@katbyter This really is the difference maker for me. If I am with someone, there is a 90% chance I am going to ignore it . If I am by myself, it flips the other way and probably a 90% chance I will answer it.
There probably is a concise answer choice out there somewhere which succinctly summarizes the various variations on the options here in one pithy statement, but damned if I know what that is.
Put it on speakerphone and then proceed to engage in a discussion about the current president and my thoughts on recent policy decisions in a louder than normal voice. Oh wait, that was what this other guy did at Starbucks today.
@ahacksaw What I love is seeing people put their phone on speakerphone and hold it up near to their face, but not against it. That way everyone can enjoy both sides of the conversation. I also laugh when I see people doing this in a car, like that’s any safer than holding it to your face.
@hchavers Do you know Sarah from Card Services? She said time is running out to do something about your credit card debt. You should probably take her call.
@hchavers No, I just get calls from “Internal Revenue Department” telling me they have frozen my social security number. Cool. That’s like tax-exempt, right?
@hchavers@mike808 Sarah calls me at least twice a day, although she’s not a very good conversationalist, and never responds to the offer to meet for coffee. Sometimes she’s calling from right in town, other times from Indiana or Arizona or Texas. The woman gets around.
@hchavers, I’ve been getting a lot of calls from my “computer maintenance company.” I played a long with them one time until they asked me to go to a website and download a program.
@kittykat9180 I get similar calls from Microsoft saying that I have logged some errors in my event viewer and my netstat shows some foreign addresses are trying to get into my computer. They can fix the problem and I need to buy some google play cards to pay them.
Oh, I have recently been getting calls from “the employment department” about my job application. Though I haven’t applied for a new job in about 3 years. Maybe next time I’ll play along. I’m curious their scam. And these calls are all people with American accents, which is unusual for a scam caller.
It depends on the specific coffee shop/bar/restaurant, whether I’m alone or with others and who is calling.
I’m much more likely to answer if I’m at a Starbucks, Wendy’s or similar place where no one will give a fuck. Noisy places, I’m more likely to answer. Quiet places, less likely (has to do with not wanting to disturb others).
If a daughter unit or the girlfriend unit calls, I’m more likely to answer. (If it is the gf calling, odds are at least 50:50 that there will be repeated calls until I call her back and remind her to lock her fucking phone before putting it in her pocket(book). If the ex-wife calls, I’ll likely answer, since calls from her are very rare and usually important. Calls from some people at work get answered right away (because they wouldn’t call unless something major is down).
I’m less likely to answer if I’m in a group and much less likely if I’m with exactly one other person; the main exception is when I’m with the girlfriend and a daughter or the ex-wife calls, since the girlfriend will insist on knowing why they called and I’ll get nagged until I call or text to satisfy the girlfriend’s curiosity. (Note that the ex-wife and the (current) girlfriend get along well.)
Merely using a cellphone does not necessarily disturb anyone (who isn’t an entitled asshole that believes all cell phone use should be banned regardless of reason and those people are best dealt with by putting them out of their misery, at least figuratively, since it is usually frowned upon to do so literally). Using a cell phone in an obnoxious and annoying manner is a different story, usually caused by people being clueless fucking idiots (not aware of others) or fucking assholes (aware but not caring about others).
@chienfou Exactly the reason for my Apple Watch. My phone ringer is always off and the watch provides a nice quiet notification that I can also ignore.
@chienfou@cinoclav I too, got an Apple watch so I have one more way to ignore people trying to contact me. I wonder how many more devices I can purchase in order to really ignore people.
@canuk@chienfou@Limewater Not really a big deal. The charger sits on my nightstand next to my phone charger. It charges quickly and will last for at least two days even when I’m really active. Put it on at 6 am this morning and it’s still 86% charged right now.
@cinoclav@hchavers …or mehbe one of those fancy Martian watches they sell/sold here. (Like the one I am wearing at work tonight) Of course since my phone is at home 5 miles away, it’s just a nice timepiece for the moment.
@mike808 I feel the same way; unfortunately, the younger ones think that leaving a message is redundant since the missed call shows up without having to leave a voicemail, which I kind of understand too.
@Gypsigirl213 Did you hear about the new missed call scam? The caller hangs up right away before you have a chance to answer. They might do it a couple times in a row. They never leave a message.
You get curious so you call back. Then you get billed for the call on your wireless bill because that number you called is one of those 976 or 1-900 type numbers. Apparently there are others you can call that are billed and it relies on us not knowing what the specific NXX numbers are – like the 540 exchange.
@cengland0@Gypsigirl213 i have never once called a number back out of curiosity. who does that? if i get more than one missed call from the same number with no voicemail, i google it.
@cengland0@jerk_nugget I have called local numbers that I don’t recognize back, but never out of state or 1-800 or 1-900 (though I’ve never seen this). If a unknown or unrecognizable number calls me several times without leaving a message, I block the number.
Here’s something, I’ve gotten two call-backs from people who said they had a missed call from my phone number, but I hadn’t called anyone. How does this happen? Can robo-dialers spoof real numbers? How can I fight back against this?
unfortunately, the younger ones think that leaving a message is redundant since the missed call shows up without having to leave a voicemail,
I have no sympathy for the younger ones that get their fee fees hurt when I don’t call them back when they fail to convey to me the importance of my doing so, nor the consequences of my failing to do so. I am not a mind reader. The burden to communicate is on them — they called me.
@cengland0@Gypsigirl213@jerk_nugget Unfortunately, YES, they can do that. I called back a number one time that I thought was a return call I had initiated only to find out that it was being spoofed and they had received dozens of calls from folks.
@mike808 I try to see things from all sides and while I may feel one way about it, I can still understand another point of view. It’s not sympathy, it’s empathy.
Just because I know them doesn’t mean I want to talk to them.
I’ll ignore and text that I’ll call back unless they are important, then I’ll step outside and answer.
Pretty much everyone who’s likely to call me knows I’m kind of neurotic in my hatred of talking on the phone, and won’t be offended if I let it go to voicemail.
I’m borderline hard-of-hearing anyway, so ignore the call, tell them I’m in a “meeting” and can’t talk, but can text. Ask what they want. Call back later…maybe
I reject the premise.
My phone will be left in my car, with one exception; if I’m meeting someone I’ll bring my phone in case that person is going to be late or has trouble finding me/the place, etc., and in my experience that person (or me, if the roles are reversed) always texts rather than calls.
@DennisG2014 I would rather keep the phone with me and keep it on silent mode. Always nice to have a way to contact 911 in case of an emergency. If your phone is locked in the car, and you lost your keys, you’d be SOL. Just an example
@cengland0@DennisG2014 I agree. Often the only thing I have with me is my phone and my keys. In my car it’s impossible to lock my keys inside the car, but it’s totally possible to lock them in the trunk.
@cengland0@Fuzzalini I realize it’s just an example, but since I have keyless entry (the kind where, as long as the fob is in proximity to the car, the doors unlock with a touch of the handle and the ignition is a push button - literally there is no key), leaving the key fob in the car is pretty much the same as leaving it unlocked. The key fob never leaves my pocket, anyway.
If I were going to be somewhere isolated, like on a walk through the woods, e.g., I would take the phone in case of emergency, but that’s not the premise.
In a coffee shop/bar/restaurant, where I’d be surrounded by other patrons and employees (99% of whom would be spending most of their time staring at their phones), there’s no reason for me to have my personal phone in case of an emergency.
I also survived the first 30 - 35 years of my life without 24/7 access to a phone and I reject the notion that, since their proliferation, I suddenly need that 24/7 access or something terrible may befall me.
People who have to have their phone on and with them at all times might rationalize it by saying “in case of an emergency”, but when they are obsessively/compulsively checking it every minute or two, I suspect they’re not being vigilant for signs of an emergency.
You do what makes you comfortable, NBD. But if we’re friends, family or romantic partners getting coffee/drinks/dinner and you’re paying more attention to your phone than me, I’m going to have a problem with that (and have, on far too many occasions).
People who can’t get through a 2 hour movie or 3 hour concert/theater performance/whatever without constant access to their phone have a serious problem.
If I, as a nicotine addict of 35 years, can get through those situations without a fix, you sure as hell should be able to as well… unless we find out that cellphone addiction is more powerful than cigarette addiction - something that wouldn’t really surprise me much, at least for some individuals.
Sorry this turned into a bit of a rant, but phone junkies are (obviously) a pet-peeve of mine.
@DennisG2014 You must be one of the lucky people to never have experienced a real emergency. Imagine someone breaking into your car, a shooting in the coffee shop and you running to hide in the bathroom, you get a heart attack, the list goes on and on.
I didn’t have my first cell phone until the mid 90’s even though I sold them in the 80’s. They were too expensive for regular people and the service fees were too high. But now that I do have one, it goes with me everywhere. Why not? That’s the whole idea of having a wireless phone. Otherwise, just stick to a POTS line.
Today, people are using wireless phones as their primary phone and don’t even have a POTS line anymore.
I say leaving your phone in your car is a little reckless. You lose out on the ability to use your own equipment during an emergency, you’re risking the chance of someone breaking into your car to get your phone, and you might actually be doing damage to the battery with the high temperatures of the vehicle in direct sunlight.
If you don’t want to look at your phone while you’re in a coffee shop, you can do that and still have your phone with you. Turn off the ringer and enjoy your drink. Simple. If you don’t have self control and think you’ll be looking at the phone anyway, then that’s another issue.
@cengland0 Like I said, you do what makes you comfortable, it’s no big deal (as long as you’re not using it during a movie, play, symphony performance, etc.).
I’m comfortable not having a phone on me at all times.
I try not to imagine a shooting in the coffee shop or any other catastrophic “what-ifs”. If I did, I’d never leave the house, never mind the phone.
I had my car broken into once, probably around 1990. They stole the factory stereo. A cell phone wouldn’t have helped at all.
I don’t leave anything of value out in the open in my parked car, including my phone.
No one would want to steal it anyway - one small detail I left out - it’s a ~15 year old flip-phone.
I did recently buy an old iPhone SE (long(er) story why) but I haven’t even bothered to get service for it, yet.
Just not interested.
if somebody calls me and it’s not my partner, i send that shit straight to voicemail even if i’m sitting on the couch at home alone doing nothing. text me and tell me what you want if it’s important.
How hard is it to make small talk for 2 minutes to find out what it is and then tell them you’re busy? Even if you don’t enjoy it, it’s called being polite. We are Rome and we are in the process of falling.
But it really depends on who is calling. I might not answer all calls.
@cengland0 Exactly. I’m probably not answering. But I might!
Swipe to text caller, send “what the fuck are you doing ”.
@carl669
I rush out of the room importantly explaining that I have a cellular telephone and I have to answer it.
@therealjrn I know a conference speaker that would fit your nostalgia.
Am I there with someone? Makes a big difference.
@katbyter This really is the difference maker for me. If I am with someone, there is a 90% chance I am going to ignore it . If I am by myself, it flips the other way and probably a 90% chance I will answer it.
There probably is a concise answer choice out there somewhere which succinctly summarizes the various variations on the options here in one pithy statement, but damned if I know what that is.
@shahnm answer it … Maybe. (or meh-be)
Put it on speakerphone and then proceed to engage in a discussion about the current president and my thoughts on recent policy decisions in a louder than normal voice. Oh wait, that was what this other guy did at Starbucks today.
@canuk I regularly hear presumably confidential business calls at Starbucks and the like. Elevators, too. It amazes me that people think that’s okay.
@ahacksaw What I love is seeing people put their phone on speakerphone and hold it up near to their face, but not against it. That way everyone can enjoy both sides of the conversation. I also laugh when I see people doing this in a car, like that’s any safer than holding it to your face.
@canuk Oh God yes. Double obnoxiousness.
I only get calls from “Spam Suspected” or “Potential Fraud”. Do you know them?
@hchavers Couple of nice Nigerian guys. I think one of them’s a prince.
@hchavers Do you know Sarah from Card Services? She said time is running out to do something about your credit card debt. You should probably take her call.
@hchavers No, I just get calls from “Internal Revenue Department” telling me they have frozen my social security number. Cool. That’s like tax-exempt, right?
@hchavers @mike808 Sarah calls me at least twice a day, although she’s not a very good conversationalist, and never responds to the offer to meet for coffee. Sometimes she’s calling from right in town, other times from Indiana or Arizona or Texas. The woman gets around.
@hchavers, I’ve been getting a lot of calls from my “computer maintenance company.” I played a long with them one time until they asked me to go to a website and download a program.
@kittykat9180 I get similar calls from Microsoft saying that I have logged some errors in my event viewer and my netstat shows some foreign addresses are trying to get into my computer. They can fix the problem and I need to buy some google play cards to pay them.
Oh, I have recently been getting calls from “the employment department” about my job application. Though I haven’t applied for a new job in about 3 years. Maybe next time I’ll play along. I’m curious their scam. And these calls are all people with American accents, which is unusual for a scam caller.
Have Google screen the call for me.
It depends on the specific coffee shop/bar/restaurant, whether I’m alone or with others and who is calling.
I’m much more likely to answer if I’m at a Starbucks, Wendy’s or similar place where no one will give a fuck. Noisy places, I’m more likely to answer. Quiet places, less likely (has to do with not wanting to disturb others).
If a daughter unit or the girlfriend unit calls, I’m more likely to answer. (If it is the gf calling, odds are at least 50:50 that there will be repeated calls until I call her back and remind her to lock her fucking phone before putting it in her pocket(book). If the ex-wife calls, I’ll likely answer, since calls from her are very rare and usually important. Calls from some people at work get answered right away (because they wouldn’t call unless something major is down).
I’m less likely to answer if I’m in a group and much less likely if I’m with exactly one other person; the main exception is when I’m with the girlfriend and a daughter or the ex-wife calls, since the girlfriend will insist on knowing why they called and I’ll get nagged until I call or text to satisfy the girlfriend’s curiosity. (Note that the ex-wife and the (current) girlfriend get along well.)
Merely using a cellphone does not necessarily disturb anyone (who isn’t an entitled asshole that believes all cell phone use should be banned regardless of reason and those people are best dealt with by putting them out of their misery, at least figuratively, since it is usually frowned upon to do so literally). Using a cell phone in an obnoxious and annoying manner is a different story, usually caused by people being clueless fucking idiots (not aware of others) or fucking assholes (aware but not caring about others).
@carl669
Thanks, @mediocrebot. (Sorry, @carl669.)
Wait… my phonerings? Who the @#$% turned the ringer back on???
@chienfou Exactly the reason for my Apple Watch. My phone ringer is always off and the watch provides a nice quiet notification that I can also ignore.
@chienfou @cinoclav or a Samsung Watch, as the case may be. (Great minds think mostly alike)
@chienfou @hchavers Yup - same difference.
@chienfou @cinoclav I too, got an Apple watch so I have one more way to ignore people trying to contact me. I wonder how many more devices I can purchase in order to really ignore people.
@canuk @chienfou @cinoclav So one more thing you have to make sure that you remember to charge…
@canuk @chienfou @Limewater Not really a big deal. The charger sits on my nightstand next to my phone charger. It charges quickly and will last for at least two days even when I’m really active. Put it on at 6 am this morning and it’s still 86% charged right now.
@cinoclav @hchavers …or mehbe one of those fancy Martian watches they sell/sold here. (Like the one I am wearing at work tonight) Of course since my phone is at home 5 miles away, it’s just a nice timepiece for the moment.
Voicemail.
If it is not important enough for you to leave a message, it is not important enough for me to return your call.
@mike808 I feel the same way; unfortunately, the younger ones think that leaving a message is redundant since the missed call shows up without having to leave a voicemail, which I kind of understand too.
@Gypsigirl213 Did you hear about the new missed call scam? The caller hangs up right away before you have a chance to answer. They might do it a couple times in a row. They never leave a message.
You get curious so you call back. Then you get billed for the call on your wireless bill because that number you called is one of those 976 or 1-900 type numbers. Apparently there are others you can call that are billed and it relies on us not knowing what the specific NXX numbers are – like the 540 exchange.
@cengland0 @Gypsigirl213 i have never once called a number back out of curiosity. who does that? if i get more than one missed call from the same number with no voicemail, i google it.
@cengland0 @jerk_nugget I have called local numbers that I don’t recognize back, but never out of state or 1-800 or 1-900 (though I’ve never seen this). If a unknown or unrecognizable number calls me several times without leaving a message, I block the number.
Here’s something, I’ve gotten two call-backs from people who said they had a missed call from my phone number, but I hadn’t called anyone. How does this happen? Can robo-dialers spoof real numbers? How can I fight back against this?
@Gypsigirl213
I have no sympathy for the younger ones that get their fee fees hurt when I don’t call them back when they fail to convey to me the importance of my doing so, nor the consequences of my failing to do so. I am not a mind reader. The burden to communicate is on them — they called me.
@cengland0 @Gypsigirl213 @jerk_nugget Unfortunately, YES, they can do that. I called back a number one time that I thought was a return call I had initiated only to find out that it was being spoofed and they had received dozens of calls from folks.
@mike808 I try to see things from all sides and while I may feel one way about it, I can still understand another point of view. It’s not sympathy, it’s empathy.
@cengland0 @chienfou @jerk_nugget
NOOOOOOOOOO…WHYYYYYY!!!
@cengland0 @chienfou @Gypsigirl213 @jerk_nugget
Hang on. You can talk on this thing!?
@nolrak
Obviously this is the proper way to deal with the situation (at 1:55 because it doesn’t seem to embed with the start time)
Just because I know them doesn’t mean I want to talk to them.
I’ll ignore and text that I’ll call back unless they are important, then I’ll step outside and answer.
Pretty much everyone who’s likely to call me knows I’m kind of neurotic in my hatred of talking on the phone, and won’t be offended if I let it go to voicemail.
I’m borderline hard-of-hearing anyway, so ignore the call, tell them I’m in a “meeting” and can’t talk, but can text. Ask what they want. Call back later…maybe
Depends:
I reject the premise.
My phone will be left in my car, with one exception; if I’m meeting someone I’ll bring my phone in case that person is going to be late or has trouble finding me/the place, etc., and in my experience that person (or me, if the roles are reversed) always texts rather than calls.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@DennisG2014 I would rather keep the phone with me and keep it on silent mode. Always nice to have a way to contact 911 in case of an emergency. If your phone is locked in the car, and you lost your keys, you’d be SOL. Just an example
@cengland0 @DennisG2014 I agree. Often the only thing I have with me is my phone and my keys. In my car it’s impossible to lock my keys inside the car, but it’s totally possible to lock them in the trunk.
@cengland0 @DennisG2014 @Fuzzalini Been there done that; glad I had my phone on me when it happened.
@cengland0 @Fuzzalini I realize it’s just an example, but since I have keyless entry (the kind where, as long as the fob is in proximity to the car, the doors unlock with a touch of the handle and the ignition is a push button - literally there is no key), leaving the key fob in the car is pretty much the same as leaving it unlocked. The key fob never leaves my pocket, anyway.
If I were going to be somewhere isolated, like on a walk through the woods, e.g., I would take the phone in case of emergency, but that’s not the premise.
In a coffee shop/bar/restaurant, where I’d be surrounded by other patrons and employees (99% of whom would be spending most of their time staring at their phones), there’s no reason for me to have my personal phone in case of an emergency.
I also survived the first 30 - 35 years of my life without 24/7 access to a phone and I reject the notion that, since their proliferation, I suddenly need that 24/7 access or something terrible may befall me.
People who have to have their phone on and with them at all times might rationalize it by saying “in case of an emergency”, but when they are obsessively/compulsively checking it every minute or two, I suspect they’re not being vigilant for signs of an emergency.
You do what makes you comfortable, NBD. But if we’re friends, family or romantic partners getting coffee/drinks/dinner and you’re paying more attention to your phone than me, I’m going to have a problem with that (and have, on far too many occasions).
People who can’t get through a 2 hour movie or 3 hour concert/theater performance/whatever without constant access to their phone have a serious problem.
If I, as a nicotine addict of 35 years, can get through those situations without a fix, you sure as hell should be able to as well… unless we find out that cellphone addiction is more powerful than cigarette addiction - something that wouldn’t really surprise me much, at least for some individuals.
Sorry this turned into a bit of a rant, but phone junkies are (obviously) a pet-peeve of mine.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@DennisG2014 You must be one of the lucky people to never have experienced a real emergency. Imagine someone breaking into your car, a shooting in the coffee shop and you running to hide in the bathroom, you get a heart attack, the list goes on and on.
I didn’t have my first cell phone until the mid 90’s even though I sold them in the 80’s. They were too expensive for regular people and the service fees were too high. But now that I do have one, it goes with me everywhere. Why not? That’s the whole idea of having a wireless phone. Otherwise, just stick to a POTS line.
Today, people are using wireless phones as their primary phone and don’t even have a POTS line anymore.
I say leaving your phone in your car is a little reckless. You lose out on the ability to use your own equipment during an emergency, you’re risking the chance of someone breaking into your car to get your phone, and you might actually be doing damage to the battery with the high temperatures of the vehicle in direct sunlight.
If you don’t want to look at your phone while you’re in a coffee shop, you can do that and still have your phone with you. Turn off the ringer and enjoy your drink. Simple. If you don’t have self control and think you’ll be looking at the phone anyway, then that’s another issue.
@cengland0 Like I said, you do what makes you comfortable, it’s no big deal (as long as you’re not using it during a movie, play, symphony performance, etc.).
I’m comfortable not having a phone on me at all times.
I try not to imagine a shooting in the coffee shop or any other catastrophic “what-ifs”. If I did, I’d never leave the house, never mind the phone.
I had my car broken into once, probably around 1990. They stole the factory stereo. A cell phone wouldn’t have helped at all.
I don’t leave anything of value out in the open in my parked car, including my phone.
No one would want to steal it anyway - one small detail I left out - it’s a ~15 year old flip-phone.
I did recently buy an old iPhone SE (long(er) story why) but I haven’t even bothered to get service for it, yet.
Just not interested.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@cengland0 When @DennisG2014 posts nowadays, all I hear are trombone sounds like the teacher on a Peanuts special.
@cengland0 @therealjrn
At least you still throw me the occasional ‘like’ when I make a dumb joke.
@cengland0 @DennisG2014
if somebody calls me and it’s not my partner, i send that shit straight to voicemail even if i’m sitting on the couch at home alone doing nothing. text me and tell me what you want if it’s important.
How hard is it to make small talk for 2 minutes to find out what it is and then tell them you’re busy? Even if you don’t enjoy it, it’s called being polite. We are Rome and we are in the process of falling.
I’ve never had an issue talking on the phone with people, but if it’s a quiet place I’ll probably freak out and head outside.