all right, that's enough *click*

[calimac]

The canned recording phone calls are bad enough - "This is Jerry Brown, and I'm calling to invite you to a rally in Oakland ..." *click* I'm not going to no Oakland for no rally - "This is Martin Sheen, and this is really important ..." *click* No it isn't, whatever it is - but worse still are the live calls from get-out-the-vote people who think the best approach is to be folksy. "Hello, David?" says an unfamiliar voice in an unusually jovial manner against a background of office noise. Uh, yes? "This is Jack." I'm running through my mind thinking of guys I know named Jack - few, and none who'd phone me that informally - and what is going on here? I'm sorry, Jack who? And he starts babbling a sentence about get-out-the-vote and now I know what's going on, but I decide to keep on this path. Who is this? Do I know you? And he keeps saying he's Jack as if he's a friend of mine and tries to get back to his pitch, but I keep interrupting to ask his identity, and when he finally says, "No, you don't know me, but ..." I snap, Then don't address me like a close personal friend. That is extremely rude, and I do not wish to converse with strangers who speak in that manner. *click* I expect strangers who call me on business to address me by my last name, and to identify themselves immediately on calling, and just about all of those who call me on real business do, and the few exceptions are always responsive to a Who's calling, please? which is also what I say to strangers who ask for B. without identifying themselves first. As for me, when I phone anyone, even friends, whom I don't speak to regularly on the phone - and there's only about three people I do speak regularly to on the phone - I've discovered that the best way to avoid confusion is to speak like the canned recordings and begin by announcing my full name, especially as they may know other Davids, and if they're like me, they may not place my voice immediately. If they ever said, "David who?" - and they never have - I'd have failed. So why can't phone solicitors learn to talk on the phone well enough to even get to their pitch?

Comments

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

David, It's Jack Lewis calling from the grave?
At least he didn't call you Dave. XD
Big Harold gives the 998 number to the registrar of voters. It's a real number, it belongs to us, it is hooked to the fax machine and a message machine. We just erase all commercial and political messages, which are most of what goes onto that line.
And I've never given the cell phone number to those kinds of places. That must be really annoying to get political messages on a cell phone. Using Your Minutes to annoy you. Adding Insult to Injury.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

If they're taking the name from a formal document, they'll use the formal version. Who's to tell if a strange Elizabeth is Liz or Beth, or neither, to take just one obvious case? (Could even be Lisa. Lisa Goldstein is actually an Elizabeth, did you know that?)

People who are known by their middle names at least have a filter for strangers who take legal documents as their source for personal intimacy. Anybody ever called Sprague de Camp "Lyon", he'd know instantly they didn't know him.

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

You would be surprised the number of people who want to sound like they are chummy with Harold have called him Harry. :P We just hang up on them.
And I had to stomp down hard on someone who insisted on calling Kirshner "Irv" to make himself sound like he was in the In Crowd. Even the Star Wars Fan Club Newsletter announced that Kirsh hated his first name and only used Kirsh and Kirshner. This wasn't some big In Crowd secret. I didn't know his first name until I read it in a credit, and he's a long time family friend.
And some people try to make me a "Liz". I have never been a Liz or Liza. I spell my name with an "S". ;)
*sigh* The Naming of Names.

[scribblerworks.livejournal.com]

And then there was the person who wanted to sound like he knew JMS by speaking of him as "Michael" - because of course the credits read "J. Michael Straczynski". But anyone who has sat in the room and listened to JMS talk knows he almost always begins by saying "Call me Joe". (Oh, gee. "Joe reads the boards" - that takes me back to the days of GEnie!)

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

"Harry? There's nobody here by that name, sorry," click. That's how I'd do it, as an excuse to get away.

I could picture Harold as a Harry, if that were indeed his name, but I can't picture you as a Liz at all.