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Integrity & Awareness by Paul Burnstein

Monday, April 16, 2007

If You are Unavailable, Don't Answer Your Cell Phone

I am going to rant a bit on cell phone use today. For some background information, please see my post from January 3, 2007 called More On (or Moron) Phone Use.

First off, let me say thank you to those people who answer their phones in case of emergency, but then explain (cordially) that they are busy and will call back when they can.

Today's post is for those other folks who are not so kind. I have made some calls recently where the person answering her mobile phone is almost at the point of lecturing me that she cannot speak because she is busy. That is completely, acceptable, but wouldn't it make more sense to simply not answer her phone? If you are at a seminar and unavailable to speak, don't answer your phone. If you are rehearsing for a stage production you are in, turn off your phone. If you are unavailable, don't answer your phone!

I even have someone (a relative nonetheless) who answers his phone and immediately hits the end call button if he is busy. By his doing that, I cannot even leave a voicemail message. He could hit the ignore button on his phone so that it goes straight to his voicemail, but nooooo, he answers it and then hangs up. I generally have to call back a couple of times before I can leave him a message. I find that frustrating.

I would like to raise some awareness around the fact that just because you have your mobile phone with you at all times, you do not always have to answer it. If you are truly unavailable, either turn off your phone (but then you can't see the calls you missed) or simply don't answer it until you are available to do so.

Have a great day and try to think about what non-verbal messages you are sending out to people with your actions.
~Paul

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

For what it's worth, I learned from a corporate veteran that phones are often "low priority" when dealing with deadlines.

When there are no urgent clients on the list that require immediate responses, I've experienced value in bulking calls.

These scheduled blocks for checking voicemail and returning calls save time and conserve energy otherwise spent losing momentum on other tasks taking calls that could've waited until the end of the day.

What about driving and taking or making calls? Now--that's a completely different conversation.

Cheers,
Tanya

Integrity & Awareness by Paul Burnstein said...

Thanks for sharing Tanya! I know others who also bulk their calls together and find it a good way to save time and work more efficiently. I appreciate your comments.
~Paul

Jennie said...

I agree that if you're not available you shouldn't answer. I feel the same is true for landline phones. I had an employee who would drop everything (including in-person conversations) to answer their desk phone! This wasn't someone whose job depended on phone traffic, and I had to do a little coaching to get them to see that the ringing was not the signal to stop everything.

Integrity & Awareness by Paul Burnstein said...

Jennie, I am glad to hear that you specifically are trying to coach those around you on this.
~Paul