Hi, who are you?

I’m not exactly Ms. Manners, but come on, folks, a little common sense goes a long way. I answer the phone with a basic, “Hello?” At that point, I have one simple expectation: Identify yourself, and the person to whom you wish to speak.

There are a few ways we can go about this basic introduction. You can ask for your intended audience first, and then identify yourself once you confirm that you have reached the right party. (This is usually how I go about it.) You can state your name and business up front. Either way, at the beginning of a phone conversation, the burden of introductions is on you, the caller.

I do not expect you to respond to my greeting by asking who I am, as an anonymous caller did last week. This is creepy, and I will hang up on you. (Hey, I said I wasn’t Ms. Manners.) Probably, you had the wrong number, and were confused when you didn’t recognize my voice, but that didn’t give you the right to start asking for my personal information like some kind of phone predator. If you realize you have the wrong number without even needing to ask for a name, you may simply say so. “I’m sorry, I think I have the wrong number” is a wonderful way to do this. I will casually tell you, “No problem,” and go about my day.

Unless you are my husband or parents, I also do not expect you to assume I know who you are, and skip the introductions. I do recognize the voices of many friends and family members, but not with 100% accuracy, and it takes all of five seconds to say, “Hey, it’s ____.” This is particularly useful for those of us who have several family members with similar voices. There’s no reason I should have to use context clues to figure out who you are, or spend the first few minutes of a conversation trying to sort it out.

I do not expect my phone to ring after nine o’clock at night, or before seven o’clock in the morning, unless there is a dire emergency. Calls in the middle of the night give me a moment of panic, wondering if someone has died. Please don’t do that to me without a very, very good reason.

Posted in ChitChat.