Q&complAints #590: Telephone Faux Pas

What is the most annoying telephone faux pas?

Post your answer in the LEAVE A COMMENT section below. I’m not the boss of you, though. Don’t write anything for all I care! Go ahead and answer that, I’ll wait.
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. . .here are my thoughts.

What is the most annoying telephone faux pas?

I answer the phone at work with something to the effect of, “Thanks for calling; this is Brad.  How can I help you?”  People often begin their response, “Hi, Brian.  I was calling …”  I never bother correcting them about my name.  I don’t care if Mary—or is it Martha?—knows what my name is.  Notice my use of the present tense “is.”  My name is Brad; it wasn’t Brad in the past, then changed to Brian or Brett.  My birth certificate reads Brad (technically “Bradley,” but you get the gist) and has remained my name for nearly 45 consecutive years.  But our friend, Megan, on the phone “was” calling—past tense.  I doubt she considers only the dialing of the pharmacy’s phone number to be the entire act of calling.  My answering her call doesn’t convert her act of calling to an event of the past.  She should say “I am calling”—present tense.  Let’s go a step further: scrap the entire lead in—including whatever she wants my name to be—and get on with the inquiry.  I can’t even remember what the point of this post was is.


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