The Landline Phone

            

True landline phones receive enough electricity to work even when the power is out.  This is not true of cordless phones which are dead when your homes electricity is out.   You should have a corded phone extension on every floor of your house.

      We have an unlisted number in the hope that only family, friends and people who legitimately do business with us, will call.   We also have our land line number on the "Do Not Call" list.   This worked pretty well for the twenty-five years our household has been in business.   However, now with computerized calling for everything from sales calls to political surveys, they often call numbers in sequence.  They might not have any idea who you are, but they are calling 2367, 2368, 2369, 2370 and so on.  In the past several years, this type of call translates into a lot of calls on a daily basis.

               Also in the last few years, everyone in our household has their own cell phone.  Personal calls to individual family members and work related calls usually go to the cell, as do friends calls.  The home landline is there to call 911, and to report power outages, and as a back up during other emergencies. It's also good to have when you need to fax something.   To deal with the high call volume I have a digital answering machine, and when it gets full, the landline has voicemail as part of our phone service.   Both are often full.   I am a very busy person and sometimes it takes me a while to listen to everything on both the digital answering machine and then the backup voicemail.    We have also developed a few policies over the years in dealing with the phone.

1. The phone is there for our convenience, not for anyone else.  We use it when we want, and this means that we don't have extensions to the landline everywhere.  We don't answer when it's not convenient, and we never answer during mealtimes.   I don't answer after about nine-thirty pm because my kids know to call me personally on my cell.

2. When I was in school we were taught that who you vote for and your political leanings are your private personal business, and so we do not, and we will not answer questions for political surveys.  This also goes for our own delegates, our Congressman, and our Senators.  I have already written you about what we want.  Read it, and you'll know what we think.  Don't call.

3.   We don't provide information on the products we use or our feelings about them free of charge to you, over the phone.  We don't exist here for you to farm as marketing information.

4.  We never ever donate money over the phone.  We have selected our charities and we contact THEM when we donate.  If you are doing good things and worthy of donations, mail a letter about it so that our accountant can check you out.

5.  We never ever buy anything over the phone.  There are too many scams and too many opportunities to obtain information for the purpose of identity theft.   If I needed something done on my house, I would call you, when I complete my research which includes the Better Business Bureau.

6.  What makes you think I would buy a vehicle extended warranty from someone I have never heard of, when you don't even know who I am or what type of car I have ?  

7.   Don't call me from India if your English is not good enough to be understood here.  I will hang up when I don't understand you.

8.  Don't suppress your identifying information from caller ID.  Your only hope of my answering is my recognizing your number.  "Head Office" on the caller ID will be ignored.


                I am a little annoyed at the prospect of needing to purge the calls from both my digital answering machine and phone company voicemail twice a day.  I am considering leaving a new message.


             "Due to the high volume of received calls, I may not be able to return your call.   No one here answers political surveys, donates money over the phone, buys products including credit cards or car warranties over the telephone.

              Calls are only returned to individuals we know or companies with whom we are already doing business.   If you are not an individual known to us, or a company with whom we have a longstanding business relationship, please do not leave a message.    Thank you."

  

                   I think it's a little longwinded.