Bohemia Bunny

Mobile Phone Etiquette: Missed Calls

April 16th, 2008 by lynnylchan under Comments

What do you do when you get missed calls? Specifically, missed calls from unknown numbers? Obviously if you know who called you, you’d return their calls. But what do you do about anonymous numbers?

Back in the days of landlines, it was simpler. If no one picked up, you tried again. If you got a machine, you either hung up or left a message. No biggie, after all, if you decided not to leave a message, the recipients had no obligation to get back to you. If the person you wanted wasn’t available, you left a message and just waited for a return call.

But apparently some people, who are either stuck in the era of landlines or have (to me) bad etiquette, just hang up before voicemail kicks in. They know that their number will be displayed, so they assume that’s as good as leaving a message for me to call them back.

If they were my friends, well and good. Of course I would call them back.

But why would I ever call an anonymous number, unless I had some inkling of who it was? For all I know, it was a wrong number. Goodness knows I still get wrong numbers, which is ridiculous because I’ve had the same number for the last 5 YEARS. Whoever had my number before me must have wanted to escape his contacts real bad, since it would appear that he didn’t update them. And yes, I’m quite sure it’s a male.

I mean, voicemail is there for a reason. If you want to talk to me so badly, perhaps you should leave me a message? Just a suggestion, you know. Or hey, you can always SMS me, telling me what’s up.

If none of the above is forthcoming, I blithely assume any of 2 things:

1. Wrong number, therefore waste of my time to call back.

2. Cold-calling from insurance agents, financial planners, time-share schemes etc. Even bigger waste of my time to call back.

Bottom line: If you aren’t on my contacts list, and aren’t savvy or common-sensical enough to use voicemail and sms - I probably don’t need to talk to you.