Throughout the conversation the caller seemed off balance, as if he had expected the call to go another way. He even suggested that I was not being friendly and cooperative. No, I wasn’t, but I was being polite. If you are a total stranger, and I know neither you nor your voice, and I can neither see you nor assess your purpose, why should I initiate a personal relationship with you merely because you have called me? I think people who do that think I will answer “Fine, and you?” reflexively, which sets up the expectation of a connection, and thus makes not listening to their sales pitch awkward. Sorry, guy. That approach may work with many people, but not with me.
The approach sometimes seems to assume that we are all sistren and brethren who only lack an introduction that can be remedied by the phone call; while we are all equal humans and on many levels *are* all sistren and brethren, the reality of the world is that I can’t see you and so you may be the local rapist for all I know. You may be a wonderful warm human being that I would be proud to know, but in a large city with personal crime on the rise, I also need to be wary.
I wonder if the caller had ever been trained in basic telephone etiquette? Did he not read the Richard Scarry books about manners as a child, or (if old enough) read them to his child? I was raised to use the following conventions for making contact over the phone with people I don’t know, and I expect others to be similarly polite to me: “Hello, my name is X from [Insert either rescue group or university]. May I please speak with Ms. So and So?” Sometimes one adds [Short business], such as “I’m so and so’s foster; may I please speak with … ” or “I’m returning your call about Class #, may I please speak with … ?” It may be formal, but it establishes who I am, how the person might know me (and how I got their number), and why they might want to listen to me. Mind you, if I am calling a friend, all bets are off–but a cold call is not the same as calling a friend, and should not be treated as such. But even when I am calling someone I know, but am not on a good-friends basis with, I identify myself. “Hi, [Person X], this is [my name]; I’m calling about X / retuning your call, do you have a minute?”
We, as dinosaurs, need to stick together
Give me good telephone manners and friendly over the counter help. Sadly, they don’t teach either of those things anymore.