h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If I'm calling a stranger, for example in connection with business and its a land line, I'll ask if i can speak to the person I'm trying to contact. Because anyone can pick up a land line. But if I'm calling a mobile number I'm never quite sure whether to say;
"is that..." or "can i speak to?".

I would think that 99% of the time, the owner of a mobile will answer it, so i feel silly asking to speak to the owner...

Any thoughts on this, and does etiquette vary, do you think, by country ?

It would be possible for someone to loan a mobile phone to someone else. But i's unlikely.

Say you're calling someone named John Q Public. Just say, "Hi, John."

I'd probably say, "Hi, John?"

Hmm, I think I say "This is [my name], ringing from [my company] for John Public", with an interrogative note at the end, as if to say "Stop me if I am wrong here."

Yeah, I would not assume I know who's actually answering the phone. Hence the "Hi, John?" Or maybe more like, "Hi,... John?.

While I might be fairly confident that the mobile number belongs to John, I can't really assume John is the one answering; especially if it's a business. Maybe John is busy on with a customer, either in the shop or on the land line. So John keeps talking while he hands his mobile over to his wife/daughter/son/business partner/kid they hired for the summer.

Once the person on the other end either confirms they are "John" or are an acceptible representative for "John", I'll confirm my identity and announce my reason for calling.




Basically, I guess I still abide by the old land-line etiquette.

That's a good way to go.

And it depends on how the other person announces themselves too.

"Hello." Isn't very helpful.

"Hello. John Ramsbottom-Soares." Is.

PP.

Nine times out of ten, what I say when picking up the phone is "Hello?"

Yes, but I mean when calling someone, not when receiving a call

I work in a university and so the people I phone tend to be students. The students I'm most likely to phone are the ones who haven't done something important that they should have.
They're the ones who have missed being told about it in classes, have missed the posters on their noticeboard and pop-up announcements when they've logged in to the university's computers and the e-mails sent to their personal and term e-mail accounts. Invariably they don't answer their phones (few people answer mobiles from numbers they don't recognise, so I'd say 90% of the time I don't get through).
As we have a lot of international students I'm not always certain of the correct way to pronounce their name, or how many of their names should be used to be polite when they have numerous forenames and surnames (we get a surprisingly high number of complaints each year that our computer system only allows names up to 30 characters long), so I usually just open with 'Hello, I am phoning from…'

<BB<

Hmm... a mystery...

It's been awhile since I were in college. What important thing would need so much reminding, even on posters?

When I was in school, there were quite a few posters regarding a particularly virulent STD, but I doubt this is about HPV vaccines.

I don't remember many posters reminding folks to pay their tuition...

Library books? Schools do take overdue library books pretty seriously, with threats of withholding grades and graduations...

Ooh! Is it some kind of paperwork regarding financial aid? If your university is in the US, I'd assume it's regarding financial aid, but I'm not very confident you're in a country that is bankrupting their youth as efficiently as we are here.

"Hello, I've found 1,000 dollars in the street in front of your building, and I'd like to know if you lost it. I can be reached at...."

We moved from government grant (gift) to grant/loan if you take too long for your studies, to loan for everyone. So the US aren't the only ones putting their youth in debt. (this is the Netherlands)

Regarding the phone thing: Dutch phone etiquette is (was?) to state your name if you pick up the phone, then wait for the caller to identify themselves, unless you know the caller, in which case you can greet him / her. At that point it is obvious who's who.
Calling abroad I use the same strategy regardless of calling landline or mobile phone: "This is me calling, I'd like to speak to mr. John McEnroe please".... Unless they already stated that they are the person I'm looking for.

Most of the time it is to tell them they need to officially enrol on the course, and if they don't then they're going to be kicked off it. You'd think that as they don't actually get any money from the Student Loans Company until they confirm they are at the uni would motivate them to enrol, but no.

Of course they don't want to enrol on the course because this is done online and we are legally required to ask them to complete a government survey for HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency) about the usual stuff: sexuality, religion, gender, disability, criminal convictions, socio-economic background, education and so on. Of course students don't really want to answer these questions and so pick the top answer from every drop box, which is why over a third of our students are bisexual Buddhists with serious criminal convictions who have changed gender since birth, have AD(H)D and attended Any Other UK Educational Institution where they gained a highest qualification of A Levels and would prefer not to say what their parent's occupation is and are confirming that they have a serious criminal conviction. So the information we get from the survey is nonsense, but HESA's response is that they've decided to make us ask more questions and ask students to specify start and end dates for every question.

I predict we'll soon have a large number of students who all started their religion, gender, disability and socio-economic background on 1st January 1900 and stopped on 31st December 3000.

<BB<

Maybe it is time to start a new student religion of sexless neuters from average background, specifically for this survey? Or start the survey with the question: "Do you want to fill in this survey truthfully?" if no, don't bother.

I was close.



(I bet a lot of them have HPV too.)