Wednesday, August 13, 2008

MAJOR pet peeve: when I'm returning someone's call and the receptionist asks who I am and the nature of my call, and then the person I'm calling gets on the phone and they obviously haven't been told WHO I am or the nature of my call. Why the hell did the receptionist ask for that information??? SOOOOO annoying. Stop wasting my time, bitches. I'm too busy for your crap.


While I'm whingeing on about phone etiquette, I DETEST when someone calls my office and says "May I speak to Phlegm" and I say "speaking" and they say "how are you?" without even identifying themselves. I always say "I'm great!" and then don't axe them how they are and it's awkward and amuses me for a teeny second, because it is so ingrained in people that when axed "how ur durrin'" you automatically respond with "fine and how are you?" I don't want to play those reindeer games. Honey, if you're selling something, just cut to the chase so I can rebuff you quickly and we can all get on with our lives.

And what's with all the automated sales calls in recent times-- does that ever net sales for a company? I find it hard to believe this method of marketing is ever successful...

10 comments:

g bro said...

Thanks for doing the small things to teach those folks some manners. Re: your 3 examples - (i) hate 'em,
(ii) hate 'em, and, by the way, (iii) hate 'em.

J.R.Shirley said...

Yuppers. Or people who introduce themselves as Mr./Miss/Mrs. You don't refer to yourself in the honorific, unless it's a professional title, dummies!

Anonymous said...

You get calls asking for "Phlegm??"

Anonymous said...

Even though I have a distinctive voice I always identify myself by full name.

What I always loved was when my kids friends would call and ask "is xxxx there?". I'd answer yes and hang up.

Carteach said...

"How am I? Do you want the truth or are you just asking for no reason at all?"

Any answer at all leaves the door open for much snarkitude on my part. (Evil laugh goes here).

The automated callers..... when you answer the phone, if you don't hear a response for a few seconds.... just hang up. It takes their recognition systems a few moments to realize they got a real human rather than a machine.

I usually answer the phone with "Hello....(count to three)... Times UP!" (click).

none said...

Or when you call in somewhere and you enter in all your identification and account numbers then the human you speak to asks for it all again.

Christina RN LMT said...

I'm too German, I think. I was taught to always announce my identity on the phone, whether answering or making a call, and it took me a long time to adjust to, "Hello?" once I moved to the States.
My pet peeve is getting voicemails from people who ramble on without leaving their names...I don't automatically recognize everyone's voice, you know!

Mauser*Girl said...

Before I say anything else, let me first state that I despise talking to people on the phone. This has several reasons, but the top two are:

1) People calling me cost me minutes from my cell phone plan. Not that I don't have a lot of minutes, mind you.

2) You can't do anything else while you're talking on a cell phone. I can't wedge the phone between my ear and my shoulder and do chores. If I go to the bathroom, they can hear me. If I do stuff around the house, they can hear me. If I type on the computer, I don't remember what they're talking about....

I will admit that I am one of those people who answer the phone with HELLO? and expect the caller to identify themselves.

My biggest pet peeve is someone calling our home number (my cell phone) and asking for Trueman or I, but not telling me who they are. A lot of bank people, car warranty people, etc. tend to do this now. I tend to tell them to go screw themselves if they do not identify who they are and what the call is in reference to. I will also hang up on them if they ask me to identify myself but refuse to identify themselves.

Guess they don't need to speak to me urgently if they won't tell me who the heck they are or why they're calling ...

Barbara Bruederlin said...

What, are you telling me you never buy a time share when an automated message is left for you? Honey, you haven't lived!

Rorschach said...

Generally speaking when I "axe" someone, they aren't going to be doing much talking from there on out....

Sorry but it is a real hot button sore point with me. When someone speaking ebonics uses that term with me instead of the proper "asked" I just want to scream while I bash their stupid head in. It is so infuriating and distracting I stop listening to them. I cannot carry on a conversation with someone like that. Some years back, I was called to be on a jury panel and during voir dire the attorney for the defendant kept wanting to "AXE" us prospective jurors questions. I finally told him that until he learned to speak English properly there was no way I could respect him or his client and that he had better just strike me now. I mean for chrissake, he went to college for 6 freakin years to be a goddamed lawyer, the least he coulda done was learn to speak English. Must have been a TSU grad.