Phone calls used to be better when they were analog land lines. The fidelity(idk if that’s the right word, but go ahead and catch my drift) was amazing.
You could hear every breath, every intonation in voice, every shift in body language. I think our subconscious works on stuff like that a lot more than anyone cares to admit. Every phone conversation you’ve had in the past 10 years has been digitally compressed.
The headsets themselves were ergonomic. Easy to use, fit the face and head alot better than the phones we use nowadays.
9999 Teams
No no, teams is number 1
Because it is only on my work computer that I shutdown when I’m done
And if you really don’t want me to call you or call you back … text, email or send me a message that says
CALL ME
That is the single most disgusting uninteresting uninformative and ugliest thing that anyone can text me. You can text me a dick pick, ransom demands, blackmail images, racist crap or gore pictures of something and I wouldn’t complain and probably might even respond to you … but if you just text me ‘CALL ME’, I’m blocking your number or contact and never answering anything from you again.
I want shit that leaves a record so when someone pulls a “I didn’t say red”, I can pull out the text or DM or whatever, and say, “So when you said red here was it that special red that’s actually blue?”
Do the people around you do that a lot?
You’d be surprised how often honest disagreements arise from bad recollection. It doesn’t have to be ill-willed: we’ve all had the experience remembering a shared conversation completely differently from the person we had it with.
Why are people so offended over the fact there are some ppl who don’t like phone calls? 🤷♀️ who cares
People who are so used to getting everyone to stop what they’re doing get upset when they aren’t the center of attention.
It’s kinda childish, especially when you need something done now that requires details and understanding with no failure.
Edit: not to say you can’t achieve this with other forms but the idea that there aren’t millions of situations where you picking up the phone is more advantageous than a text.
Where’s the humanity in us all
Nothing you want needs to be done immediately. NOTHING.
especially when you need something done now that requires details and understanding with no failure.
That’s about the only reason a call is better and should be scheduled as a meeting If at all possible. If there’s no need to have a back and forth conversation just text or email so I don’t have to disrupt the half dozen other things I’m currently working on to deal with you. As for humanity I spend enough time interacting with people I don’t want to talk to. I’m not hurting for more.
Example and my ass just got outta bed and the coffee is still drippin’…if I have any questions, I can refer to the text instead of calling your ass…I do shit late, want a call at 2am?
Clearly not. Business calls should happen during business hours only. BUT, it is also pretty clear that direct speech is the most efficient way of communication when you don’t need a written record, so calls definitely have a purpose.
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For me I hate phone calls because it’s someone demanding I drop what I’m doing to address whatever they want. Keep in mind, 99% of phone calls I get are at work form co-workers.
The number of “quick calls” that are actually quick I can count on 1 hand, and still have room for more. I have tasks to accomplish, things to do. And I’m spread so thin between all the things I do, there’s a fair chance I’m going to forget something about what you asked/told me. If it’s in text form I can review it when I loop back to it. You need me to check/validate/run something, cool. I have record of what, when, and if I completed it. Just because you have a question does not make it an emergency on my part.
As for my home phone, the only folks who ever call me are either telemarketers or scams. If a friend called I’d probably answer (if I have the time). But I think most of my friends are in the same boat, we have so much to do these days (non-recreation) that it’s just not easy to find time. A lot of my friends have side-hustles or a second job or are in class (like me) in order to stay competitive. When I was a kid, I remember my parents could unwind at the end of the day, friends would just come over to hang out. It just ain’t like that no more.
Just because you have a question does not make it an emergency on my part.
This is it for me. If someone is an auditory processor, or needs a more nuanced conversation in order to understand something, I sympathize. But not everyone is like that. Just send a quick message asking to chat (or better yet, find time on my calendar if it’s for work), and then I can prepare what I know on the subject, review it, and get back to you.
Otherwise you’re going to get an ear full of ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm
uhhhhh hmm
hang on, I was just
hang on, just loooking that upp…
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Right, so
(silence while I’m reading)
Right, uh, so
Okay
It was last Tuesday
Was that it?
In a world where async communication is effortless, demanding immediate attention is antisocial.
You’re saying that you don’t care what I’m doing at the moment. You want my full attention immediately. Even leaving a message is more of a time waste than a simple text message
- don’t call unless it’s urgent
- if you’re calling me it’s not urgent
This doesn’t apply to landlines, ofc
Strong disagree. A phone call isn’t a demand, and doesn’t mean that you don’t care what the other person is doing. It’s a request to talk to them, and can always be declined. Some things are more quickly and easily sorted out by phone call than text.
Add, some things are time sensitive; which means yes, I do need your attention immediately
I guess that can be true because my phone is usually on silent, but a message would still be preferable because a missed call in my notifications doesn’t tell me much of anything.
I would also put forward that a request to talk could also take the form of a request to talk, like hey are you free to talk about my part in the xyz project?
PS. I would ask the people who you call if they would prefer a text first. It could be you’re calling people who are like you, but it’s also possible that you’re calling people like me, and they’re too polite to tell you.
Its my right to be not reachable, outside of work i will take time for your matter when its fitting for me.
And im forgetful and prefer to be able read important information again.
Thats why my phone is always on mute and my voice recorder tells people my email address.
I say this as an autist who used to fucking loathe talking on the phone: Its that the phone takes up too much mental energy and time, yet has a time limit on your own responses. Its hellishly stressful when you are socially incompetent, and now a lot of even non-autistic people are becoming socially incompetent.
Now its funny, I hated phone calls back when everyone liked them. Now I’m pretty OK at them because I worked at a call center for a year and now it seems like everyone now hates phone calls. I kinda recognize that the one nice thing about phone calls is there is no “set up your account before ordering your food” type bullshit. There is a consistency to phone calls.
I think I’m fairly neurotypical but I don’t like calls either (though I recognize some things are better on a call). for me it’s just that it’s feels unnatural that you’re supposed to be talking to someone just as you would normally but there’s no visual component. it’s awkward. imagine two people in the same room having a conversation but they’re looking at the wall instead of each other.
There’s also a faster sense of done-ness with a phone call: the conversation is almost always over at the end of the call, whereas with something like text it can take ages because it’s so spread out.
That… and my insecurity as to what a sane-and-polite-but-not-overdone phrasing would be fades quicker than when that phrasing has been immortalised through writing. It’s just over sooner (provided you actually manage to get through to someone)
Easy:
Between ages 13 and 18 if I received a phone call it was because I was in trouble, so now when I get one there is a pang of guilt and panic over whatever it is I could have possibly done
The idea of having a phone at 13 seems foreign to me. I wouldn’t have known what to use it for, the again smartphones weren’t around yet when I was 13.
I had a flip phone because I was a latchkey kid who walked to school. My parents wanted to be able to contact me and vice versa.
Not having to be available at the ready for people is great.
If you arrange for a call, through another asynchronous mechanism, then it’s fine. If you cold-call me to ask about the weather (or, more seriously, anything that could have been a text message), I’ll leave decapitated horse head in your fridge.
How? Asynchronous communication is better for a lot of people. And now that we have really good choices for that, it’s hard to ignore.
A phone call demands that you drop everything in that moment and pay close attention to the person on the other end. If they ramble, deviate, breathe heavily, have a lot of background noise, etc, you’re stuck with that experience for the duration. Also, recording without consent is illegal in a lot of places, so you have to be able to write things down in order to refer back to the conversation if it contains any important information.
In contrast, everything else is self-documenting, can be read through multiple times, and can be handled when there is time to focus on that task. As a bonus: most people can read and understand text faster than they can listen. So it’s just more efficient.
Which is why I’ll never understand people who send recordings. It’s the worst of both worlds.
People who send voice notes piss me off so much.
Oh god, a 5 minute voice note with no accompanying text, just shoot me. Like you’re really going to make me listen to you ramble on a 1x speed while you get to some point that I guarantee could fit in one or two sentences, if you took the modicum of brain power required to compose your thoughts into coherent words.
PS. I understand a lot of people love sending voice notes back and forth, and that’s totally fine if it’s the thing.
That thing about there not being a recording is precisely why emails give me mad anxiety and calls do not. Granted, you have to tell/text me to find a time that works for both. Otherwise, I’ll return the call at my convenience. Also, I hate when a task has to be on my mind for several days because there’s back and forth over email because of questions. Makes me anxious as well. Guess what I’m saying is, people have different preferences for different reasons and that’s fine. No reason to argue why you think your preference is objectively superior.
Oh wow that’s so strange. I love emails, because I can reread everything I just said before hitting send. Whereas when I’m having a verbal conversation, I’m never going to say things as clearly/accurately because I feel like I’m just riffing off of the top of my brain pan.
This is precisely why you should never quit via a conversation with HR. You should send HR and your personal email an email detailing your resignation. Same for anything else that is sensitive. I’m fact you should keep record of everything you do for the company via email. It helps you personally because you can show how many good things you did that year. They can’t comeback and say you were Lazy if you can show an email trail showing the exact opposite. Similar in cases of sexual or racial abuse…don’t say anything to the perps…email them describing exactly what they did and cc or bcc your self and HR.
I absolutely detest text messaging or emails. You have a problem? Call me because I can probably solve your issue in one minute of phone call. I have been almost always been subjected to texting sessions that lasted for several hours because the dumbass on the other end lacked the spelling and vocab skills to provide an accurate written description of the problem.
Time is money and even sometimes life threatening unless the fastest method of communication is use. And fastest ain’t an email or text.
I firmly disagree, but that’s because for me writing and reading are much easier than verbal communication.
This issue really only comes up when people like you and people like me have to communicate.
This is also why I keep a notebook at work. Without it, spoken exchanges would essentially be a lacuna in a conversation for me.
Long way to say you’re a slow reader
Think of it as a way to say you have no clue how to communicate correctly through the written word. By the time I’m forced to wade through your lack of punctuation, misspellings and the autocorrect blunders and the stupid emojis to decipher what you REALLY meant, I already have equated your IQ to be around the range of my old orange tabby cat.
If you send me a text, I will consider it of such low priority that I might get back to you in a week or so.
Perhaps you could consider that for diverse reasons people have different prefered ways of communication. You have your own prefered way for your own reasons and that’s ok. That doesn’t mean you should disrespect other people’s communication choices or them personally.
This whole statement vibrates in Boomer
Fundamentally everyone here is putting a lot of effort into defending not participating in phone calls where as if they just picked up the phone the whole thing would be over now, but instead we’re all texting eachother trying to prove our points ultimately getting nowhere.
My biggest reason for not liking calls is that I often very much struggle to actually hear what’s being said. I’ll take talking in person over a call. Text mediums also have the benefit of being able to be referred back to. Great to double check something, or to cover your ass. I’ll take a paper trail any day of the week.
That said though, in my professional life I have encountered a surprisingly huge number of people who just cannot write clearly. It baffles me. Ultimately, to each their own, and I’ll try to meet people where they’re at. But I much prefer written formats.
Two words for me. Read. Receipts. I have found that someone will inevitably text me and say, “why didn’t you respond?” Fucker. You texted me. Want me to actually engage with you? Call me. Otherwise you’re now at my mercy.
I prefer calling because it’s easy to silence and just let it go to VM if I am busy. Call back immediately and that’s usually a sign of being needed.
In addition to everything else, there’s also a feedback loop of spam calls predominating. The more legit conversation moves to other methods, the more spam calls stick out. That, in turn, means even more people prefer something other than phone calls. It eventually gets to the point where 99% of calls are spam, and that whole method of communication becomes useless.
There are people like me who use voice calls about half the time for work. My number is on my email signature and my emails may get passed around, which I don’t mind. When I arrive to a new work site I give my number to at least one person, more commonly three or four. So if I practice what seems to be common today of not answering numbers I don’t have saved, I could miss critical communication, and waste time hearing a voicemail and calling back.
I’m not saying one or the other is more correct, just that there are different situations to consider.
