nice phone–and she’ll use her cell to make outgoing calls. I’d say 90% of the time when I see her around town in the car, she’s on the cell. I don’t like talking on the phone that much.

4) Is your answering machine message funny? Cute? Straight ahead, all business?

Susan records our answering machine message. Though I liked funny messages when I was younger, I like straight ahead now. I do like it when someone leaves at least one name in their machine. When the voice says “You’ve reached 555-1212,” and doesn’t say “the home of Bill,” or “the home of the Battys” or whatever, you don’t know if you’ve reached the right number. Even worse is the answer that leaves you no identifiable info. “Please leave a message.” Then, I need to hang up and redial to make sure I didn’t mis-dial the first time around. Privacy is one thing, but we’re not CIA operatives, for Pete’s sake.

5) What phone habit do you find annoying? People who return calls based on their caller ID? (“Someone from there called me.”) People who talk on their cell in the car? People without answering machines? What?

Well, I told you one thing in #4. I also have a pet peave of people who return calls from caller ID. We’ve got seven lines in this office, and about 15 employees. Some random person calls up and states “Someone from this number called me!’ OK. Now what? You want me to produce that person out of mid air? Wanna give me a little something more to work with, like your name? Let’s try this: If we need to speak to you, and didn’t leave a message, it either wasn’t important, it was a wrong number, or we’ll call you back. OK? Fine.