Phone manners

I don't know whether this follows on from my last blog post or not, but something that has been vexing me lately is the abject lack of manners some people display on the phone these days!

More than once recently, my phone has rung and when I've answered it, I've been greeted with, "Hello. Who's this?"

No no, good sir! You rang me! If you're anyone I care to talk to, you already have an idea to whom you're speaking, or at least with whom you wish to be speaking. I don't like being assaulted by a cold caller acting like the Spanish Inquisition.

I've also been rung up and asked a series of personal questions with not so much as a how do you do!

After picking up the phone, I get "Hello. Can I ask how much you pay on your phone bill each month?"
You can ask, madame, but I'm not telling you?
She then had the cheek to ask why I wouldn't tell her how much I spend on my phone bill! When I explained it's because I had no idea who she was or why she wanted to know, she ventured that she was Carla and asked again, how much I spend on my phone.

And hacking me off the most at the moment, is when you ring up to make a mundane enquiry of an organisation. For example, ringing up your mobile service provider to find out when you're due an upgrade. Something similar to the following has happened to me three times in the last week.

I ring up and after navigating their 'helpful' automated phone system (which in the first instance spent about 5 minutes getting me to make simple choices and press numbers finished by telling me that the number had changed and I now needed to ring another number... that took me down the same series of options), I get through to a real person.
"Hello," he says "My name is Stuart. How can I help you?"
"Hi. I just called to check the status of my Direct Debit to Tesco."
"The one last paid on the 21st of November?" Stuart enquires.
"Yes," I reply.

Then... nothing. Not a sound. The line goes silent. I hold off on asking if he's still there for fear of sounding needy. He only introduced himself seconds ago and I don't want him to feel that I've based much of my future happiness on him. I strain to listen for breathing, keytaps, the sound of hurried footsteps and a door shutting, but nothing! I leave it a little longer but still nothing. I have no idea how long checking that would take, if that's what Stuart's gone to do. Surely not this long? Maybe it does take a while. I'll leave it a little longer. Maybe he's talking to me right now and I've just gone deaf and he thinks I'm being awfully rude by not answering, but a quick rap of my knuckles on the desk disproves that one.
Eventually, the fear that I'm actually sat holding a disconnected phone to my ear and how ridiculous I'll feel if I wait this way for much longer overcomes me.
"Erm... hello?" I say tentatively. "Are you still there?"
"Yeah," comes the reply. "I'm just checking that for you."

Then bloody well say that's what you're going to do before you become a mute midway through a conversation, Stuart!! If I can't see you checking on that for me, and I can't hear you, the line could have been disconnected, one of us may have accidentally pressed the mute button with our cheeks, or you may have had an unexpected coronary and died midway through our conversation and I worry, Stuart! I worry. But you don't care!

All it takes is, "Give me a moment to check that," and I'm happy! I know that while you may have gone silent during an audio only interaction, the reason is that you're preoccupied fulfilling my request. Surely basic manners say that when somebody makes a request of you, you don't just blank them and make no acknowledgement of it?!

I might try that with next cold-caller though.