Phone answering at meal time

[Suzanne F]

Fifi mentioned the practice of not answering the phone during dinner. Do you answer? Do you have "rules?"

I am ashamed to admit that sometimes we do. But only after we hear who it is over the answering machine and decide it's someone we really, really need to talk to (usually in another time zone, for business). And we have an understanding that dinner then goes on the warming tray to wait until the call is completed.

[tommy]

well, i haven't used a phone for 27 years, 2 months, and 8 days, but...

[Pan]

When I visit my parents, my mother takes phone calls during dinner, although I always suggest that she just let the answering machine get it and call them back. My father seems to agree with my idea but realizes that my mother will do what she wants, so he sort of shrugs. It's no major issue, but I'd rather she not take the call.

[Pan]

Tommy, you haven't used a phone??? How, incidentally, do you access eGullet?

[tommy]

Tommy, you haven't used a phone??? How, incidentally, do you access eGullet?

magic, pan. why do you ask?

[Pan]

Tommy, you haven't used a phone??? How, incidentally, do you access eGullet?

magic, pan. why do you ask?

[Fat Guy]

The ability to ignore the phone is one of the great luxuries of being poor. When I worked as an attorney, I was a slave to the phone. Now I never let the phone interrupt anything I'm doing. Not just dinner. If I decide I'm going to watch a movie on TV for two hours, the volume on the answering machine goes to zero and the phone gets ignored.

Of course one needs to make provisions for emergency contacts. Those who may need to contact me on an emergency basis have my cell-phone number. Caller ID, voicemail, and text messaging help keep me on top of incoming cell-phone contacts even if I don't answer them. I believe in being reachable, but on my own terms.

[tryska]

word.

i don't believe in answering my phone. tis why God made voicemail.

[Marlene]

We also have caller id and will only answer the phone at dinnertime if it is a family member. Just in case it's an emergency.

I also won't answer the phone when I'm working out, or if I have company.

Edited December 29, 2003 by Marlene (log)

[fifi]

Thanks for starting this thread, Suzanne. I will expand a bit on how this "rule" started.

When my son came to live with me while finishing school when he was in his 20s, we made sure we had dinner together, at the table, no TV, whenever possible. That was before the "no-call" lists were available. We were both what I will call compulsive phone answerers.

A... Ringing... Phone... Must... Be... Answered.

Having our meal repeatedly interrupted by telemarketers, as well as clueless friends and family, we suddenly woke up. All of our phones, 2 land lines and 2 cell phones, had answering service of some sort. We had a discussion. Why do we feel compelled to answer the phone? We decided that it was a "learned response" and could, therefore, be un-learned. The experience was quite liberating. We let family members know that this was our new practice and that if there was an emergency they should announce that on the land line answering machine where we could hear it and we would then pick up. (Never has happened.) We laughed a lot for the first few days of this new rule because we would automatically start to answer the phone and then check ourselves.

Then I finally got on the user id bandwagon. Now I don't even always answer the phone ANY time, not just meal time.

BWAHAHAHAHA! I have taken back control of my life.

[tommy]

i'm with fat guy in that i don't answer the phone unless i'm good and ready. my home phone has customizable ring tones, which helps this. if i'm having dinner, or watching a movie, i don't have to get up to check the caller id: i can tell who's calling from wherever i can hear the phone.

[rozrapp]

Since the Do Not Call list went into effect, it is absolutely amazing that the number of those intensely annoying, privacy invading, dinner interrupting telemarketing calls has dropped to absolutely zero.

We do answer the phone during dinner. However, unless it's an emergency -- which, thankfully, rarely happens -- we only stay on long enough to say that we will call the person back.

[Raynickben]

I have to admit that I get really pissed when the phone rings during dinner or just before dinner.

Here I have created a culinary masterpiece and I am basking in the deafening accolades from my family when it happens. The damn ringing of the phone...

"Who is it?"..."What do they want?"

My moment in the spotlight has been stolen by a ringing phone!! ARGGGHH!

[fresco]

Since the Do Not Call list went into effect, it is absolutely amazing that the number of those intensely annoying, privacy invading, dinner interrupting telemarketing calls has dropped to absolutely zero.

We do answer the phone during dinner. However, unless it's an emergency -- which, thankfully, rarely happens -- we only stay on long enough to say that we will call the person back.

The telemarketers seem to have figured out that the best time to reach people is around the dinner hour. But invariably they are at out of town (perhaps even out of country) call centres, so we just ignore any long distance ring around that time--don't even have to check call display. I'm sure they'll figure a way around this in due course.

[elyse]

I hate the telephone, and only have it for emergencies and the computer. I only pick it up when I'm in a really good mood or am expecting a call. I got on a no call list nearly ten years ago. Maybe not that long ago, but a goodly while.

[marie-louise]

Never during dinner, and especially not just before-I hate when someone chatty calls 5 minutes before dinner's ready!

[tommy]

The telemarketers seem to have figured out that the best time to reach people is around the dinner hour. But invariably they are at out of town (perhaps even out of country) call centres, so we just ignore any long distance ring around that time--don't even have to check call display. I'm sure they'll figure a way around this in due course.

this made no sense to me, until i remembered that you might be in canada. if that's correct, do you guys not have a "do not call" list up there?

[fresco]

Don't think so.

[Mayhaw Man]

i'm with fat guy in that i don't answer the phone unless i'm good and ready. my home phone has customizable ring tones, which helps this. if i'm having dinner, or watching a movie, i don't have to get up to check the caller id: i can tell who's calling from wherever i can hear the phone.

I'm just like Tommy and Fat Guy

Now that IS a scary thought. I believe I might need professional help.

[Bicycle Lee]

my mother always answers but if it is someone she doesn't want to hear from she promptly tears them apart

[Jinmyo]

I only use the telephone when a time for the call has been set up by email or IM first. Anyone I would want to speak to knows this.

Even then, I use a headset so I'm not just sitting there holding a piece of plastic to the side of my head. Instead I can move about and do something useful like dust or arrange books on shelves or something.

[Squeat Mungry]

I'm with Elyse -- HATE the telephone, and I never answer mine at all in the old-fashioned 'ring-ring-hello' way. My friends and family know my policy, and identify themselves onto the answering machine, after which I can pick up at my discretion.

But they also know I despise talking on the phone, so they usually just leave the details, and I can either just show up to whatever is going on or call back when I'm in the mood.

Squeat

[tommy]

when i was a kid, we used to talk face to face. the phone is just another modern device that is destroying families. i feel sorry for kids whose parents let them use the phone, too.

Edited December 29, 2003 by tommy (log)

[Raynickben]

when i was a kid, we used to talk face to face.  the phone is just another modern device that is destroying families.  i feel sorry for kids whose parents let them use the phone, too.

You know what I hate? When I'm talking to a parent and they interrupt me and say "Wait...can you just say hi to my kid?" and then they hand the phone over to a two year old who can't even say more than 3 words and I'm suppossed to have a conversation with them????? Annoys the hell out of me.

[Busboy]

Never during dinner, and especially not just before-I hate when someone chatty calls 5 minutes before dinner's ready!

Most of my friends have seen what my kitchen is like just before dinner. If I let them know that I'm just about to put dinner down, a vision of utter chaos defined by long, sharp knifes, scalding fluids, random hot pots, loud music and two kids dancing through the scene with table settings and milk glasses surges into their frontal lobe, and they rapidly agree to call back later.

Once grace has been said, the phone is ignored, unless my wife -- who works to Denver time from her DC home office, is expecting a call.