Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:<\/p>\n
Rules of telephone courtesy for people who want my help:<\/p>\n
Do not leave me a voice mail, throw the handset back on the cradle and dash out of your office. When I call you back 30 seconds later, I don\u2019t want to hear that you\u2019ve just stepped out.\u00a0 You\u2019ve wasted my time responding to a call that you\u2019re not available to take.\u00a0 Wait a decent interval \u2013 five minutes or so \u2013 in case I reply immediately.\u00a0 Yes, that means thinking ahead a bit: do not leave voice mails while you\u2019re holding your pants to avoid wetting them; go to the can now and call me when you\u2019re done.<\/p>\n
Do not call me on the cell phone with your window down, the radio up, right before the tunnel, or when you\u2019re on gravel roads at your lake place where the signal is iffy.\u00a0 Inaudible and dropped calls waste my time.<\/p>\n
Do not call me to discuss a file without having the file number in front of you.\u00a0 When I have to wait on hold while you paw through the mess on your desk looking for basic information, it wastes my time. \u00a0And no, I won\u2019t answer \u201cjust a general question\u201d because I\u2019ve been down that road before so I know the facts you recite are never what the facts turn out to be, but you\u2019ll still blame me when general advice doesn\u2019t solve your specific problem.<\/p>\n
Do not leave a long message rambling on until you panic that your time is running out, then rattle off your number so fast I can\u2019t make out the words.<\/p>\n
When I call you back, do not answer the phone using the speaker phone setting.\u00a0 Yes, it\u2019s easier for you to shout while you lean back in the chair instead of hanging onto the handset and talking into the mouthpiece, but it\u2019s harder for me to make out your words with the cacophony of paper rustling and chair squeaking and echo distortion.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure there are more of them, but those are the ones that have come up this morning.\u00a0 So far.<\/p>\n
Joe Doakes<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Don’t talk with your mouth full.\u00a0 \u00a0Ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Rules of telephone courtesy for people who want my help: Do not leave me a voice mail, throw the handset back on the cradle and dash out of your office. When I call you back 30 seconds later, I don\u2019t want to hear that you\u2019ve just stepped out.\u00a0 You\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geekery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64980"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64981,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64980\/revisions\/64981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}