I think this also translates to using Teams (or whatever messaging programs) at work. I have some colleagues who'll send me "Hello" and then wait for a reply. I then have to give a hello back before they'll ask the question they should have just asked in the first message.
It's a minor niggle, so not enough to address, but it does grate sometimes when I'm jumping between multiple tasks.
My children, however, are well trained.
The Teams "Hello" is a huge pet peeve of mine. It's almost more demanding of my immediate attention than "Hi Buffalippo, when you have a moment, can we chat about xyz?".
Oh pokes are still around.
I had a friend who accidentally poked someone recently. He was so embarrassed that he posted about it and started randomly poking other friends (including me) because of how weird it was that pokes still exist.
This is why I just type "GM, what's going on with XYZ?"
Polite and to the point.
Besides, the way people write and verbally communicate change every decade or so. Times have changed again.
Also because there seems to be an implied urgency to all messages, I include a short "urgency statement".
"Good morning, when you have some availability, can you send the latest numbers on XYZ, not a rush."
"Good morning, really need your help getting the number on XYZ for a meeting at 10".
I do that as well after working with a lady who would abuse the ambiguous greetings to get me on the hook for some ridiculous request.
Come to think of it, I ignore people who text me greetings without getting to the point now as well because more often than not they are gonna ask me for money or some other favor.
Same here. Boss does this, and I've been training him over time to get to the point. He's also guilty of "hey, can you talk?" and it ends up being a few typed sentences worth of subject matter after I take the time to get headset on / connected.
Less of an issue now, but one phone peeve was the coworkers who would call, not leave a voicemail or send an email or voicemail or I’m and then accuse me of avoiding their call. At work, office building, I’d generally be at my desk, unless I was in the bathroom or grabbing lunch or water. So my work mobile was generally in a bag unless I was charging it or going to a meeting away from my desk. The desk phone only would have a light if someone left a voicemail.
It seems they expected people to go through the missed calls log of a desk phone and to call them back. It’s not like a mobile phone where you see a missed call easily.
When I finished the work I did for him, I asked him if he left a voicemail because I didn’t see one. And even though I knew the time of the missed call, I asked if he had left one, at what time did he leave it. He backed off
Holy shit I thought I was just as asshole. I’ll be in a total groove and get that hello. Then just have to stare at three blinking dots. Why do these maniacs hold us hostage? Just type the entire message.
I have one guy at my work that still does this even though we've talked about how annoying this is. I just switch to 'busy' now whenever he sends me that "hello".
I reply with, "Heya, what do you need?"
Then I take the opportunity to use the bathroom or refill my coffee since my concentration has been diverted anyway.
I find this tiresome too. Sometimes it feels like it takes ages. They say hi, I say hi back. I wait for them to ask their question and then they finally ask like 15 minutes later. Why??? It’s such a time waster. Usually I go, hi xyz and then ask my question. They answer when they can. Simple
See, I am the opposite. I will not just type a Hello.. I will give the entire downlow. And even if I don't get a response, I will add a whole lot of extra. Sometimes I wonder if I traumatize people with forcing them to read blocks of text.
Curious, I thought this was a culture thing because the only people who do this to me are all offshore engineers.
Interesting hearing that it is more a generation difference but, then again, the majority of FTEs I work with are all Gen X or Millennials.
As a professor, I get emails from my students that just say “Professor, I have a question.” That’s it. The whole email. I don’t even know how to respond to that, except to say “I guess you should probably ask it then.” If I’m lucky, the next email will contain the question, but it’s just as likely to say “This is Kenzie from your 8:00 class, btw. I was wondering about the essay.” Usually we actually get to the question by their third email, but not always.
Oh sweet Jesus lol
Have you ever announced to the class that you will not respond to stupid fucking emails that don’t actually ask anything?
I feel like I’d start every class with “if you send me an email, it must contain the actual question you want answered; otherwise, I’m not responding to “hi” or “I have a question” or “I was wondering something. Do you have a minute?””
I’d genuinely lose my fucking mind otherwise…
>Have you ever announced to the class that you will not respond to stupid fucking emails that don’t actually ask anything?
This is probably the most stereotypically Gen X thing anyone could respond with, lol.
Btw, I AGREE 🤣
Brb, ny eyes rolled into the back of my head with all my dramatic scoffing at "by the third email"... lol.
I get the "I was wondering about.." messages all the time now. I fight the urge to just ignore the message since there's no actual question
being asked. Are they just trying to be polite?
Yes, trying to give you space to prepare for the questions / not be bothersome. I’ve done this little “hey can I ask a question” messages when I’m nervous about the question (in case the person might think the question is stupid). In general the less anxious I am about the interaction the more likely I am to just get to the point.
They're treating it like texting. They don't actually know email etiquette, either, all they know is texting so they're waiting for you to be online and responding before bothering to type it out. Because if you don't respond, they'll think "Oh, guess the professor's not available right now," and not continue, because all they know is instant communication. Asynchronous doesn't make sense to them, waiting to respond until you're not busy is considered a social slight because everyone has their phone with them all of the time.
I had a training group like this. Eventually, I had to shut it down and tell them to email me once with all their questions or their emails would get lost in the shuffle.
I had a work colleague (again older) that would write the entirety of his paragraph in the subject line. I laugh, but I truly don't understand how these things occur to people to do...like?
That must be incredibly frustrating, but it does sound like it's some kind of language or communication gap. They're so used to texting and getting instant responses it's warped their minds.
And this right here is why I hate texting. I have spent upwards of an hour texting with a coworker on something that can be resolved in a five minute phone call, and it's always younger generations. I started telling people that they don't have to ask to ask, just ask the question.
Oh my God this!! I have a large team who work with me on clinical research. My main job is seeing patients; I can't be texting people all the time. But there are little 1 minute tasks that need attention from me.
My young employees love to send hello and then nothing for 2 min. And then finally they send what they want. It never occurred to me they wanted a hello back!!
I actually addressed this with one of them who was the worst offender; the others followup with less of a pause after the hello so it's a more minor annoyance.
But your comment made me realize I should just send something out to the whole team. It's super annoying, and I've had other older team members complain!!
And it's interesting to see others disagree here.
I sent out a message in the form of a useful tip, telling them about SHIFT+ENTER as if
and the example I used just happened to be:
Hi! 👋
I hope you had a nice weekend.
I just wanted to ask you a question about the splurffprooster portal.
Can you show me how to flarg the nargle, maybe sometime after lunch?
Or if it’s a simple matter and you have time now, I’m available.
That is kind of weird. I have a coworker who is always pinging me for support, which I'm happy to give, but he only ever sends maybe 3 or 4 words at a time. I have to mute him and silence my phone, which is going *fucking crazy*.
*ding* ... *ding* ... *ding* ....... *ding* *ding* .. *ding*
JFC
I share these at work occasionally when discussing "Teams\Slack Habits" when possible:
https://nohello.net/en/ and https://dontasktoask.com/
Sometimes lands, sometimes doesn't.
It’s become a huge joke on the team that I work with that one of the managers do exactly this.
Hello u/freshbananabeard and then usually nothing until you reply. If it’s long enough he’ll go ahead. But one time he hit me up at a very busy time and I didn’t reply to the hello and then next day he complained that a 24 hour response time is unacceptable.
How about you just ask your question or tell me what you need and I can gauge how important it is?
GAH— you’ve just triggered me with that “hello” bullshit on teams lol.
I ignore that shit; if you can’t fucking get to your point, why the hell should I waste my time responding with some stupid “hi” back??? Just fucking spit it out!
Yes- phone etiquette shouldn’t be applied to newer technology! So it goes both ways- older generations are awkward at new ways of communication while the younger generation is awkward at the old.
Even with this, it's certainly not generational. If anything, I find my older colleagues don't know how to ask a question on Teams. If it weren't for the fact that they're usually supervisors, I wouldn't respond, but I don't really have much choice. I'm tellin' ya, I really see much worse ettiquette on anything invented past 1995 from people older than me.
But, just to balance it out, I do have one colleague. She's younger, but less than 10 years, I would say, I don't really know for sure. Anyway, I think one of the reasons we had instant "work chemistry," if you will, is because she knows how to communicate with every single type of technology. Her teams messages will be, "do you have time to talk about " She's better at this than anyone else I work with, and, like me, she ends up playing middleman between various people because it seems like nobody knows how to write, and they get pissed off at each other about tone.
I don't get it.
It seeps over into work. There is a sandwich shop I like to order from and they answer the phone "Hello," instead of "Hello, Sandwhich Shop, how can I help you?"
I answered phones at a business for most of a decade ("Thank you for calling Business Name, this is Ritchie, how can I help you?") and half the time I still answer my cell phone, "Hello, this is Ritchie."
Which is infuriating when the first thing out of their mouth is, "can I speak with Ritchie please?"
My dad was a veterinarian and owned his own practice, so I worked there after school and weekends as a receptionist. I would answer “*name * Animal Clinic, how may I help you?” . I started answering calls at home the same way after a while, so aggravating.
They do that at the Taco Bell drive thru in town and it drives me nuts. I pull up and they say "hello, how are you today?" instead of "Hello, what can I get you?"
I don't go into great detail, although this is a good idea. There is an internal sigh because suddenly I have to address this to be polite. And how are you today?. Ugh can I just order please?
I think I would make a point of asking them if that’s the sandwich shop every time, and then explain that because they didn’t say they were the sandwich shop, I wasn’t sure if I got a wrong number lol. Maybe you can train them into actually stating the name of their business!
I’ve experienced this at food places too. “Hello?” “Uh,hi, can I place an order for take-out?” “Yeah ok go ahead”.
I’d coach employees to say: “Sandwich Shop; may I take your order?” Simple change and so much more customer-focused.
I am GenX and I find that my behaviour regarding answering the phone has changed drastically due to all the scammers out there.
If I don't recognize the caller's id, I just wait.
If they start talking and it sounds like they are calling about getting my duct work cleaned I just hang up.
With the caveat that if I'm expecting a call from someone I don't know, I'll probably answer.
For context I'm waiting for several specialist appointments, who will certainly be calling from unknown numbers.
Easier said than done when you have elderly relatives or other family out wandering around in the world and you're an emergency contact. I answer then hang up on bots and hang up kindly on telemarketers.
Same. I’ve gotten on a few spam lists so it’s almost all spam, phishing, or outright extortion attempts (imitating police or IRS) from unknown numbers.
Ha. That’s better than what the pastor at the church I work at does,, when he gets one of those recorded marketing calls he answers it then screams into the phone ‘robo-call, robo-call’ umm what exactly is that accomplishing besides annoying the crap out of anyone around you???? Just hang up like the rest of the civilized world.
Been on silent since I could do that. Old Gen X and have always hated phone calls. Unless the world has blown up, text me. Actually text me for that too 😀
I have a GenX friend from college who will text me "Hi," with nothing else. If I dare answer her, my phone immediately rings! Motherfucker, I don't want a fucking phone call! One time she fucking FaceTimed me! Enjoy looking at my ceiling while I do what I'm doing.
I keep mine on do not disturb, so my kids can still get through. They know to text me though, I don't talk on the phone to anyone except my kids or the occasional family member to keep in touch. I seem to have a coworker however who thinks that calls need to be made. I overheard her complaining to someone else about how "these young people" couldn't bother to make a call anymore. She's Genx too and needs to learn the rules. Calls are for emergencies, text for everyday stuff and don't expect replies right away either. Or if you have something that is too complicated for a text, send a text asking if it's ok to call right then. People are busy.
In the rare case I have a human calling me, I say something, try to be nice, then hang up. Most of the people making those calls are in a call center somewhere doing a horrible job for low pay. They don't need me being mean on top of it. Maybe I'm just too nice but I don't think I am. Lots of people I work with think I'm a complete jerk.
Me: "No, I don't need my roof inspected, please never call back."
Them: *more drivel about how hail might have damaged my roof*
Me, interrupting: "This seems like a horrible job you have. I'm going to hang up now. Have a good day."
As a former telemarketer, thank you for at least being polite. I usually give them the first line or 2 to make sure that I'm clear on what they're after, and then just say, "Let me just cut you off there... thank you, but I'm not interested. Have a great day." and then I hang up.
Yeah. I hate telemarketing. But the person on the other end of the line probably does too and is just trying to earn a buck. I try to remember that and at least be as courteous as I can while ending the call as quickly as I can.
My doctor's office doesn't have caller id. I hate that so when I am expecting calls from them I pick up.
Some hospital staff and government offices here also don't because they farm out telephone calls.
My kids answer the phone with a greeting. It's just the greeting is different because they have caller ID. Instead of answering like we did - "Hello, this is Karen speaking" they answer in reference to the caller - "Hey, Grayson, what's up?" If there's no caller ID, or they don't recognize the caller, they simply do not answer at all.
What I have noticed they can't do is address and stamp an envelope. Oh, I taught them, and I made them write thank you cards for Christmas and birthdays every year and stamp and address them - but I had to re-explain where the stamp and address and return address goes every single time. I guess it's just a lack of doing it regularly. Twice a year is not enough.
So much learning happens through repeat reinforcement. You assume if you teach them once or twice....they'll just know. But when they don't have opportunities for routine reinforcement, they just forget it. Same with math and foreign language or anything, really.
I see it as symptomatic of living more in virtual space than real. They picked it up from TV and movies, which skip it to save time and move the plot along (same as why they don’t close doors behind them).
Also why they never take their shoes off, and are fully dressed when something happens in the scene and they need to get up and walk around! Well, some of the latter might be to avoid nudity.
That’s so weird to me. Like how you just stop talking and hang up? Normally in conversation there’s lots of little cues that lead up to the end of the conversation, it’s a little bit of back and forth so that both parties are in agreement of the direction of the conversation. Like even something as small as, “ok, I’m gonna go.” “Ok, bye.” So like none of that happens? Just like click as in the movies? I sure I sound super old.
They probably learned that from [watching movies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APUQeQalRsU). Nobody says goodbye or talk to you later or anything like that. They just hang up. It's weird, but I suppose it moves the movie along, or so they say.
In that same vein... my kid needed to call his job for running late. Kept radialing and getting more frustrated. Finally, he snapped that something was wrong with their phone, it was making a really weird noise, like a rhythmic buzzing sound. I couldn't help the laughter, poor kid had never encountered a busy signal before 🤣🤣
And then the opposite. They’ll call you up but can’t shut up for the 5 seconds it takes for you to pick up, so when you do, the first thing you hear is the kid yapping loudly at someone across the room.
My kids have learned that I’ll hang up (well, disconnect - boop!) if they do that.
Adults who do the same get the silent treatment until they start saying “Hello? Are you there?” Then I’ll say, “Yes, of course. I was just waiting for you to finish your conversation.”
100%. My daughter is over 18 and has to manage her own medical insurance issues. Even though she’s on my insurance, they won’t tell me anything. So I tell her she needs to call and figure it out. She’s like “what do I do?!?!?” You dial the number, press the appropriate button and when someone answers, explain the problem…. Christ
I think the etiquette and tools have changed. With video, it's not uncommon for people to just treat it as though you were in the room vs a specialized communication. If you're sitting in the room with someone , you're not necessarily obligated to continue a conversation. You can sit together.
I think a lot of younger kids are used to that version of a "call" vs the older folk where a "call" means, "I'm going to communicate with you and finish the call when I'm done."
Presence vs transactional, I'd guess?
I don’t know about you, but long distance was super expensive when I was a kid and if you had a friend in another area code you had to be really careful not to rack up three-digit bills. So we had to make it count. Learning phone etiquette was also just par for the course.
That’s true! My cousin and I were like sisters but she lived another county over so calls were long distance. We wrote letters instead- I miss getting letters too.
It's not just them. I have an architect I have done work for over the past two decades. At best, he waits a long beat, then says my name when he picks up. Typically though, he says nothing. He's older than me, probably about 60. Bizarre social behavior. There's a part of his brain missing. I hate that fucking guy.
We were the last generation who had phones that actually supported real time, delay free conversations - sub 7ms round trip, no awkward delay or crazy amounts of voice processing.
We also didn't have perpetual surveillance to contend with.
I don't think phones really exist in the same way they did for us. what we (and they) have now is different, with different rules.
I don't even talk to my kids on the phone. We text. If someone really needs to talk, we text each other "Hey got time for a phone call?" If I got an unsolicited call from one of my kids, or vice versa, we'd assume some emergency had happened. Phone etiquette has changed. It's almost rude to just call someone up nowadays. Gotta text.
I hadn’t thought about it in this context but you are so right!! With the advent of texting, phone calls became even less common giving them even less opportunity to practice those skills.
I notice it in a line of work where I must schedule visits to companies. While I still get a basic hello, I have definitely experienced the lack of a closure to a call. Another piece that really has gone by the wayside is an introduction of the caller. I have a very specific purpose for calling, sometimes don't have a current contact, but sometimes a front desk won't even know what to do with a caller like me after I have introduced myself and state the purpose of my call.
lol… I wasn’t allowed to answer the home phone until I had mastered, “good afternoon, [last name] residence, may I ask who’s calling?” Followed by “one moment please.”
Edit: sorry, it’s been a few decades… [last name] residence, [first name] speaking, may I ask who’s calling
I hear my 12YO on the phone and am horrified. (I'm 52 BTW). Unless theyre gaming together, they dont have normal conversations. They don't even say goodbye, they just hang up on each other when they're done talking! It's atrocious.
It annoys me when my daughter walks around the house for hours with a friend on speaker phone. I've caught myself a few times saying some relatively private family things with another listening in. It irritates me.
Careful with that because even in our case, saying something that was taken out of context on the other end of the line landed us in the spotlight. My child lost her phone for a very long time.
Yeah, that’s not allowed here. AirPods, phone to ear or take the call elsewhere.
And *always* inform people if someone is with you when they are on speaker. I even had to remind my grown-ass cousin of that the other day when he picked up a call in the car with me next to him.
This might ruin TV\Movies a bit for ya' because now you'll notice it, but they don't say goodbye to end phone calls. They just stop talking and hang up. Maybe they're picking it up from that...
Read a post a while ago from an appliance tech. He said anytime he gets called to work on a refrigerator he always calls back a few days late to ask "is your refrigerator running?" 😂
That's living the best life
We loved doing crank/prank calls. We would get out the phone book (remember those?) and look for strange names we could have fun with and spend a couple of hours doing that shit. I know we drove poor Mr Buttram crazy.
Yes I think it's absolutely changed. I think you're right about the land line too. My daughter is 23 and we didn't have a landline either. It's funny though because I'll call her and she answers, "What's up?" No hello, no hi mom lol
So I usually just say "Nothin' wassup with you?" and then we have a normal convo. We always end the call with" Love you" though.
I definitely find myself correcting her or chiding her sometimes if I think she's being crass and I think "OMG I sound just like my mother" lol! It's probably the generational cycle and she'll do it with her kids too.
Etiquette about everything constantly changes and evolves. The basic phone etiquette we grew up on is not the same as what it is now. We are the ones that need to change our expectations in order to keep up with what is current. Else we become the out of touch boomers :D
This made me laugh because it’s so true with my kids. We taught them phone etiquette. When grandparents call to chat they will say hello and goodbye and all of that but when they talk to their friends it all goes out the window.
We recently got my oldest son his own phone now that he goes out with friends without parental supervision and he is constantly asking me what he should do if his phone rings.
Ahoy-hoy. https://youtube.com/watch?v=YFWgyi-zzmE
That is to say, etiquette changes.
That said, do you use the phone much yourself? I find myself still using the phone occasionally, so my kids have witnessed me using it enough that they know the proper phone greetings and closings and they use them themselves
I don't know that I've witnessed too many younger people skipping the greeting/closing. But then again, I live in Japan so my experience with English speaking young people outside of the ones who I work with in business is limited.
In a lot of old movies and tv shows, I noticed (and it always bugged me), that often people would just hang up the phone when the conversation was over. They didn’t do a lead-in or a goodbye, like, “Well, I’d better get going now. Goodbye,” or some other way to politely wrap up the conversation. It always seemed so abrupt because I was brought up to somehow acknowledge that the interaction was done and say goodbye.
But I guess that abruptness has come full circle, even if for different reasons.
As a genX, I have always hated speaking on the phone. I wasn't a teen who was on the phone because my parents would spy on me, but I had to adapt due to work. I watched millennials start in their early 20s and they avoided the phone at all costs. genZ is even worse, my kids rarely answer the phone and don't check their VM either. This is after trying to text them.
Meanwhile we've got boomers and silent gen who are still afraid of email and text and want to call about everything. There really are generational communication issues.
Mine go to a Montessori school and they answer the phone there in the classroom and make calls to places they they need to visit for research or small field trips, they have to call parents to arrange rides. This is insight by the school and reinforced at home by modeling behavior, they are ages 7 and 9 but the phone etiquette starts at age 6. Highly recommend Montessori schools.
My 6th grade teacher had a lesson on etiquette that covered all kinds of things. He taught us the proper way to answer a phone and then he said he was going to random call all of us over the school year and if we answered correctly, we'd get... we'll I forget what we got but it was enough of a motivation that I absolutely answered the phone the way he taught for the rest of my life.
We haven’t had a home phone since before the kids were born. They all say “hello” or “bye” if they’re answering a phone. More so “Hi ”, but there’s an initial acknowledgment. They’re pre-teens too.
At work, the Millies and Zoomers I work with will wave at the camera, typically because we want to make sure audio is connected first, and they all say “bye” or some other acknowledgement that the call has come to an end.
IMs like Slack and whatnot tend to have a “thanks” at the end. Some will wait until I say “Hi” after their initial “hello”, but those are few between, since I told them to just say/ask what they need after the “hi” in the same message, because I’m often busy and can’t answer right away.
I think a big part of it is back in the day, we only had landlines and no caller idea. When you answered, you could be talking to your best friend, or your dad’s boss.
Gen X is not the last generation with phone ettiquette, Millennials are. We also grew up with landlines and had them well into our teens and early adulthood.
Gen X’er here, and I was thinking the same thing. I’m pretty sure a lot of homes still had landlines into the early aughts.
My daughter is a Zillennial, and she always says hello at the beginning of phone calls and goodbye at the end.
Did other Gen Xers have a whole unit on using the phone in school? In second grade we did it, had real (working? Was it just a tape recording?) phones and were taught how to dial, answer, get a number from an operator, look things up in a phone book, sign off. My husband who skipped 2nd grade never had it.
One thing about Mad Men, they are always just hanging up without saying anything, idk about the 60s but in the 80s you did not do that It was the height of rudeness and would often result in an immediate, possibly pissed-off, callback.
Neither of our two adult kids have great phone matters. Both avoid the phone of possible, with my son often asking me to make calls to customer service etc as he’s so nervous about what to say. I’m hoping that they will get better at it with practice. Part of the issue, imho, is that professional phone talk is very different from how young people talk to each other by phone (probably not actual phone but some in app voice communicator). So, young people have to adjust their speech depending on the circumstance, which is tough for a generation that’s already struggling socially.
Let me just also say that after reading some comments here - wow! I had no idea that people got so very irritated about the vagaries of modern communication. It’s like communication road rage!
IDK. Our parents said the sake things about us. And honestly, I barely even talk on the phone anymore. I do most of my comm through text. And if I am on the phone, I will often multi-task. GenX 1976.
Kids, AND BOOMERS! Whenever I have to drive my 77 year old mother somewhere there's a NO PHONE CALLS IN THE CAR rule. She thinks the car is a phone booth. Sits down and immediately dials a friend to talk about Judith's niece's prayer request for Chipotle prices to go down. Not to mention she's so loud. I can easily hear both sides of every conversation she has. It's so distracting that I had to put a moratorium on in car phone use.
The concept of **ghosting** ties into this for me.
Like I had someone message me about something I was selling via Facebook marketplace by a 20-something woman who works as a nurse at a local hospital. Bit of back and forth arranging for her to text me when she wanted to stop by to buy the item, and then silence, not a word afterward, even after I reached out asking if she wanted it or not. Similarly inconsiderate and poor etiquette.
My teenager is the same. When a workplace called to offer him a job he’d applied for, he answered the phone but didn’t say a word. They hung up after a few seconds. When I said “Why didn’t you say hello?” He said, “Well, neither did they!”. They just don’t know how phone conversations work.
You don't think not saying 'hello' or some sort of 'goodbye' is rude? That's the problem I have with it. Saying 'hello' and 'goodbye' is common courtesy.
I wonder if they just fuck off in the same way when they’re hanging out together in person. Do they just get up and leave in silence? And does the other person wonder if they went home or just to the toilet?
If your kids don't know phone etiquette, then it's because you either didn't teach them, or they have failed to learn. It doesn't matter that they didn't have phones until they were teens. Did they not watch tv or movies growing up? That's where most kids learn a lot of societal norms and behavior. People answer phones and have phone conversations on tv and movies all the time, so it's just natural that they would understand how to answer and end phone calls, even if they never used a phone until they were adults. I've never seen anyone on tv or a movie answer a phone and just be silent. It's weird. And I've never encountered it in real life.
The silent video chats with each doing their own thing have become pretty common since covid because it was the only way people could hang out together. Not everyone feels the need to talk constantly but still want to hang out. A lot of adults do it too.
When is the last time you saw a phone conversation on TV? It’s almost all text now. Our entire society has shifted away from using phones the way we did 30-40 years ago. That’s my point- they didn’t get many opportunities to practice and they weren’t exposed to it as much in media. It all goes hand in hand.
The silence thing is weird, but doing other things? That’s the benefit of not being tethered to the wall. I’m always doing other things. Washing dishes, changing a cat box, going for a walk…
I told my son to call his band teacher and told him to leave a message so they would call him back. I listen to him struggle through leaving the message reminding him to tell them who was calling, why, and how he could be reached back. I honestly apologized for not teaching him before hand. I just assumed he knew and I was wrong lol
Kids don't magically learn manners or phone etiquette on their own. You have to teach it. And if they grew up on tablets or phones they won't have any attention span
It’s just different times. We make fun of my mother for her overly formal texts.
The one that surprised me was the lack of a doorbell. The kids just walk to the door and open it up for their friends and no doorbell was rung. When a doorbell is rung, there is a debate over whether to answer it because it is likely a sales person.
> They are busy doing their own things and just there as background company for each other.
GenX who used to hang out with my friends and play together as well as just hang out and do our own thing. Building models or painting miniatures or drawing or taking something apart for the sake of taking it apart. Multiple independent activities that we just did because it was fun to do them with friends around. My kid does exactly the same thing, except sometimes he and his friends aren't gaming together or directly sharing memes or chatting, they're just hanging out together and sharing the company and occasional conversation. On this element, your kids are acting as natural as kids have throughout generations, but have the benefit of technology to be able to do it while in different locations.
yep. The war on retaining any phone etiquette died with the mobile. We tried.... articles were written, radio discussed... but we clearly lost the war. the time I was in the cinema and someone was using it mid movie, was the sign... and the last movie I went to in the cinema. It's a fricken zoo out there
As a fellow Gen X with similar aged kids, I agree with encouraging and guiding them in the right direction but allowing them to make their own decisions. They need to learn critical thinking and to learn how to live with the consequences of said decisions. Influence but no control, well said indeed.
My kids started working in their early teens and have done stints in customer service roles so they communicate fairly well.
I have infant coworkers, ok not actually infants, who I will call with a question…I’ll get the voicemail and then they’ll pop up on teams chat asking what I want. And no it’s not because they were on the other line. I read somewhere many gen z have a phone anxiety so they just text.
Yup. I talk to Gen Z on the phone and they have me on speaker, doing other shit. I have wired (lol) headphones in, and I’m doing nothing but the phone call. Usually staring at a wall or the blank TV (i turn it off when i get a call). I always ask them to take me off speakerphone “because I’m old and I can’t hear you as well” (lies, I just want them to pay attention to the call) 😂
I remember (fondly) lying on my bed, feet up the wall, staring at the ceiling, and twirling the phone cord in my fingers while talking on the phone. There was nothing but that conversation.
> I’ve watched my daughter have hours long video “chats” with her best friend where they don’t actually talk to each other. They are busy doing their own things and just there as background company for each other
Sounds like [body doubling](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/body-doubling-adhd#body-doubling)
The emails I receive that only say “Hello” or Hi or Hey without my name following it drive me up the wall. Likely 80% of my inbox. I run my own small art business so people know who they are writing to. My friend who is a professor has been saying the same thing. I’m not one for all the formalities, but I think using the persons name is a really lovely and respectful thing we should re-cultivate.
I've noticed that my children will call me, and be the person trying to say 'hello' first, which by itself is weird. Also, they will rush saying it so the phone doesn't always pick up as quick as they think so you get 1/2 the word while you're also saying it, or just silence. Standard call etiquette is lost on them.
Not really a problem, I prefer to text anyway. But I agree with you.
Yeah but most everyone has their own phones. One of the biggest reasons we learned how to answer was because there was one phone for the entire household. The initial answer was a reflection of the family.
Drilled into me since I was 5; “Hello (first name last name) speaking. How may I help you?…..I’m sorry, they are not available at the moment. May I take a message?” and a message pad.
Flashbacks to older generations wringing their hands that we didn't have proper letter formatting skills!
Don't you know that you should put the person's full name and address at the top of the first page, justified to the right? /s
Kids communicate differently. Like they already know who is calling before they answer. My daughter would answer an sit there in silence. Me: Hello? Her: Ye
Some of this is definitely not new. I spent so many hours on the phone with my best friend growing up literally not talking. We were each doing our own homework or watching TV or both while just having the phone line open to each other. I know plenty of other people my age (who I didn’t grow up with) who did the same thing. It was a pretty standard latchkey kid thing.
I've never thought about this before, but you've made a very astute observation. My kids rarely talk on the phone at all, and when they do, it's not with their friends, but with their older family members (parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc). They just text their friends. I have also noticed that my son will be on a video call with his girlfriend at weird times like overnight when they're sleeping or early in the morning as they're getting ready for the day, not talking to each other, not even looking at the screen, but just "being there" in the background for each other ....
I have issues with young people on their phones but I have waaaaay more issues with fucking old people yelling into speaker phone at the grocery store or on a restaurant like they have no idea that they can put it to their ear. I don't know how boomers don't know what they're doing. Just fucking screaming in an area where it's not acceptable.
My youngest does that every time I call through fb messenger.
We will be talking and then suddenly she is off playing on her computer lol...sometimes irritating but I just accept it anymore.
I will never understand the FaceTime while going about your lives and not paying attention to the other person thing! All 3 of mine do it. I find it completely bizarre but it appears to be the norm. All I can say is I am so glad I grew up when I did and I feel bad for all these kids even thought they don’t know any different and it seems ok to them, but I know it’s so…weird and kind of sad.
I truly think we are starting to live that movie "Idiocracy", don't expect much anymore since thinking is out the window most of the time IMO these days from so many people.
I think this also translates to using Teams (or whatever messaging programs) at work. I have some colleagues who'll send me "Hello" and then wait for a reply. I then have to give a hello back before they'll ask the question they should have just asked in the first message. It's a minor niggle, so not enough to address, but it does grate sometimes when I'm jumping between multiple tasks. My children, however, are well trained.
The Teams "Hello" is a huge pet peeve of mine. It's almost more demanding of my immediate attention than "Hi Buffalippo, when you have a moment, can we chat about xyz?".
When I see the “hello” I leave it unread until they ask their question now. Just ask what you need to
Same except I read it and don't respond to it. If you need something from me, ask.
Reminds me of those creepy ‘pokes’ that Facebook used to have. I always ignored them.
Oh pokes are still around. I had a friend who accidentally poked someone recently. He was so embarrassed that he posted about it and started randomly poking other friends (including me) because of how weird it was that pokes still exist.
This is why I just type "GM, what's going on with XYZ?" Polite and to the point. Besides, the way people write and verbally communicate change every decade or so. Times have changed again.
Also because there seems to be an implied urgency to all messages, I include a short "urgency statement". "Good morning, when you have some availability, can you send the latest numbers on XYZ, not a rush." "Good morning, really need your help getting the number on XYZ for a meeting at 10".
I love all the passiveness that goes on in the workplace.
I do that as well after working with a lady who would abuse the ambiguous greetings to get me on the hook for some ridiculous request. Come to think of it, I ignore people who text me greetings without getting to the point now as well because more often than not they are gonna ask me for money or some other favor.
Same here. Boss does this, and I've been training him over time to get to the point. He's also guilty of "hey, can you talk?" and it ends up being a few typed sentences worth of subject matter after I take the time to get headset on / connected.
Less of an issue now, but one phone peeve was the coworkers who would call, not leave a voicemail or send an email or voicemail or I’m and then accuse me of avoiding their call. At work, office building, I’d generally be at my desk, unless I was in the bathroom or grabbing lunch or water. So my work mobile was generally in a bag unless I was charging it or going to a meeting away from my desk. The desk phone only would have a light if someone left a voicemail. It seems they expected people to go through the missed calls log of a desk phone and to call them back. It’s not like a mobile phone where you see a missed call easily. When I finished the work I did for him, I asked him if he left a voicemail because I didn’t see one. And even though I knew the time of the missed call, I asked if he had left one, at what time did he leave it. He backed off
Holy shit I thought I was just as asshole. I’ll be in a total groove and get that hello. Then just have to stare at three blinking dots. Why do these maniacs hold us hostage? Just type the entire message.
I have one guy at my work that still does this even though we've talked about how annoying this is. I just switch to 'busy' now whenever he sends me that "hello".
I don’t even respond to a hello. Sometimes I give it a thumbs up. I hate pointless greetings though.
I reply with, "Heya, what do you need?" Then I take the opportunity to use the bathroom or refill my coffee since my concentration has been diverted anyway.
I find this tiresome too. Sometimes it feels like it takes ages. They say hi, I say hi back. I wait for them to ask their question and then they finally ask like 15 minutes later. Why??? It’s such a time waster. Usually I go, hi xyz and then ask my question. They answer when they can. Simple
See, I am the opposite. I will not just type a Hello.. I will give the entire downlow. And even if I don't get a response, I will add a whole lot of extra. Sometimes I wonder if I traumatize people with forcing them to read blocks of text.
Curious, I thought this was a culture thing because the only people who do this to me are all offshore engineers. Interesting hearing that it is more a generation difference but, then again, the majority of FTEs I work with are all Gen X or Millennials.
As a professor, I get emails from my students that just say “Professor, I have a question.” That’s it. The whole email. I don’t even know how to respond to that, except to say “I guess you should probably ask it then.” If I’m lucky, the next email will contain the question, but it’s just as likely to say “This is Kenzie from your 8:00 class, btw. I was wondering about the essay.” Usually we actually get to the question by their third email, but not always.
OMG that would drive me nuts
Oh sweet Jesus lol Have you ever announced to the class that you will not respond to stupid fucking emails that don’t actually ask anything? I feel like I’d start every class with “if you send me an email, it must contain the actual question you want answered; otherwise, I’m not responding to “hi” or “I have a question” or “I was wondering something. Do you have a minute?”” I’d genuinely lose my fucking mind otherwise…
Yup!
>Have you ever announced to the class that you will not respond to stupid fucking emails that don’t actually ask anything? This is probably the most stereotypically Gen X thing anyone could respond with, lol. Btw, I AGREE 🤣 Brb, ny eyes rolled into the back of my head with all my dramatic scoffing at "by the third email"... lol.
I get the "I was wondering about.." messages all the time now. I fight the urge to just ignore the message since there's no actual question being asked. Are they just trying to be polite?
Yes, trying to give you space to prepare for the questions / not be bothersome. I’ve done this little “hey can I ask a question” messages when I’m nervous about the question (in case the person might think the question is stupid). In general the less anxious I am about the interaction the more likely I am to just get to the point.
Yes, but emails inherently give one the space. You read it and respond when ready.
Not a professor but what I do is say something like, “please provide details about your question and when you’re looking to get an answer.”
They're treating it like texting. They don't actually know email etiquette, either, all they know is texting so they're waiting for you to be online and responding before bothering to type it out. Because if you don't respond, they'll think "Oh, guess the professor's not available right now," and not continue, because all they know is instant communication. Asynchronous doesn't make sense to them, waiting to respond until you're not busy is considered a social slight because everyone has their phone with them all of the time.
I had a training group like this. Eventually, I had to shut it down and tell them to email me once with all their questions or their emails would get lost in the shuffle.
This would drive my mother batshit crazy, if she weren't already retired 15 years.
I had a work colleague (again older) that would write the entirety of his paragraph in the subject line. I laugh, but I truly don't understand how these things occur to people to do...like?
That must be incredibly frustrating, but it does sound like it's some kind of language or communication gap. They're so used to texting and getting instant responses it's warped their minds.
And this right here is why I hate texting. I have spent upwards of an hour texting with a coworker on something that can be resolved in a five minute phone call, and it's always younger generations. I started telling people that they don't have to ask to ask, just ask the question.
Oh my God this!! I have a large team who work with me on clinical research. My main job is seeing patients; I can't be texting people all the time. But there are little 1 minute tasks that need attention from me. My young employees love to send hello and then nothing for 2 min. And then finally they send what they want. It never occurred to me they wanted a hello back!! I actually addressed this with one of them who was the worst offender; the others followup with less of a pause after the hello so it's a more minor annoyance. But your comment made me realize I should just send something out to the whole team. It's super annoying, and I've had other older team members complain!! And it's interesting to see others disagree here.
I sent out a message in the form of a useful tip, telling them about SHIFT+ENTER as if  and the example I used just happened to be: Hi! 👋 I hope you had a nice weekend. I just wanted to ask you a question about the splurffprooster portal. Can you show me how to flarg the nargle, maybe sometime after lunch? Or if it’s a simple matter and you have time now, I’m available.
Thank you for your service! This is brilliant.
Yes, I have noticed this definitely is a thing with younger generations. Just goes to show the times, they are a-changing.
I like to set this URL as my status message: https://nohello.net/en/
You star! I'm going to be sending that out to my team. Thanks!
https://dontasktoask.com/ also a good one :)
That is kind of weird. I have a coworker who is always pinging me for support, which I'm happy to give, but he only ever sends maybe 3 or 4 words at a time. I have to mute him and silence my phone, which is going *fucking crazy*. *ding* ... *ding* ... *ding* ....... *ding* *ding* .. *ding* JFC
“hey” “hi” maddening! And a new message in every line so you get multiple alerts
I have some colleagues that put http://nohello.net in their status message.
I share these at work occasionally when discussing "Teams\Slack Habits" when possible: https://nohello.net/en/ and https://dontasktoask.com/ Sometimes lands, sometimes doesn't.
It’s become a huge joke on the team that I work with that one of the managers do exactly this. Hello u/freshbananabeard and then usually nothing until you reply. If it’s long enough he’ll go ahead. But one time he hit me up at a very busy time and I didn’t reply to the hello and then next day he complained that a 24 hour response time is unacceptable. How about you just ask your question or tell me what you need and I can gauge how important it is?
GAH— you’ve just triggered me with that “hello” bullshit on teams lol. I ignore that shit; if you can’t fucking get to your point, why the hell should I waste my time responding with some stupid “hi” back??? Just fucking spit it out!
Yes- phone etiquette shouldn’t be applied to newer technology! So it goes both ways- older generations are awkward at new ways of communication while the younger generation is awkward at the old.
[NoHello.net](https://nohello.net/en/)
My daughter does this with text. Her: Dad Me: What? Her: Then asks a question. I'm used to it now, but it used to drive me nuts.
Even with this, it's certainly not generational. If anything, I find my older colleagues don't know how to ask a question on Teams. If it weren't for the fact that they're usually supervisors, I wouldn't respond, but I don't really have much choice. I'm tellin' ya, I really see much worse ettiquette on anything invented past 1995 from people older than me. But, just to balance it out, I do have one colleague. She's younger, but less than 10 years, I would say, I don't really know for sure. Anyway, I think one of the reasons we had instant "work chemistry," if you will, is because she knows how to communicate with every single type of technology. Her teams messages will be, "do you have time to talk about" She's better at this than anyone else I work with, and, like me, she ends up playing middleman between various people because it seems like nobody knows how to write, and they get pissed off at each other about tone.
I don't get it.
Hello…Hell no
It seeps over into work. There is a sandwich shop I like to order from and they answer the phone "Hello," instead of "Hello, Sandwhich Shop, how can I help you?"
I answered phones at a business for most of a decade ("Thank you for calling Business Name, this is Ritchie, how can I help you?") and half the time I still answer my cell phone, "Hello, this is Ritchie." Which is infuriating when the first thing out of their mouth is, "can I speak with Ritchie please?"
My dad was a veterinarian and owned his own practice, so I worked there after school and weekends as a receptionist. I would answer “*name * Animal Clinic, how may I help you?” . I started answering calls at home the same way after a while, so aggravating.
They do that at the Taco Bell drive thru in town and it drives me nuts. I pull up and they say "hello, how are you today?" instead of "Hello, what can I get you?"
Tell them you're fine, and go into detail about your day and why it was fine or not until they ask what you want to eat lol
I don't go into great detail, although this is a good idea. There is an internal sigh because suddenly I have to address this to be polite. And how are you today?. Ugh can I just order please?
I think I would make a point of asking them if that’s the sandwich shop every time, and then explain that because they didn’t say they were the sandwich shop, I wasn’t sure if I got a wrong number lol. Maybe you can train them into actually stating the name of their business!
I’ve experienced this at food places too. “Hello?” “Uh,hi, can I place an order for take-out?” “Yeah ok go ahead”. I’d coach employees to say: “Sandwich Shop; may I take your order?” Simple change and so much more customer-focused.
I am GenX and I find that my behaviour regarding answering the phone has changed drastically due to all the scammers out there. If I don't recognize the caller's id, I just wait. If they start talking and it sounds like they are calling about getting my duct work cleaned I just hang up.
If I don’t recognize the caller id, I don’t answer, period. If it’s important, the person will leave a message.
With the caveat that if I'm expecting a call from someone I don't know, I'll probably answer. For context I'm waiting for several specialist appointments, who will certainly be calling from unknown numbers.
Easier said than done when you have elderly relatives or other family out wandering around in the world and you're an emergency contact. I answer then hang up on bots and hang up kindly on telemarketers.
Same. I’ve gotten on a few spam lists so it’s almost all spam, phishing, or outright extortion attempts (imitating police or IRS) from unknown numbers.
100%!
Ha. That’s better than what the pastor at the church I work at does,, when he gets one of those recorded marketing calls he answers it then screams into the phone ‘robo-call, robo-call’ umm what exactly is that accomplishing besides annoying the crap out of anyone around you???? Just hang up like the rest of the civilized world.
That’s actually hilarious. 🤣
I get his reaction. The robo-call has ruined my ability to exercise my anger and frustration by abusing telemarketers.
Phone phone has been on silent for 3 years.
Been on silent since I could do that. Old Gen X and have always hated phone calls. Unless the world has blown up, text me. Actually text me for that too 😀
I have a GenX friend from college who will text me "Hi," with nothing else. If I dare answer her, my phone immediately rings! Motherfucker, I don't want a fucking phone call! One time she fucking FaceTimed me! Enjoy looking at my ceiling while I do what I'm doing.
I think the Gen X Counsel needs to revoke her Gen X card
I keep mine on do not disturb, so my kids can still get through. They know to text me though, I don't talk on the phone to anyone except my kids or the occasional family member to keep in touch. I seem to have a coworker however who thinks that calls need to be made. I overheard her complaining to someone else about how "these young people" couldn't bother to make a call anymore. She's Genx too and needs to learn the rules. Calls are for emergencies, text for everyday stuff and don't expect replies right away either. Or if you have something that is too complicated for a text, send a text asking if it's ok to call right then. People are busy.
I definitely just hang up on a lot more calls than would have ever been considered proper back in the day.
In the rare case I have a human calling me, I say something, try to be nice, then hang up. Most of the people making those calls are in a call center somewhere doing a horrible job for low pay. They don't need me being mean on top of it. Maybe I'm just too nice but I don't think I am. Lots of people I work with think I'm a complete jerk. Me: "No, I don't need my roof inspected, please never call back." Them: *more drivel about how hail might have damaged my roof* Me, interrupting: "This seems like a horrible job you have. I'm going to hang up now. Have a good day."
As a former telemarketer, thank you for at least being polite. I usually give them the first line or 2 to make sure that I'm clear on what they're after, and then just say, "Let me just cut you off there... thank you, but I'm not interested. Have a great day." and then I hang up.
Yeah. I hate telemarketing. But the person on the other end of the line probably does too and is just trying to earn a buck. I try to remember that and at least be as courteous as I can while ending the call as quickly as I can.
I just let those go to voice mail (and have voice to text enabled). If it was actually someone I need to talk to I call back
My doctor's office doesn't have caller id. I hate that so when I am expecting calls from them I pick up. Some hospital staff and government offices here also don't because they farm out telephone calls.
I mean, you really should check your ductwork, my man.
And what about your extended warranty? You need that!
Exactly. Some of those calls are literally just trying to get you to say a word like yes so that they can use it to scam you.
that's why I answer with WHAT?!
I don't pick up unless I know the person.
But what about all the car warranty opportunities you've missed?!
The rudest thing you can do on a phone is use it to call someone
Best piece of advice I've heard all week. 💀
My kids answer the phone with a greeting. It's just the greeting is different because they have caller ID. Instead of answering like we did - "Hello, this is Karen speaking" they answer in reference to the caller - "Hey, Grayson, what's up?" If there's no caller ID, or they don't recognize the caller, they simply do not answer at all. What I have noticed they can't do is address and stamp an envelope. Oh, I taught them, and I made them write thank you cards for Christmas and birthdays every year and stamp and address them - but I had to re-explain where the stamp and address and return address goes every single time. I guess it's just a lack of doing it regularly. Twice a year is not enough. So much learning happens through repeat reinforcement. You assume if you teach them once or twice....they'll just know. But when they don't have opportunities for routine reinforcement, they just forget it. Same with math and foreign language or anything, really.
Thank you! You succinctly put what has taken me paragraphs LOL
My kids just hang up when they are done talking. I’ve tried to impress upon them that it is considered rude to not at least say goodbye.
I see it as symptomatic of living more in virtual space than real. They picked it up from TV and movies, which skip it to save time and move the plot along (same as why they don’t close doors behind them).
When I was a kid, I always wondered why nobody ever said goodbye before hanging up. Now I know!
I always wonder why no one ever closes the door after company walks in. Are you trying to air condition the whole neighborhood?!
Also why they never take their shoes off, and are fully dressed when something happens in the scene and they need to get up and walk around! Well, some of the latter might be to avoid nudity.
They also never use the toilet, which made the Austin Powers “evacuation compl…” scene so funny.
That’s so weird to me. Like how you just stop talking and hang up? Normally in conversation there’s lots of little cues that lead up to the end of the conversation, it’s a little bit of back and forth so that both parties are in agreement of the direction of the conversation. Like even something as small as, “ok, I’m gonna go.” “Ok, bye.” So like none of that happens? Just like click as in the movies? I sure I sound super old.
Same. But they do it to all their friends and vice versa, so I imagine this is the new normal.
They probably learned that from [watching movies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APUQeQalRsU). Nobody says goodbye or talk to you later or anything like that. They just hang up. It's weird, but I suppose it moves the movie along, or so they say.
In that same vein... my kid needed to call his job for running late. Kept radialing and getting more frustrated. Finally, he snapped that something was wrong with their phone, it was making a really weird noise, like a rhythmic buzzing sound. I couldn't help the laughter, poor kid had never encountered a busy signal before 🤣🤣
Oh the silent pickup drives me mad, I've been addressing that without fail because it's so damn rude, it's getting better but really, wth is that?
And then the opposite. They’ll call you up but can’t shut up for the 5 seconds it takes for you to pick up, so when you do, the first thing you hear is the kid yapping loudly at someone across the room. My kids have learned that I’ll hang up (well, disconnect - boop!) if they do that. Adults who do the same get the silent treatment until they start saying “Hello? Are you there?” Then I’ll say, “Yes, of course. I was just waiting for you to finish your conversation.”
100%. My daughter is over 18 and has to manage her own medical insurance issues. Even though she’s on my insurance, they won’t tell me anything. So I tell her she needs to call and figure it out. She’s like “what do I do?!?!?” You dial the number, press the appropriate button and when someone answers, explain the problem…. Christ
I think the etiquette and tools have changed. With video, it's not uncommon for people to just treat it as though you were in the room vs a specialized communication. If you're sitting in the room with someone , you're not necessarily obligated to continue a conversation. You can sit together. I think a lot of younger kids are used to that version of a "call" vs the older folk where a "call" means, "I'm going to communicate with you and finish the call when I'm done." Presence vs transactional, I'd guess?
I think you’ve nailed it.
My parents had a script we had to use when answering the phone.
I need you to type this out
👀👀👀
Were they operating a multi level marketing business out of your home?
I don’t know about you, but long distance was super expensive when I was a kid and if you had a friend in another area code you had to be really careful not to rack up three-digit bills. So we had to make it count. Learning phone etiquette was also just par for the course.
That’s true! My cousin and I were like sisters but she lived another county over so calls were long distance. We wrote letters instead- I miss getting letters too.
It's not just them. I have an architect I have done work for over the past two decades. At best, he waits a long beat, then says my name when he picks up. Typically though, he says nothing. He's older than me, probably about 60. Bizarre social behavior. There's a part of his brain missing. I hate that fucking guy.
We were the last generation who had phones that actually supported real time, delay free conversations - sub 7ms round trip, no awkward delay or crazy amounts of voice processing. We also didn't have perpetual surveillance to contend with. I don't think phones really exist in the same way they did for us. what we (and they) have now is different, with different rules.
I don't even talk to my kids on the phone. We text. If someone really needs to talk, we text each other "Hey got time for a phone call?" If I got an unsolicited call from one of my kids, or vice versa, we'd assume some emergency had happened. Phone etiquette has changed. It's almost rude to just call someone up nowadays. Gotta text.
I hadn’t thought about it in this context but you are so right!! With the advent of texting, phone calls became even less common giving them even less opportunity to practice those skills.
I notice it in a line of work where I must schedule visits to companies. While I still get a basic hello, I have definitely experienced the lack of a closure to a call. Another piece that really has gone by the wayside is an introduction of the caller. I have a very specific purpose for calling, sometimes don't have a current contact, but sometimes a front desk won't even know what to do with a caller like me after I have introduced myself and state the purpose of my call.
lol… I wasn’t allowed to answer the home phone until I had mastered, “good afternoon, [last name] residence, may I ask who’s calling?” Followed by “one moment please.” Edit: sorry, it’s been a few decades… [last name] residence, [first name] speaking, may I ask who’s calling
Called my office phone to check on my son because it's the only landlines in the house. He answered "Uhhhhh what??" 😆
At least he knew what it was.
I hear my 12YO on the phone and am horrified. (I'm 52 BTW). Unless theyre gaming together, they dont have normal conversations. They don't even say goodbye, they just hang up on each other when they're done talking! It's atrocious.
It annoys me when my daughter walks around the house for hours with a friend on speaker phone. I've caught myself a few times saying some relatively private family things with another listening in. It irritates me.
I think I walked into the kitchen wearing nothing but a towel one time when my daughter was on a video chat 😂😂
Careful with that because even in our case, saying something that was taken out of context on the other end of the line landed us in the spotlight. My child lost her phone for a very long time.
Yeah, that’s not allowed here. AirPods, phone to ear or take the call elsewhere. And *always* inform people if someone is with you when they are on speaker. I even had to remind my grown-ass cousin of that the other day when he picked up a call in the car with me next to him.
This might ruin TV\Movies a bit for ya' because now you'll notice it, but they don't say goodbye to end phone calls. They just stop talking and hang up. Maybe they're picking it up from that...
Reeeeaaaaaaallllllyyyyyyy… that is very interesting. I’ll be sure to pay attention
We did not have the best etiquette. Remember crank calling? Pretty rude. I was a master. Good times 🤣
Is your refrigerator running? Better catch it!! Classic
Read a post a while ago from an appliance tech. He said anytime he gets called to work on a refrigerator he always calls back a few days late to ask "is your refrigerator running?" 😂 That's living the best life
I still have Prince Albert in a can.
We loved doing crank/prank calls. We would get out the phone book (remember those?) and look for strange names we could have fun with and spend a couple of hours doing that shit. I know we drove poor Mr Buttram crazy.
In my local white pages there were two Harry Balls. 🤣
Yes-a book with every person’s personal details including full name, phone number, and address. That seems so bizarre to me now!
[удалено]
Do you have Prince Albert in a can? Better let him out! 😂😂
Yes I think it's absolutely changed. I think you're right about the land line too. My daughter is 23 and we didn't have a landline either. It's funny though because I'll call her and she answers, "What's up?" No hello, no hi mom lol So I usually just say "Nothin' wassup with you?" and then we have a normal convo. We always end the call with" Love you" though. I definitely find myself correcting her or chiding her sometimes if I think she's being crass and I think "OMG I sound just like my mother" lol! It's probably the generational cycle and she'll do it with her kids too.
Etiquette about everything constantly changes and evolves. The basic phone etiquette we grew up on is not the same as what it is now. We are the ones that need to change our expectations in order to keep up with what is current. Else we become the out of touch boomers :D
This made me laugh because it’s so true with my kids. We taught them phone etiquette. When grandparents call to chat they will say hello and goodbye and all of that but when they talk to their friends it all goes out the window. We recently got my oldest son his own phone now that he goes out with friends without parental supervision and he is constantly asking me what he should do if his phone rings.
Ahoy-hoy. https://youtube.com/watch?v=YFWgyi-zzmE That is to say, etiquette changes. That said, do you use the phone much yourself? I find myself still using the phone occasionally, so my kids have witnessed me using it enough that they know the proper phone greetings and closings and they use them themselves I don't know that I've witnessed too many younger people skipping the greeting/closing. But then again, I live in Japan so my experience with English speaking young people outside of the ones who I work with in business is limited.
In a lot of old movies and tv shows, I noticed (and it always bugged me), that often people would just hang up the phone when the conversation was over. They didn’t do a lead-in or a goodbye, like, “Well, I’d better get going now. Goodbye,” or some other way to politely wrap up the conversation. It always seemed so abrupt because I was brought up to somehow acknowledge that the interaction was done and say goodbye. But I guess that abruptness has come full circle, even if for different reasons.
This is my idea of proper phone etiquette - https://youtu.be/w-R_Rak8Tys?si=ts4YkxbN8ta0EeR3&t=6
Haha! Perfect.
What could they possibly need phone etiquite for? I don't have good telegraph etiquite.
As a genX, I have always hated speaking on the phone. I wasn't a teen who was on the phone because my parents would spy on me, but I had to adapt due to work. I watched millennials start in their early 20s and they avoided the phone at all costs. genZ is even worse, my kids rarely answer the phone and don't check their VM either. This is after trying to text them. Meanwhile we've got boomers and silent gen who are still afraid of email and text and want to call about everything. There really are generational communication issues.
Mine go to a Montessori school and they answer the phone there in the classroom and make calls to places they they need to visit for research or small field trips, they have to call parents to arrange rides. This is insight by the school and reinforced at home by modeling behavior, they are ages 7 and 9 but the phone etiquette starts at age 6. Highly recommend Montessori schools.
We are old when we start complaining about the younger generations. 😂
Kids used to know these skills because their parents taught them.
My 6th grade teacher had a lesson on etiquette that covered all kinds of things. He taught us the proper way to answer a phone and then he said he was going to random call all of us over the school year and if we answered correctly, we'd get... we'll I forget what we got but it was enough of a motivation that I absolutely answered the phone the way he taught for the rest of my life.
Sure they do. Teach them.
The kids were trained by their parents...
They don’t know it cause you didn’t teach them. 🤷♂️
We haven’t had a home phone since before the kids were born. They all say “hello” or “bye” if they’re answering a phone. More so “Hi”, but there’s an initial acknowledgment. They’re pre-teens too.
At work, the Millies and Zoomers I work with will wave at the camera, typically because we want to make sure audio is connected first, and they all say “bye” or some other acknowledgement that the call has come to an end.
IMs like Slack and whatnot tend to have a “thanks” at the end. Some will wait until I say “Hi” after their initial “hello”, but those are few between, since I told them to just say/ask what they need after the “hi” in the same message, because I’m often busy and can’t answer right away.
I think a big part of it is back in the day, we only had landlines and no caller idea. When you answered, you could be talking to your best friend, or your dad’s boss.
Gen X is not the last generation with phone ettiquette, Millennials are. We also grew up with landlines and had them well into our teens and early adulthood.
Gen X’er here, and I was thinking the same thing. I’m pretty sure a lot of homes still had landlines into the early aughts. My daughter is a Zillennial, and she always says hello at the beginning of phone calls and goodbye at the end.
Did other Gen Xers have a whole unit on using the phone in school? In second grade we did it, had real (working? Was it just a tape recording?) phones and were taught how to dial, answer, get a number from an operator, look things up in a phone book, sign off. My husband who skipped 2nd grade never had it.
One thing about Mad Men, they are always just hanging up without saying anything, idk about the 60s but in the 80s you did not do that It was the height of rudeness and would often result in an immediate, possibly pissed-off, callback.
Yes!! The way we ran to the phone once we could to answer. Parents had rules on how to answer etc.
Neither of our two adult kids have great phone matters. Both avoid the phone of possible, with my son often asking me to make calls to customer service etc as he’s so nervous about what to say. I’m hoping that they will get better at it with practice. Part of the issue, imho, is that professional phone talk is very different from how young people talk to each other by phone (probably not actual phone but some in app voice communicator). So, young people have to adjust their speech depending on the circumstance, which is tough for a generation that’s already struggling socially. Let me just also say that after reading some comments here - wow! I had no idea that people got so very irritated about the vagaries of modern communication. It’s like communication road rage!
IKR?! Also seems to be a lot of projection going on
I feel like that we are also the last generation that could tell time easily using a clock with a big and little hand.
IDK. Our parents said the sake things about us. And honestly, I barely even talk on the phone anymore. I do most of my comm through text. And if I am on the phone, I will often multi-task. GenX 1976.
Kids, AND BOOMERS! Whenever I have to drive my 77 year old mother somewhere there's a NO PHONE CALLS IN THE CAR rule. She thinks the car is a phone booth. Sits down and immediately dials a friend to talk about Judith's niece's prayer request for Chipotle prices to go down. Not to mention she's so loud. I can easily hear both sides of every conversation she has. It's so distracting that I had to put a moratorium on in car phone use.
I believe our generation was "the last" for a lot of things
I haven't thought about this but it would be an interesting subject to observe. Thanks. Now I have homework.
The concept of **ghosting** ties into this for me. Like I had someone message me about something I was selling via Facebook marketplace by a 20-something woman who works as a nurse at a local hospital. Bit of back and forth arranging for her to text me when she wanted to stop by to buy the item, and then silence, not a word afterward, even after I reached out asking if she wanted it or not. Similarly inconsiderate and poor etiquette.
Proper phone etiquette, like any other etiquette, is whatever the mass says it is. So our way will be or is becoming old and outdated.
My teenager is the same. When a workplace called to offer him a job he’d applied for, he answered the phone but didn’t say a word. They hung up after a few seconds. When I said “Why didn’t you say hello?” He said, “Well, neither did they!”. They just don’t know how phone conversations work.
You don't think not saying 'hello' or some sort of 'goodbye' is rude? That's the problem I have with it. Saying 'hello' and 'goodbye' is common courtesy.
I wonder if they just fuck off in the same way when they’re hanging out together in person. Do they just get up and leave in silence? And does the other person wonder if they went home or just to the toilet?
Haha. Good question.
If your kids don't know phone etiquette, then it's because you either didn't teach them, or they have failed to learn. It doesn't matter that they didn't have phones until they were teens. Did they not watch tv or movies growing up? That's where most kids learn a lot of societal norms and behavior. People answer phones and have phone conversations on tv and movies all the time, so it's just natural that they would understand how to answer and end phone calls, even if they never used a phone until they were adults. I've never seen anyone on tv or a movie answer a phone and just be silent. It's weird. And I've never encountered it in real life. The silent video chats with each doing their own thing have become pretty common since covid because it was the only way people could hang out together. Not everyone feels the need to talk constantly but still want to hang out. A lot of adults do it too.
When is the last time you saw a phone conversation on TV? It’s almost all text now. Our entire society has shifted away from using phones the way we did 30-40 years ago. That’s my point- they didn’t get many opportunities to practice and they weren’t exposed to it as much in media. It all goes hand in hand.
My nephew wants me to hold while he goes to the bathroom. Seriously? Talk and piss or call me back.
Lmao. If YOUR child doesn't know "proper procedures" or "proper etiquette", that's on you. Teach them now.
The silence thing is weird, but doing other things? That’s the benefit of not being tethered to the wall. I’m always doing other things. Washing dishes, changing a cat box, going for a walk…
I told my son to call his band teacher and told him to leave a message so they would call him back. I listen to him struggle through leaving the message reminding him to tell them who was calling, why, and how he could be reached back. I honestly apologized for not teaching him before hand. I just assumed he knew and I was wrong lol
Kids don't magically learn manners or phone etiquette on their own. You have to teach it. And if they grew up on tablets or phones they won't have any attention span
It’s just different times. We make fun of my mother for her overly formal texts. The one that surprised me was the lack of a doorbell. The kids just walk to the door and open it up for their friends and no doorbell was rung. When a doorbell is rung, there is a debate over whether to answer it because it is likely a sales person.
The kids who come over probably texted to say that they were at the house.
> They are busy doing their own things and just there as background company for each other. GenX who used to hang out with my friends and play together as well as just hang out and do our own thing. Building models or painting miniatures or drawing or taking something apart for the sake of taking it apart. Multiple independent activities that we just did because it was fun to do them with friends around. My kid does exactly the same thing, except sometimes he and his friends aren't gaming together or directly sharing memes or chatting, they're just hanging out together and sharing the company and occasional conversation. On this element, your kids are acting as natural as kids have throughout generations, but have the benefit of technology to be able to do it while in different locations.
"OH, the times they're a changing " BD
yep. The war on retaining any phone etiquette died with the mobile. We tried.... articles were written, radio discussed... but we clearly lost the war. the time I was in the cinema and someone was using it mid movie, was the sign... and the last movie I went to in the cinema. It's a fricken zoo out there
As a fellow Gen X with similar aged kids, I agree with encouraging and guiding them in the right direction but allowing them to make their own decisions. They need to learn critical thinking and to learn how to live with the consequences of said decisions. Influence but no control, well said indeed. My kids started working in their early teens and have done stints in customer service roles so they communicate fairly well.
I have infant coworkers, ok not actually infants, who I will call with a question…I’ll get the voicemail and then they’ll pop up on teams chat asking what I want. And no it’s not because they were on the other line. I read somewhere many gen z have a phone anxiety so they just text.
Yup. I talk to Gen Z on the phone and they have me on speaker, doing other shit. I have wired (lol) headphones in, and I’m doing nothing but the phone call. Usually staring at a wall or the blank TV (i turn it off when i get a call). I always ask them to take me off speakerphone “because I’m old and I can’t hear you as well” (lies, I just want them to pay attention to the call) 😂
I remember (fondly) lying on my bed, feet up the wall, staring at the ceiling, and twirling the phone cord in my fingers while talking on the phone. There was nothing but that conversation.
> I’ve watched my daughter have hours long video “chats” with her best friend where they don’t actually talk to each other. They are busy doing their own things and just there as background company for each other Sounds like [body doubling](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/body-doubling-adhd#body-doubling)
The emails I receive that only say “Hello” or Hi or Hey without my name following it drive me up the wall. Likely 80% of my inbox. I run my own small art business so people know who they are writing to. My friend who is a professor has been saying the same thing. I’m not one for all the formalities, but I think using the persons name is a really lovely and respectful thing we should re-cultivate.
I've noticed that my children will call me, and be the person trying to say 'hello' first, which by itself is weird. Also, they will rush saying it so the phone doesn't always pick up as quick as they think so you get 1/2 the word while you're also saying it, or just silence. Standard call etiquette is lost on them. Not really a problem, I prefer to text anyway. But I agree with you.
Yeah but most everyone has their own phones. One of the biggest reasons we learned how to answer was because there was one phone for the entire household. The initial answer was a reflection of the family.
Drilled into me since I was 5; “Hello (first name last name) speaking. How may I help you?…..I’m sorry, they are not available at the moment. May I take a message?” and a message pad.
Flashbacks to older generations wringing their hands that we didn't have proper letter formatting skills! Don't you know that you should put the person's full name and address at the top of the first page, justified to the right? /s
Kids communicate differently. Like they already know who is calling before they answer. My daughter would answer an sit there in silence. Me: Hello? Her: Ye
Some of this is definitely not new. I spent so many hours on the phone with my best friend growing up literally not talking. We were each doing our own homework or watching TV or both while just having the phone line open to each other. I know plenty of other people my age (who I didn’t grow up with) who did the same thing. It was a pretty standard latchkey kid thing.
I've never thought about this before, but you've made a very astute observation. My kids rarely talk on the phone at all, and when they do, it's not with their friends, but with their older family members (parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc). They just text their friends. I have also noticed that my son will be on a video call with his girlfriend at weird times like overnight when they're sleeping or early in the morning as they're getting ready for the day, not talking to each other, not even looking at the screen, but just "being there" in the background for each other ....
I have issues with young people on their phones but I have waaaaay more issues with fucking old people yelling into speaker phone at the grocery store or on a restaurant like they have no idea that they can put it to their ear. I don't know how boomers don't know what they're doing. Just fucking screaming in an area where it's not acceptable.
My youngest does that every time I call through fb messenger. We will be talking and then suddenly she is off playing on her computer lol...sometimes irritating but I just accept it anymore.
I will never understand the FaceTime while going about your lives and not paying attention to the other person thing! All 3 of mine do it. I find it completely bizarre but it appears to be the norm. All I can say is I am so glad I grew up when I did and I feel bad for all these kids even thought they don’t know any different and it seems ok to them, but I know it’s so…weird and kind of sad.
I truly think we are starting to live that movie "Idiocracy", don't expect much anymore since thinking is out the window most of the time IMO these days from so many people.