Do you screen your calls?

Frank Parish · From: Nashville,Tn. USA

In the 70's when I would look for players I almost always got an answer when I called them. Today everybody seems to feel the need to screen all the calls and over 95% of the time I get voice mail or an answering machine. Why do people feel the need to sit by the phone and listen to you leave a message when they could just pick it up? I don't understand people that don't even call you back. It seems things were a lot more one on one not too long ago. Do you have this problem finding pickers for a paying gig?

Jack Francis · From: Queen Creek, Arizona, USA

I don't.. but it's rude..I could only imagine My Father in Heaven "Screening our prayers"! Rolling Eyes

Paul King · From: Gainesville, Texas, USA

I look at the called ID to see who is calling. The main reason is for telemarketers. If is a number I do not recognize I will let the call notes handle it and then retrieve the message. About the only other time I do not answer it is when the in-laws are calling. I know they are wanting my wife and not me so I let it ring. I do not intentionally not answer for a musician wanting to pick. I just am not getting enough playing time right now so I am willing to jam.

Dennis Coelho · From: Wyoming, USA

Maybe it is a generational thing. My daughter, now in her late 20's, always has her phone set on voice mail, and she says that all of her friends do the same, which seems to be the case. It is interesting in a way in that it changes the dynamic of phone usage from giving the call the initiative to giving the initiative to the responder. It drives us batty when we need to get in touch with her, but her phone has a particular ring tone that tells her when it is her parents calling, and she responds quickly (usually).

But cell phone technology has really changed our relationship to communication in general.

Dennis

Robert Leaman · From: Murphy, North Carolina, USA

For years, telephone companies advertised that a telephone is for a subscriber's convenience. I agree totally with the telephone company for this particular statement.

Inasmuch as my telephone is there for my convenience and I pay for its leased line, I choose when to answer and when to ignore it. There is an answering device that permits a message when callers have the courtesy to leave a message. Messages are heavily filtered to weed out undesireables.

With telemarketers, I put my numbers on the "Do Not Call List" and since, I have no problems with their exceedingly annoying crap*.

* Here, the word "Crap" is used to imply a more common word for feces.

Ken Williams · From: Arkansas

Do I screen all my calls? You bet. If the number is out of state, toll free, or a number I don't recognize, I just let the machine get it. It's usually a telemarketer, a bill collector, or someone wanting me to take a survey. If it's important, they will leave a message. If they don't call back or leave a message it must have not been that important. At least that's the way I look at it. I'm aware that many folks do the same thing. So, if I call someone and get a machine, if it's important I leave a message. If it's not, I don't. Many times they will see my name on the caller ID and call me back anyway to see what I wanted.
There are no gigs around here, so I doubt that I'm missing any gigs. Maybe if I lived in a bigger music(club) market I may see things differently.

Oh by the way, if you call just leave a message after the tone. Very Happy

Ken

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

Back in the 70's we didn't have a list of telemarketers lined up to call us every night, so we answered the phone.

Today , with the addition of Cell Phones and Internet phones, I would venture to say that there are millions more phones today than in the 70's and the bad news is almost all of them are being used 24/7.

Someone is always calling someone else.

Offshore phone solicitors calling back into the USA at specified hours when the average Joe American is known to be home either eating dinner or watching Law and Order.

It's not possible to compare todays phone society where many homes have as many as 5 phones ( cell and landlines) as compared to a single phone 35 years ago.

Do I (we) screen calls ? You bet...

How many times am I supposed to answer the phone for the Dish Network in one night anyway ?

We use caller ID and we always answer the calls from family , friends and names that are known to us, otherwise..

"Thank you for calling, please leave a message"..

We are on the do not call list, but somehow some of these callers have figured out a way around it...

Frank Parish · From: Nashville,Tn. USA

I put my name on the Do Not Call List and they simply quit calling. As for bill collectors, then that's another matter but I don't have them calling either. Here there's a million pickers and you get new numbers all the time of people you don't know. I get calls from pickers I never met or heard of but it can turn into money so I always answer and just got tired of paying for Caller ID when I can just answer the phone and in case it turns out to be somebody I don't need to talk to, I just hang up. That's usually not the case. When you're trying to find somebody for a gig and especially when you have a cancellation, you need to talk to somebody fast. I just never seen the need to screen callers. I sometimes wonder if these pickers ever find any work if they don't answer the phone.

Ken Lang · From: Simi Valley, Ca

When our phone rings it has a voice that tells us who is calling. It says the name in reverse, last name first. If it's some one we don't want to talk to it will continue to ring until the answering machine takes it, if they wait that long. We have 3 phones on that network plus a couple of dumb ones that only ring.

Someday we'll be able to program the phone to be able to cuss out just the ones we chose. Wouldn't that be fun?

Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Yes, I screen calls. IMO, screening calls is not rude, but telemarketers and automated calling machines are. The National Do Not Call List is extremely ineffective. Within several months after signing up, telemarketing calls went back up to 70 or 80% of the calls in our household. Tony is right - many companies just outsource their telemarketing to foreign telemarketers who are not bound by U.S. telemarketing laws. I work at home quite a bit, and would be getting interrupted every 10-15 minutes if I picked up every phone call, I'm not joking.

The first line of defense against intrusive annoyance calls is the caller id, the second is the answering machine. You can believe that if we don't recognize the phone number and a caller doesn't leave a message, we're not going to pick up. If I recognize the phone number or it's someone I know on the answering machine, I pick up right away if I'm there - or call back as soon as I can if I'm not there. It's real simple. Answering machines sure beat family members taking messages and garbling them up or forgetting to tell me about the call. IMO, of course.

Michael Douchette · From: Gallatin, TN (deceased)

"Calls?!?" Question

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Henry Nagle · From: Santa Rosa, California

I too feel cynical about new fangled phone technology.

Before cell phones, I didn't have a phone attached to me all day long. It's a dubious convenience. I don't answer during the day unless it's my wife, a business related call, or someone that I've asked to call me.

Come to think of it, I don't answer the phone much at home either.

There's just too much telephone going on these days. Time must be saved for work and family.

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

Nick, you get calls for gigs ?

MUSIC types reach me by CELL , I generally answer that phone because the other 250,000,000 people with phones do not call my Cell number to try to sell me the Fruit of the Month membership.

In NC the National Do Not Call list I suspect is just another list that they use to learn new phone numbers to call.

Sure I can report some caller from the Phillipines but what will that really accomplish ? Are we thinking there are actually......

" National Do Not Call List Police " ?

My wife has invented a way to solve the problem...

She shuts her Business Cell phone off after 7 pm.

It's a great way to get people to stop calling after business hours after "THEY" have finished dinner...

She didn't even need the Easy Button

Paul King · From: Gainesville, Texas, USA

One evening my in-laws were here for dinner. The phone rings and my mother-in-law answers the phone. She tells the lady on the other end "Yeah, he's right here" and hands me the phone. I answer the phone thinking it is a friend calling only to find out ssomeone is wanting to sell me something I did not want and did not need. I would have never answered if I had seen the caller ID. As far as telemarketers go, I was at a house on day doing a service call. The phone rang and the lady said "What are you selling that I am not buying" and she hung up the phone. I always thought that was a great answer to a telemarketer. Caller ID is one of the greatest inventions in modern history and sure has saved me a lot of wasted time on the telephone.

Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

100% effective ?
thats remarkable ! Even amazing !

How is it possible ?

How many residents in Ca ?
How many telemarketer calls ?
How many complaints ?
each one has been resolved ?

I can report calls to NC and I have. But the biggest problem with the National Calls list is that companies SUB OUT there marketing contracts to multiple vendors, mostly offshore . If we are gonna still believe that each of the off site vendors is gonna play by the rules then we really ARE NUTS !

Sure the vendor of record can be held to task but they can also make claim that they advise there new solicitors to play by the rules.

I would certainly agree that with the National Do NOT Call List, it is better, but it is not the final grail.

"If you have a phone, they will call"

I have reported POLICE Protection solicitation many many times, they keep calling saying they have no record of there firm being contacted. We have asked THEM to remove us and they say they do, but the phone rings and guess who it is ?

The last guy told us his company was a new service for this account and he was going by old records.

It's not 100% in NC ..I can tell ya that !

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

I dunno what to say - the DNCL is very far from 100% effective here. For example, recently, I kept on getting calls from a particular local number 8-10 times a day with no message. It went on for weeks. One day I answered, and it was a very aggressive telemarketing call purporting to be soliciting for subscriptions to a local newspaper - I told him he shouldn't be calling, we were on the DNCL. He said newspapers were exempt - 1st amendment and all that - I very aggressively told him he better take us off his list. But I think most of this is coming from offshore now.

The real problem is that new technology increasingly permits more and more intrusive information overload. Abusive phone solicitation, abusive email spam, commercials on TV, useless and sometimes malicious websites which use false keywords to draw in search engines, you name it - every communication channel available is crammed with garbage. If you want to live with the modern world, one critical skill is learning to filter the garbage out. Unfortunately, there is no 100% effective filter. There will always be false positives - detect problem when there isn't one, and false negatives - don't detect problem when there is one.

Or one could just move to a mountain top with no phone or computer. Wink

Ray Minich · From: Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra

"If your phone isn't ringing it's me not calling" Smile

I always liked that line.......

Jim Eaton · From: Santa Susana, Ca

Just do what I do, answer with one word spoken in a tone of voice that means business..."Homicide".
9 out of 10 telemarketers hang up right away and that 10th one is fair game for a little reverse interogation. "Who are you and why are you calling this phone number?" "Who are you trying to reach and what is the nature of your connection with them?"
JE:-)>

Colby Tipton · From: Crosby, Texas, USA

Yes I do.
I pick up if it is not a crap number and I also listen to all of the messages on my recorder.
Sometimes I wish I wouldn't have got the sales block thing.
I used to talk to them and listen and keep them going for ever and finally say, "NO Thanks".
You could lead them on forever, it was fun.
My old lady didn't like them calling so that killed that.

Randy Beavers · From: Lebanon,TN 37090

Leave a message and I'll get back to you. Very Happy

Howard Tate · From: Leesville, Louisiana, USA, R.I.P.

I don't ignore the phone now because my wife's sister is in the final stages of cancer, so I always answer. We always pay our bills so collectors don't call us, but my stepson leaves our number with every one and he doesn't pay any bills, so we get his bill collector calls. Some times you just can't win. Crying or Very sad

Larry Hutchison · From: Peoria, Illinois, USA

Frank, I absolutely screen all of my calls. Especially if I dont know the number. If its someone I need to talk to if I dont recognize the number all they have to do is speak and I'll pick up the phone. As far as the National "Do Not Call List" I have my home and cell phone registered, and still get the calls. Not on my cell phone but on my home phone. Telemarketers dont care whether your on the Do Not Calls List, unless you directly tell them. I have separate ring tones for family and friends and I always answer those, other than those call when someone calls my phone all they have to do is speak and if I need to talk to them I will answer.

I pay the bill so I guess I can be selective.
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James Cann · From: Phoenix, AZ

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