{"id":13242,"date":"2023-09-23T06:58:55","date_gmt":"2023-09-23T13:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/?p=13242"},"modified":"2023-09-23T07:13:53","modified_gmt":"2023-09-23T14:13:53","slug":"theres-a-reason-we-have-voice-mail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/2023\/09\/23\/theres-a-reason-we-have-voice-mail\/","title":{"rendered":"There’s a reason we have voice mail."},"content":{"rendered":"
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There are lots of reasons that might prevent you from answering the phone.<\/p>\n

My reasons are that sometime, I\u2019m not in a position to answer your call. \u00a0Other times, neither my phone or I recognize the phone number and don\u2019t have the time or desire to listen to some bullshit SPAM call is shitty pigeon English.<\/p>\n

I will usually answer if it\u2019s family or close friends. Sometimes if I answer someone\u2019s call and explain that I\u2019m really busy it goes like this.<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cI\u2019m really busy right now, is there something you needed immediately? If not, can I call you back in a few?”<\/p>\n

Them: \u201cOh, what are you doing? I called to just chat. Did you hear what Matilda did? I was so cute. When are you going to visit? What\u2019s the weather like there, here its\u2019 been hot and rainy.” And on & on & on & on.<\/p>\n

Me: Still up on the ladder, balancing the 40 pound ceiling fan holding the black and white wires connected to the light switch and wondering if I turned this particular circuit off or if I could use it to electrocute myself rather than have to listen to this unnecessary conversation.<\/p>\n

Them: \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong? Why aren\u2019t you talking to me? Are you mad? Did I do something wrong? Are you okay?”<\/p>\n

Me: Still looking at those wires that could mean the end of my annoyance, wondering if I\u2019m \u201cRight Enough\u201d with God that I\u2019ll end up somewhere beside Purgatory or Hell\u2026 \u201cWell first, I can\u2019t get a word in edgewise, and second as I said I\u2019m very busy right at the moment.”<\/p>\n

Them: \u201cWell you don\u2019t have to be snippy about it! All you had to say was you\u2019re busy!”<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cI DID and you completely ignored me.”<\/p>\n

Click!<\/p>\n

Me: Sigh\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n

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As a rule, and I think everyone pretty much uses this rule, I don\u2019t answer phone calls from unknown numbers.<\/p>\n

Voicemail is a great place for those calls to go even if they\u2019re important. If someone has legitimate business with me, then they can leave a voicemail and reasonably expect that I\u2019m going to return the call.<\/p>\n

Someone not leaving a voice mail is an immediate BLOCK on their phone number. Clearly they are up to no good and I have no time for them.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m surprised that scam calling still exists. You\u2019d think it would go away if no-one was taking their calls.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m still applying for jobs and still getting zero responses. I\u2019m considering going to the highest level of call filtering my cellular provider allows. I\u2019d turned off a lot of security measures because I didn\u2019t want to miss a phone call about a job application. Obviously, I needn\u2019t have worried about that one little bit!<\/p>\n

With the new voicemail feature on iOS I can read a voice mail as it\u2019s coming in.<\/p>\n

I find this amusing because it takes us back to the old days when we\u2019d listen for the person\u2019s voice before we answered the phone attached to our answering machines.<\/p>\n

How many answering machines did I have through the years? Honestly I\u2019ve lost count. They tended to break a lot.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s one machine that I wish I still had, but it was lost in a fire. That last answering machine had two fantastic messages both stored digitally, not on tape. One was from a hospital ER telling me that my other half had been in an accident, the other was my grandmother screaming into the machine, (because the machine was deaf,) that my Father had shot himself, followed by a \u2018click\u2019 as she hung up the phone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yeah she left it there. Just hanging…<\/p>\n

So many questions about that statement!<\/p>\n

There was another message on tape from many years before, that message was from my Father informing me that my grandfather had died and that he\u2019d been called because folks were trying to reach my mother. (At this point my Father and Mother had been divorced for 30 years?)\u00a0<\/p>\n

He asked that I give him a call. He also said that he didn\u2019t want me giving my mother this news. He\u2019d handle it as soon as I gave him her number. He told me that he\u2019d be waiting on my call and he was there for me.<\/p>\n

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All of this is floating through my mind because of a flood of phone calls coming from Orange County. More specifically from Huntington Beach and Cypress.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s a spoofing ring. The phone numbers appear to be listed to Vietnamese folks all of the numbers are from the same prefix and the first two numbers of the remaining four match. Either these calls originate from the same business (in which case they\u2019d leave a voicemail,) or they\u2019re some kind of scam operation.<\/p>\n

Probably the latter.<\/p>\n

It just got me thinking about phones, phone ettiequte, and how very different things are now. \u00a0Back in the day, you\u2019d call someone leave a message and wait a reasonable length of time to try calling again.<\/p>\n

These days, scammers will call, get voicemail, leave no message, hang up and call again & again trying to bust through Do Not Disturb on my phone.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had bosses do the same thing. There is nothing more annoying than being in a doctor\u2019s office and having your boss or anyone else hammering on your phone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are times when I really do miss land lines!<\/p>\n

I miss leaving my home, getting in my car, and being blissfully unaware that anyone was trying to reach me for 8-12 hours a day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yeah, I\u2019m turning up the security! If you change numbers and call me, better leave a voice mail or you\u2019re going to be in the blocked forever pile!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are lots of reasons that might prevent you from answering the phone. My reasons are that sometime, I\u2019m not in a position to answer your call. \u00a0Other times, neither my phone or I recognize the phone number and don\u2019t have the time or desire to listen to some bullshit SPAM call is shitty pigeon … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “There’s a reason we have voice mail.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[168,3],"tags":[171,177],"class_list":["post-13242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annoyances","category-general","tag-annoyances","tag-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13242"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13250,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13242\/revisions\/13250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}