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

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I tend to leave out X's name in those circumstances. I used to include it, but too often I guessed wrong from the sound of a mere "Hello?" whose voice among the members of the household it was. This led to complications when the person I wanted to speak to was the one who actually answered the phone and not the one I thought I was speaking to, so the person who answered the phone (whom I wanted to speak to) would automatically put the phone down and go get the other person (whom I did not need to speak to).

Then there was the mortifying occasion when I called a woman I knew and thought I'd reached her teenaged son, but instead was hearing the soft and boyish voice of her husband, and when I said, "Could you get your mother, please?" ... oh dear ...