Phone Etiquette / Opinions

Me? A. Finish up with the first party then the call the 2nd party back.

I've never got the hang of actively switching between two phone calls (call waiting) so I don't bother. Besides, the person I am presently talking with tends to be the more important of the two potential conversations.

Besides, I am not that particularly popular a person so it really rarely happens.

A. Finish up with the first party then the call the 2nd party back?


unless you're a surgeon awaiting a call from a hospital, I don't think there's any need to interrupt your first conversation to go to another

Is this in a business or social environment?

Am I using a multi line telephone system or a single line with call waiting?

If a business environment with a multi line system, I tell the first caller I have another call and ask if I may put them on hold a moment. I answer the other call, tell them I am on another line with a customer and can either call them back or place them on hold while I finish with the other caller.



If it is a cell phone, and a social environment, I let the second call go to voice mail and return the call when I am done.

Social environment should of pointed that out. I dont get a bunch of calls either at this stage of my life so it doesnt happen a lot...it does occasionally come up..

Reason im asking is because of a certain individual hates when I do A. However, a point was made what if the 2nd party is calling with some sort of emergency.

The only time I switch to the 2nd caller is if I'm expecting something important from someone else.

When my husband was having open heart surgery, the operating room nurse would call halfway through, and at the end to give a brief, 10 second progress report. i.e. "everything is going fine"

I was keeping my phone open for the first call, and when it rang I didn't recognize the number, so I figured it was her. It was my chatty kathy SIL wanting to know what was going on. "I don't know" was apparantly not good enough for her. While trying to get off the phone, the signal beeped, and with no hesitation I said "I'm hanging up, this may be the nurse" and it was. As I was hitting the call end button, she was still talking and saying something like "what is she going to say?"

Otherwise, I let it beep, and call back.

That's funny. I know someone exactly like that, and that is not funny.

are you a surgeon?

are you the police?

if it's an emergency, the other person should be calling 911

I know of someone just like that. Its actually a friend of a friend that befriended me about a year and half ago. I call her "Gatling Mouth"....

No lol..

No, agree, it's not. Not at the moment at least.

A, most definitely, unless it's a chai situation where I'm waiting for something massively important. I figure even potential employers can wait, but if I was waiting for a nephew to be born or a relative to come out of chemo, I'd probably give the first caller the bum's rush and answer the second call.

Here's the thing, if I am expecting an important call I:
1) don't get on the phone
or
2) if I do get on a call, I SAY to the other person 'Just want to warn you, the Nobel Prize Committee (or whoever) is supposed to call me..... .' That way the other is forewarned that she/he will be dropped...maybe.

When I was looking for a job (2) was a common experience.
~~
From the other end, if I am talking to someone and THEY get a call and decide to take it without forewarning me that that might happen, I immediately hang up as soon as they take the other call.

What am I chopped liver?

It only takes about three hang-ups for the average person to figure out they are being rude.

Joe(nnnnnannannnaaaannnnannn)Nation

What happened to the good old days when the 2nd caller would get a busy signal, that announced :The person you're calling is talking with someone else. Try again later.

The SOBs who re-invented the phone decided that everybody should be available ALL the time.
Bastids.

Joe(just text me)Nation

Yeah, when calling waiting came out on landlines <shakes cane at all the younguns> all of a sudden everyone had to have it.

I knew a few people who really abused call waiting, leaving you on hold a long time.

Finally, I realized I could just hang up, especially if they were the ones who called me....funny, it was usually the people who would call me, then think it was ok to put me on hold while they talked to another friend.

So then I'd get a call back from the person, and they'd say "We got disconnected" (I say, no, I hung up)....or "You hung up!" (I'd say, yes, I did)
In the latter situation, I was amazed when the other person would then ask "why?"

It was the beginning of the end Joe, the beginning of the end.

that's the only option here

no voicemail, no call waiting

straight landline with no options

my mobile also has no voicemail, no call waiting

I got nothin'

I turn the mobile on to make calls or if I'm meeting someone and we need to be able to connect/confirm.

You don't just leave your phone on all the time?

Was it by choice you didn't get VM, or was that not an option.

VM is good.

I don't have call waiting. I email pals far away and don't have a jumping social life in this area - no real need for it.
When my cousins or CA friends call and the line is busy, they'll call back.

I find other people's call waiting annoying (the chopped liver scenario), but they are generally wanting to avoid missing a call from their now grown up children.

Re my cell, I only have it on hand when I'm out and about, just in case. If I recognize the number, I'll answer, but it's really for emergency needs. So far so good. It does have voicemail.


I hate my landline phone company for other reasons - the automated choices by the guy whose voice makes me homicidal. Now that I use Century Link instead of Quest.. his is still the grindingly annoying voice.