Comments on: Just a Reminder Re: Contacting Me via Phone

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 19:10:37 +0000

Coming to this one late, but I’ve gone basically phoneless for the last three years, and longer than that for business purposes. Phoning me is for my wife and mother, and pretty everyone else is text of some sort. For business purposes, it’s e-mail for simple transactional stuff, and one-on-one-face-to-face-no-paper-trail for everything important. That’s probably from spending too much time in the bond pits and software startups, though.

By: tt

tt — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:41:54 +0000

It’s shocking to me that random people would call you up like there’s no issue. Especially since it’s very clear on your blog that email is the preferred communication method.

The audacity of people never ceases to surprise me nor the narcissism (sp?) that’s involved.

By: Todd Stull

Todd Stull — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:56:07 +0000

Why do people even need to be told this? It should be so obvious.

By: htom

htom — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:39:02 +0000

There have been times in my life when the telephone had to be answered. I grew to hate it. Either it was bad news or a stupid interruption (and frequently both.)

(There has been good news, but far more bad-to-disaster news, and the vast majority of the calls are of the annoying unneeded interruption kind.)

I figure it takes me fifteen minutes to answer the phone. Well, it takes seconds, but it takes the rest of the fifteen minutes to get back to what I was doing. Telephone screening lets me deal with it when I have time.

Answering service, or answering machine as a close second.

By: mjfgates

mjfgates — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:37:10 +0000

So, how many people have called up to talk to you about this?d

By: bigcat39

bigcat39 — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:32:34 +0000

I grew up with the telephone being a major force in mine and my family’s life. being that we lived in the geographical center of Bum F**k Egypt.
That being said, I simply cannot imagine calling up someone like John who, even though I have met him a couple of times, read all of his crap, etc, etc, does not know me from Adam’s off ox.
I’d like to say I’m surprised that this happens, but unfortunately, that’s not true. The more I find out about people, the less I like ‘em.

By: SirTomster

SirTomster — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:14:05 +0000

@ Scalzi at 40

I’m not overwhelmed. I just don’t like random phone calls.

Hey John!

I will be calling @ 2pm, 7pm, 2 am, & 5am.

So they are not random.

Also since I do not have your number can you let me know what it is.

kthxbai

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:47:02 +0000

I dislike the phone too, but LB has a great point:

“That said, in my line of work (business litigation) there are sometimes things that need to be communicated, but that you would prefer do not exist in the form of a permanent electronic record somewhere. That’s where the phone becomes useful.”

There are many instances where lawyers wish they were in an alternate unverse where their clients hadn’t said _____ in a written or otherwise recorded form…..

By: scott

scott — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 10:41:07 +0000

ha ha, you have no idea how much this post made me want to look you up and call you to ask you where you get your ideas from.

i restrained. barely. something tells me others might not be so disciplined.

By: Miko

Miko — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 09:32:29 +0000

As Stephen Fry said, calling someone and making their phone ring as a result is like going up to them and shouting, “TALK TO ME! TALK TO ME! TALK TO ME! TALK TO ME!”