I have told been told that blowing a whistle over into your telephone’ s handset is an effective way of dealing with the unidentified, crank caller that phones you at odd hours and says nothing or just breathes heavily in a sick fashion that only such psychos are capable of. I always wish that I could have my whistle close by so that I deal effectively with another type of caller that is often overlooked but is equally irritating.
I am talking about the bully that calls you with (usually with a hidden caller I.D) and wants to know who he is speaking to. A polite reminder that the caller should be the one stating who he is and who he wants to talk to, often leads to a shockingly rude, arrogant and bossy attitude from such callers. I have had to waste many minutes of my precious time, lecturing these buffoons on the basics of telephone etiquette. Instead of being grateful and turning over a new leaf, my small attempts at civilising them seem to conjure up more aggression. It is then that I wish that my whistle was nearby.
Just who are these individuals who would make Alexander Graham Bell weep at the abuse of his invention if he was still alive today? I am not quite certain but my guess is that they fall into the following sub categories:
*The nincompoop who does not take time to check the digits that he is calling and dials the wrong number. When he hears an unfamiliar voice, he thinks that someone somewhere is playing a trick on him.
*Another brand of communication misfit is the one that scribbles numbers on scraps of paper without accompanying names or dials numbers on his cell phone and forgets to save them in the phone book. When he needs to call someone, he has to do trial and error dialling of all these nameless numbers, but unfortunately forgets his manners in some public toilet.
*Then there are the jealous lovers/spouses, etc who when they stumble on an unknown number on their partner’s phone feel the urge to investigate. This type seems to lack even basic, below average reasoning capacity. This is evident because they do not realise that if indeed the call receiver is their partner’s undercover lover, their aggressive interrogation is going to ring the alarm bells and they will not get any information.
*The fourth category is filled by the ill bred, rough edged punks who have never lived around normal people before. Communicating in the normal way that people do is therefore not part of their animalistic nature. Jungle lingo is the only lingo they know.
Whatever the reasons, I am fed up and really need to make sure that I have whistles strategically kept within easy access. I declare war on these callers and refuse to subject my ears or my phone for that matter, to such uncalled for abuse!
What I find most annoying is the callers who start off by saying "How are you?" and then wait for a response.
ReplyDeleteMy response is usually "Who wants to know?"
It seems one needs to be psychic to answer a call these days!
ReplyDelete"I have had to waste many minutes of my precious time, lecturing these buffoons on the basics of telephone etiquette."
ReplyDeleteYou didn't have to do anything, it's entirely your choice to act like a pompous douchebag in that situation.
"Instead of being grateful and turning over a new leaf, my small attempts at civilising them seem to conjure up more aggression."
Only a truely idiotic twit would expect gratitude for what they themselves call a "lecture" - which probably means a long tirade from someone acting holier than thou and so on.
Also by stating that you think your "civilising" people and then also stating that your surprised by a lack of gratitude and even more surprised that people are annoyed by this you come across as a someone who really lacks interpersonal skills.
Most people who are socially adequate and hence pay more attention to others rather than obsessing about how they come across to people - which is evident from your post - would just state their wishes regarding phone manner in one sentence and let it go.
I don't mean to be insulting however I think you need to consider radically altering how you deal with people or else you'll continue to become annoyed and impotently angry with others whilst other people will consider you pompous, self-absorbed and generally not wish to know you. Don't expect them to inform you of this though.
Stab in the dark: you don't have a large social circle right?
Anonymous either you do not understand the humorous side of this piece or you are one of my crank callers. Anyway hope you feel better after your rant, but the whistle will still blow come what may!
ReplyDeleteHey Mthoko, the anonymous comment was clearly made by someone who doesn't have a sense of humor. Perhaps they should be reading some stodgy blog on social ettiquette! Poking fun at the assine behaviour of others is, well, just good fun! Enjoy your week.
ReplyDelete@Ranter's Box, the strange thing is that Anonymous browses this much despised blog several times a day according to my info. Possibly there is nothing much going on for him or her out there at Southend-on-Sea, hence the frustration related outbursts. Have yourself a marvellous week too.
ReplyDeleteThat whistle in the ear thing works. I started doing it, and the annoying people stopped calling me!
ReplyDelete@Edward, thanks for the affirmation, it is good to know that there is an effective weapon to deal with these nut cases!
ReplyDelete