Does the phone always need to be answered the moment it rings? No matter where you are? Or who you are with? I called my son, just to chat and see how things were going with him, after the first sentence of two he says, ‘Mom can I call you back, I’m on a date.”
In the middle of a meeting when a particular point of contention is being discussed, a colleague’s phone rings and they answer it and begin to talk to the person in the middle of the meeting.
A Mom with a screaming toddler is shopping and the phone rings – she answers the phone and tries to talk over the noise of her child while continuing down the aisle picking up grocery items and putting them in the cart.
Well, I guess you could call it multi-tasking. But what kind of message are you sending to the people around you? And in a day and age where we have voice mail and can return the call later when things are calmed down, or you are not otherwise engaged makes sense. Caller Id is also a blessing - you can, if you are expecting an important call, you can decide not to interrupt you activities unless the important call comes through.
What kind of message was my son sending to his date when he answers the phone? And the coworker who interrupts a meeting to take a call, particularly at a point of controversy? And the Mom who is trying to talk over her toddler?
To me it says, ‘you are not as important as this phone call.’ Granted there are times when a call is crucial or takes precedence over the activity in which you are engaged, but that should be a decision you make, not one that is made just because the phone rings. It is possible to let a phone ring and be picked up by voice mail. It is possible to turn off the ringer on most phones when you are going to be involved in an important activity.
Choosing to put the person(s) you are currently engaged with in front of a phone call gives a message that ‘this is important and I choose to continue talking and working with you over answering a call that will interrupt what we are doing.”
There are times when you may want to set aside time to routinely not answer the phone such as family dinner time, playing a game with your child, in the middle of a movie, in a meeting.
Phones were designed to ring and whether by design or just habit we are conditioned to answer a ringing phone. However, the telephone is only a tool and we can choose to place people above that tool. The choice is yours.
