Lack of Telephone Manners

One of my recent pet peeves has been the tendency of people in their 20s and 30s to answer other people’s phones and not indicate who they are or whose number has been reached. My 30-year-old son has had several room mates in his apartment and they all seem to answer his phone on the first ring, even when my son is home. They do not give their name and they do not say that I have reached my son’s phone number. I finally asked the latest room mate if David ever answers his own phone and the fellow replied, “no.” I don’t know why my son, David, allows these guys to do this. He has no idea that a lot of us “old” folks consider this behavior to be ill mannered and, in fact, downright annoying.

I was so irritated the last time I phoned that I said the fellow, “This phone is in David’s name and it is his phone.” He replied, “I pay board and I pay for my phone calls.” I thought to myself, that is not the point. I don’t think he actually pays for 50% of the basic phone line, but I could be wrong. A lot of young people seem to believe that as long as they pay for their long distance phone calls that is sufficient. If I knew for sure that my son was charging them 50% of the phone bill or was happy not to do so, I probably wouldn’t be a ticked off. I think the part that really bugs me is that my son is always short of cash. Mind you, he doesn’t bum money from me, so maybe I should be more relaxed about this.

The reason I decided to write this rant in my blog is because the same thing just happened when I phoned my sister long distance. The first call was answered by someone whose voice I didn’t recognize. So I thought perhaps I got the wrong number. I checked my sister’s phone number and dialed again. Again I got the same stranger’s voice answering. This time I asked her if this was 1-780-123-4567 and she replied, “I don’t know.” Then my sister’s daughter came on the line and I told her that I thought I had the wrong number because I had no idea who had answered the phone. She replied, “I didn’t hear the phone ring.” Well fair enough I think to myself, but couldn’t you ask your friend to say whose phone number they reached? But I held my tongue.

Am I the only person ticked off about this issue? I invite you to put a comment on my blog.