It’s still a thing people!!! Though I have to say that in the last two weeks or so, I am beginning to wonder if that is just wishful thinking on my part and in reality the Universe has just said to everyone, ahh…fuck it. Be an ass, no one can see you or will ever find out who you really are if you don’t have even one manner while you are on the phone.
I think people have started to act like talking on the phone is comparable to online dating. You can be anyone you want to be when you are at home sitting on your couch. Make something up, no one will ever know. Right? Except for the little fact that when you go on the first date, usually the other person isn’t blind and stupid and can pretty much figure you out.
Talking on the phone can be the same. The thing here is…you are talking. So how about if you don’t call me when you are eating your lunch and chew in my ear the entire 15 minutes that you are asking me questions that you really don’t want to hear the answer to anyways. I appreciate that life can get lonely, but I am working and there are now 15 people lined up waiting in person for my help…even though you aren’t quite finished chewing in my ear.
And don’t call me 15 times a day soliciting shit that I have no interest in after I have already kindly told you that I can’t talk during business hours during the week…BECAUSE I HAVE A JOB. If I want to change my cell service I will indeed call you and change it myself, you calling and telling me you have something better for me, though it will cost me $30 more a month, isn’t gonna make me change my mind. EVER. Call me at night…seriously, it is probably morning in whatever country you are calling me from anyway right?
And I have noticed, just in passing…that the people who call and say they have a stupid question…usually don’t have stupid questions. The thing about that is, they are asking you a question that maybe seems stupid because the person they are asking already knows it, but what I find with these people is that they really want an answer and they will genuinely listen to the answer that you give them…
The other people, that really do ask stupid questions…usually have no clue that they are behaving that way. There is usually something else behind it, like they are fighting with their wives about something and just want you to tell them that they are right. Even if they aren’t. And when you tell them that, they either get mad at you or dismiss you as a dumbass that has no idea what they are talking about. In that case all I can suggest (in my head of course, not out loud) is that they call someone else who knows better than we do. Maybe Superstore, or Walmart…they may have the answer you were looking for.
I appreciate technology as much or maybe even more than the next person, but I think that it is making us forget our manners. It is making us less compassionate to the people we are having an actual conversation with on the other end of the phone.
Maybe we all need to pretend that it is 1972 and we still have a party line with our Grandma on the other end of the line, because I can guarantee you that if she heard how you were behaving on the other end of that phone she would kick your ass so hard even google wouldn’t be able to find you.
Play nice out there kids!!
