Speech is silver, brevity is golden
Published July 27th, 2006Don’t you hate it when your colleagues calling you for business purposes engage in the exchange of terms of endearment instead of getting down to the business? To me, it is a violent disregard of phone etiquette.
Take this example. Some time ago I worked with a team in India which was coordinated from the US by this genius named Anand. Since I was leading the team, people felt free to molest me by calling at 11PM whenever there was the slightest hint of a problem. So, as you can imagine, I didn’t exactly let out an ecstatic squeal when I got a call from Anand. I would rather be done with the call as quickly as possible and get back to my previously scheduled programming.
When I get his call on my cell phone, I do see his name. So I know who is calling. Moreover, none of my friends call me at that time because they know what I would be doing – washing dishes, of course. So I pick up the call and say, “Hey, what’s up?”
Here we have to stop for a moment and think about what the opening statement means.
If I say, “Hi, this is TD,” it means “I don’t know who the hell you are so state your name and purpose.”
If I say, “Hi?” it means “I know who you are but I can’t imagine what perverted reason you could have for calling at this ungodly hour”
But if I say, “Hey, what’s up?” it means, “I know who you are and why you are calling, so cut the bull and get to the point.”
But apparently Anand and I were not on the same page, or in the same book for that matter, when it comes to talking on the phone.
Here goes the conversation:
Me: Hey, what’s up?
Anand: Hi… TD?
Huh? Unless my months-old son’s voice started cracking reeeeally early, it has to be me!
Me: Ya, hi. So?
Anand: Hi, this is Anand
I KNOW that. I read it in 24pt typeface on my phone
Me: Hi Anand.
OK, NOW can we get to the point?
Anand: How are you?
Jesus F. Christ! Get to the effing point al-effing-ready
See what I mean? I hope people start respecting other people’s time. It doesn’t apply to friends though. I am happy if friends waste my time.
Oh, before I stop, I have to give you this gem.
Anand calls. I figure, if I announce to him I know who is calling, we can hit the ground running, so to sepak.
Me: Hi Anand. What is the issue.
Anand: (pause)Ya, Hi, this is Anand.
I already said that! Jesu… You know the rest of the story.
27 Responses to “Speech is silver, brevity is golden”
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hahahaha…u coudlnt be further from the turth. I have plenty of Indian colleagues in Singapore and Malaysia who do that. And the really sad thing is that in answer to the “how are you?”, if I’d said, “i just found out I have brain tumour and my boyfrnd just announced he is gay and my car has been stolen. So, how are u?” , they couldn’t care less. They’ll just say, oh good, I am fine, thanks!
GRRRRR!
lol.. that was an interesting convo.. been through it a lot of times… so i kno exactly how it feels… there s this boss of mine who actually does that.. at times he s got nothin to say n there s this dead air on call.. Dayam (well thats a totally dif story)…
My pet peeve: Me: hello? Caller: Hi, what are you doing?
None of your business. What do you want?
Nice post.made me laugh cause it has happenend to me.
We must work in the same office.
“Hi Tai speaking, what can I do for you?
“Uh…this is Alice?”
“Yes, how can I help you?”
“Good. Is Tai there?”
sometimes I wonder what the point of speaking in the first place!
I face it almost everyday. I guess everybosy would appreciate it more if you straightway get to business .at times i get so irriated that i ask them bluntly “Hi,what the purpose of the call?”.
I wish people here start respecting other’s time .
freespirit:
Ya, that is the problem. They don’t really care how we are. It is a useless conversation just out of habit
apy:
Haha. If boss does it, you can’t even tell him to get the hell off the phone!
gnightgirl:
Next time somebody asks that tell them you are hunting tarantulas
starry:
Glad to know I am not the only victim
tai:
ROFL!
“Is tai there?”
“Yes”
“If tai is there, why are you answering the phone?”
vj:
that’s probably the best approach
hahah!
well yup its so true and the surprising part is I do this quite often too..not realising this cld be irritating..heheh…Now i know I need to get straight to the pt!
and to add on…these are the people who call u either in the middle of deep sleep or just when ur about to get into a important presentation..!!uurgg!
Dont remind me. Indians are plain loco. Most of them dont even know how to leave messages on the answering machine. I get a - hello - hello and then a blank.
Christ! and then they call in the middle of the freakin’ night and start mouthing off as if we are up 24/7.
Aaman is fine by it but his whole family is woken up at three in the morning.
Off shoring sucks because of these ‘Gavars’
ekta:
If it is a friend, I won’t mind shooting the breeze. I am sure your friends won’t mind too
anand and dee:
Exactly! Calls in the middle of the night are the worst. It make me so mad when the guy asks, “are you sleeping?”. I want to say, “I don’t sleep. I am a freaking owl”
Hehe, familiar thing here. And this is becoming too common to ask “how are you?”, when both knows it is about some issue.
But I do sympathise with you..:P
lol…this dude in my class did that to me…calls me in the middle of the night..and (after the usual hey its me.blah blah..were u asleep? blah blah…) asks, “so how was the class today??”
F*#King P#*K…you were in the class!!!
*sigh*
Very true that Indian companies need to teach their employees some phone etiquette against the phoney ones they usually have.The worst one I use to have was a call at the middle of the night with an apologetic “Hi Bishu,were you sleeping ?”.Apart from the fact that me sleeping a second earlier has nothing to do with what comes next,this irritates me twice-fold.First you had waked me up when I might’ve been dreaming about Ms Jolie.And secondly are you trying to make sure that I’m not a somnambulist who can answer the call while jogging in his sleeping pyjamas with eyes wide shut.Everytime I had to fight hard to supress my immediate reaction of “WTF,cut the crap and tell me what’s your issue is.”
Nice post TD.
Telephone conversations drive me up a wall…
Me: “Can you give me a sec, I’m kinda of busy”
Other person: “Yeah sure”..but they keep rambling on”
Me: “huh?, what were you saying”
Other person: “Weren’t you listening, do you hear what I just said?”
Me: WTF.?? Am I gonna be quizzed?
Whew! I was frustrated just reading this! I completely understand.
Don’t THEY understand that with caller ID practically no one has to announce themselves anymore?
I also like, “Do you need my number?” Hello - caller ID?!?!?!? Usually, I just let them give it to me and just say: “uh huh, yeah, uh huh, OK!”
Can you just turn your phone off at night so they can’t bug you?
Here is my all time worst (or best) work phone conversation:
Me: Good morning, you’ve reached stupid workplace, this is Heddy speaking.
Caller: Yes, can I speak to Heddy please?
Me: One moment.
Me: transferring caller to voicemail.
Voicemail: Heddy is unavailable right now, please leave a message.
muahaha.
hi! lol
LOL!!! :–)
That was soo effunny!! :–)
I think I sometimes, do that, inadvertantly too, only sometimes.
Hey nice blog.You are right ,some times calls like these are very annoying but the dilemma is is you have to grudginly respond to them,no matter what.
green satya:
Exactly! Both parties know either don’t if the other party is dead or alive as long as the task at hand is done
nachi:
That’s another thing! Calling the night and asking, “were you asleep?”
bishu:
You should try saing, “Yes, I am sleeping as we speak”
mary poppins:
LOL. That must be very annoying
momo:
Ya, caller ID is another thing.
“Here is my number”
“I alrady have on the caller ID”
“Oh, is it 214-555-1212?”
Aaarrgg.. Does he understand what caller ID is?
jamie:
Occasionally, once in a month or so, there is a real issue. So unfortunately I can’t turn the phone off. I am not working with that team any more anyway.
h.e.eigler:
Haha. I think one guy did it to me. It must have been really fun it I had thought of sending him to the voice mail
heather:
Welcome to my blog
Saranya Kishore:
We all do it some time or the other. More over it’s not annoying if it is a personal call to a friend. If it is a business call, its very annoying
sharda:
Ya, we have to respond that is the problem. I do wish I can just hang up the phone in mid-sentence though!
Thanks
The guy just did 1 minute of preliminary!! its considered rude to NOT do it in some cultures. If you don’t like it, tell the guy so, once and for all.. why do we assume that people will know what we want?
And yes, btw, if you call someone in the East of the world, please do the preliminaries of “how are you?”, unless you want a funny blog entry about YOUR phone etiquette.
Oh, and has it occured to you that “were you sleeping?” Could also mean” Can I give you the details or do you want a one liner on the reason for this call?” Guess, “Were you sleeping” is more brief than “Details or one line?”
how do we know:
You do have a point that if you don’t like something you should tell it to the face. But you see, I have to work with this guy everyday so I can’t afford to piss this guy off by being honest. The closest I came to telling him was, “We need to keep these calls short” and “Dude, can we get straight to the point?”
I do also agree on the importance of pleasantries when we are calling once in a while. I do engage in such inane exchange when I call people. But if we are calling each other alsmost everyday and I do know that the guy doesn’t care if I am alive or dead, it kind of gets on the nerves.
i’m totally with you. people need to cut the crap. we don’t need a full minute or 2 of formalities - just get to the point!
hahhaa…though this hasn’t happened to me, I can well imagine!:)
TD
I found your blog just a day ago… and I have already got hooked to it. Imagine - I have been reading back all archives and thats where I saw this one - which I thought I must comment on - though its more than a year old post… (Btw, as you would have guessed - I dont comment just for sake for showing up my hand)…
Interesting observation about the phone etiquette here - and I dont mind you taking liberty with typecasting Indian callers - least of all because I am based in India…
But guess what - I have been working with non-Indian managers based out of Bay area for about 10 years now… and I have personally had the same issue with many of them. To the extent that I dodged giving out my cell number to some of them as long as I could…and on occasions would switch it off before hitting the sack…
For a brief period I even had my office phone redirected to my cell - for being reachable to various customers/vendors during day time here - and Imagine your US collegues giving you a ring at 3am - expecting you to be at your desk in office at that hour. Unfortunately the call redirect would catch me anyways…
You may find it tough to believe - but some of my collegues even expressed surprise when they found I was sleeping - some folks (well educated ones) find it difficult to figure out that India could be many many time zones away… I guess that a bit of an American things anyways - whole of US is world…all states of US playing is a world series… so when I am awake the world must be awake too.
Just a contrarian point of view…
Btw… loved almost all your posts so far… still got a few months of archive to dig thru…