If You Can’t Talk, Don’t Answer Your Phone! A Writer Rants
Sigh. When will the world begin to behave the way I want it to?
I just returned a call and the person answered their phone… obviously a cell phone. I could tell from their voice that they were feeling stressed and I asked if this was a good time to talk.
“No,” she whispered. “I’m at the library and I’m not supposed to have my phone turned on, let alone use it.”
Double sigh… I wanted to shout “If you can’t talk why the ***** did you even answer the phone?”
Honestly, which is worse, being forced to listen to one side of a phone conversation in a store, park or at the beach, or having someone who answers the phone tell you they can’t talk? I don’t get it. I simply don’t get it.
Cell phones have off switches and I know even ringing phones can be ignored… or turned off mid-ring.
I’ve come to hate cell phones and be even more determined not to get one. Just because I can be wired all the time doesn’t mean I need to be, want to be or should be.
I finally bought an mp3 player for the gym… guess what? I don’t like it! I don’t need to hear music or the radio to distract me from my work out. When I’m walking around the neighborhood, I want to be able to hear the birds, a car coming up behind me or, for heaven’s sake, a neighbor’s hello.
Double sigh… and to think I used to be an early adopter of technology.
Rant over.
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16 opinions for If You Can’t Talk, Don’t Answer Your Phone! A Writer Rants
Bridget Wright
May 19, 2008 at 4:27 pm
I feel you on that one, Anne. What’s even worse now is the ear bud piece that fits directly into the caller’s ear. They’re talking, hands free, and it looks as if they (might) be talking to you. Only thing is when you say “excuse me?”, they nod their head in a no fashion, saying not you but the person on the other end of the earpiece…whatever. STOP!!!!
Anne Wayman
May 19, 2008 at 5:10 pm
lol, remember when people mumbling to themselves on the street were considered mad?
Lori
May 19, 2008 at 7:04 pm
You know, before those wireless earpieces, you used to be able to spot a crazy person talking to himself….
I feel exactly the same way, Anne. Being around a ton of teenagers over the last few years, I’m amazed at how tense they become if they can’t reach you NOW. I actually said to one of the inhabitants here that perhaps I didn’t want to be reached. He couldn’t comprehend that.
I’m the same way with my phone at home. Just because it rings doesn’t mean I have to answer it. It’s there for my convenience, not for the caller’s convenience. I’ll answer it when I want to, and not during dinner.
Meryl K. Evans
May 19, 2008 at 8:45 pm
I guess that’s one benefit of being deaf … you’re not tied to a phone. I use a cell phone for texting, but I don’t think text messages have the urgency of a phone call.
I think many of us (My mother!) forget that the phones are for our convenience not the world’s. It’s OK to let it go if the time isn’t good…
If the phone rings when my hubby and I are getting the kids ready for bed, the kids would let us know and ask if we want them to get it. I tell them that we’re busy spending time together — so this isn’t the time to answer the phone.
Sure, it can be awful not to be able to answer. Just last week, my mother-in-law called the home phone. Moments later, she called my husband’s cell (they he left while running an errand). That was unusual of her… and I stood there helpless. Sure enough, my father-in-law was in the hospital. Everything is OK now.
Adlina
May 20, 2008 at 12:17 am
Oh, dear. I’ve been a lurker all this time, and I simply couldn’t resist clicking ‘comment’ this time around.
It’s true that it isn’t nice to answer the phone just to tell the caller that you’re busy or that you can’t talk at the moment. I wonder if that person doesn’t know the existence of voicemail. Surely it doesn’t take much to afford one :)
I’m a university student, and I always put my phone on silent mode in lecture theaters. But some of my coursemates do exactly as you’ve written above. Sometimes, even when their phones are on silent or vibration, you’d hear someone picking up the phone just to say “I’m in a lecture! Call me back/I’ll call you back later!”
Cheers~
WAHMBrenda
May 20, 2008 at 6:32 am
I agree with the cell phone thing. I tend to shut mine off when I don’t want to deal with someone at that moment. I refuse to allow myself to be tied to it.
John Hewitt
May 20, 2008 at 8:08 am
I turn the phone off mid-ring all the time. It works on everyone but my Dad, who will call every phone he thinks I even might be at, just to get in touch with me — no matter how mundane the request. He’ll leave a message on every one too. Never underestimate how much spare time a senior citizen has to throw around.
Nancy Nally
May 20, 2008 at 8:12 am
There is an older generation who don’t take phone technology as for granted as us younger folk do and they grew up with this mindset that every phone call must be important. It’s a hard thing for some of them to shake that EVERY phone call must be answered. My mom - in her early 60’s - simply cannot wrap her brain around the fact that at times I would just choose not to answer my phone! She is so desperately afraid of missing calls that she pays for call waiting and then gets annoyed when it interrupts her on the phone! She pays for a special service that annoys her because she doesn’t want to miss a call…whereas younger people will actually just ignore a ringing phone, turn a ringer off, or turn our cell phone off. It’s a whole different mindset towards phone communications.
Nancy Nally
May 20, 2008 at 8:15 am
Meryl, sorry to hear about your FIL and glad that he’s OK now.
On the flip side, calling the cell phone if she can’t get me at home is what my mother does EVERY time because she can’t imagine me just not answering the phone so she figures I am not at home. In fact, recently, when I didn’t answer either one of them because I didn’t hear them ringing even though I was at home, she DROVE over to my house (she lives in the same neighborhood) because she was convinced I was lying dead on the floor!
Anne Wayman
May 20, 2008 at 8:22 am
pardon me all for giggling a bit… first of all, I’m of a certain age too and I know darn well I pay for the phone, the world does not pay me to be reachable… so it’s not just a age thing.
John, maybe if your dad joined the Y or something? You’ve probably thought of that, but I’m amazed at how many activities my Y has for folks my age and older… I don’t make much use of them, but I see them there when I go work out.
Meryl, I once spent a couple of weeks at what was then called the Riverside School for the Deaf - there’s probably a more pc name now if it’s even still there… but I was fascinated at door bells that blinked lights without sound… it was the very first time I’d ever considered what it would be like to be without hearing.
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Tei - Rogue Ink
May 20, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Oh, YES. My mother does this, and it drives me MAD. Although I will say that if you’re in a place like a library or a bookstore and you answer your cell phone and immediately say something like,
“Hey, I’m in a library, give me just a minute to go outside so I don’t bother anyone.”
And then put the phone away from your ear and walk briskly outside, everyone in that library will look at you as though you are a tiny god. In a land of discourtesy, the little bits of courtesy are appreciated IMMENSELY.
Kathleen L
May 20, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Anne – Yes… Rude to be the person beside the cell phone answerer in the library.
I love the off button. My kids hate it. They think I should be at their beck and call 24/7. They don’t like it when I don’t take my cell phone with me. Maybe they think I will evaporate never to come back and make dinner for them. They think I should be at their beck and call 24/7. They don’t like it when I don’t take my cell phone with me, either. (Because you know they still, at ages, 17, 15, and 12 wait for me to make dinner for them.)
Lori… thanks for the reality check and laugh. I know people are second guessing my sister’s sanity… even more with that thing sticking out of her ear as she talks to either our father or me or her husband as she drives to and from work each day.
Meryl’s right… As my hearing fades and I get tired of folks expecting me to be at their beck and call… I know I will miss hearing things… but, as you put it, it may well allow me the opportunity to remember and maybe teach my children to cherish the moments not interrupted by a phone call, thus reiterating my family’s importance to me. My kids don’t know how to let the answering machine get it. They don’t get the concept that — after all… if I didn’t want others to leave messages… I would not have purchased an answering machine.
I’m all for leaving a message, not answering the phone, letting it go to voicemail… even if I am somewhere I ‘can’ answer it.
Nancy Nally
May 20, 2008 at 5:56 pm
glad you got a giggle Anne…let’s just say that some older people have moved with the times more than others. ;)
This discussion is the perfect example of the fact that we have to make technology work for us instead of us becoming prisoner to it!
Lori F.
May 26, 2008 at 3:10 pm
My mother gets really mad if I call her when she is napping. Since I’m not pyschic nor do I have a crystal ball, how was I supposed to know she was sleeping. I don’t get why she answers the phone then if she is napping. I am a nap lover so I definitely do not answer the phone when I am trying to nap. Does it wake me up anyway? Yes. But I usually can go back to sleep when it stops ringing (’cept the other day when my home phone rang 5 times and my cell 3 times in an hour). Anyway, my point is, if I don’t want to be bothered - I don’t answer and simply return calls later.
Sharon
Jun 16, 2008 at 9:37 am
Teenagers are just as bad as their parents when it comes to “burning up the phone”. My daughter (she is 20) calls me persistantly until she gets in touch with me. I only answer my cell phone when it’s convenient for me. I go to the gym everyday at the same time and refuse to carry inside my phone. When I return to my car I will have 5 missed calls and they are all from my daughter. Mom’s have to have a life too.
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