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The first minute of every phone call is torture now

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Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#371

Post by jeroenhd »

somehnguy wrote: post #155
zdragnar wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use any browser skin on an iphone. They're all the same web view.

Right, but the underlying engine doesn’t matter much practically speaking. I don’t think I’ve ever run into a situation where the browser on iOS limited me from doing things I would want to do on mobile. I use FireFox on iOS because it syncs with FireFox on my laptop.

I disagree, plenty of posts here that start with "doesn't work on my iPhone".

Apple forces you to adjust to their terrible browser engine by taking away your users' ability to install another browser. Many websites put in the effort to make their stuff work on Apple devices but that's far from a given.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#372

Post by antasvara »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #347
powersnail wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably, had silenced call be the social default, the parents would have added your phone number into their contact list on the first day of school, sort of like how you have to add someone on a chat app to talk to them.

Parents do not, as a matter of course, have my cell phone number. It's fine for a few families to have it (because e.g. I had to call them), but if every parent in the program was able to message me at any time of day, I think I'd have a problem. Now, there are other ways this could work. My company has a "director of client services"—let's call her "Anna"—and all parents have Anna's number. So I suppose I could have…

It seems odd to me than an after-school program has no set way for parents to contact the program without going through a relay-style process. I agree that the solution shouldn't be "give out your personal phone number," but it also shouldn't be "rely on a person that's not at the program to relay calls to you."

Put another way, how would a parent contact the program in an emergency? They'd likely (as you illustrated) go through an intermediary that may or may not be there. That seems less than ideal, and certainly wouldn't be something that I'd be happy about if my child were in the program.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#373

Post by SoftTalker »

ipython wrote: post #370
armchairhacker wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's gotten so bad I just don't answer my phone unless it's a call from someone I know I have my phone set to silence calls unless they are in my contacts list. I tell people this whenever I give out my phone number. Honestly I think this should be the norm. There's no reason for a random stranger to need to call you, if they want to reach out they can text or email, and I can't imagine many urgent situations where…

That worked until my son was hit by a car, and my wife in her shock had no idea where her phone was. I’m still to this day guilty that I didn’t pick up the phone the first time it rang. The truth is that this problem will kill the telephone system and honestly if this is how the telcos treat it, it deserves to die.

What did you have to feel guilty about? You could have done something for your son, remotely, that wasn't already being done?

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#374

Post by kergonath »

rootusrootus wrote: post #245
kergonath wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phone calls from unknown numbers go straight to voice mail. Same for some people who think it’s fair game to call me and bore my ears off with their life whilst I am working. Problem solved.

This is a solution very dependent on individual preferences, though, it is not any kind of blanket solution. I once called my brother from a phone that was not mine, in the middle of the night, to inform him that our brother had died suddenly. He did not answer. He got that message in the morning when he checked his voicemail after waking up. He was very upset at the delay. Filtering from unknown numbers is a hack, a…

> I once called my brother from a phone that was not mine, in the middle of the night, to inform him that our brother had died suddenly. He did not answer. He got that message in the morning when he checked his voicemail after waking up. He was very upset at the delay.

Well, sometimes shit happen. I can think of a handful of scenarios where I cannot be contacted and it’s right that sometimes it could be important. But I am not living on alert 24/7 because sometimes someone might die. My filtering system lets the second call through, which I think works fine as most spammers do not call twice within one minute. That said, in the middle of the night I still probably would not hear, but not because of that.

(I am sure that the situation was complex and difficult to manage enough for you to have to borrow a phone, and I do not envy you for having gone through it and am sorry you had to. In that situation I would be very upset regardless of the delay).

> Filtering from unknown numbers is a hack, and it has consequences. We should not have to do it just to get some peace from our phones.

That’s entirely right and I agree completely. But then we are where we are and the world often disagrees with me. Otherwise I could also get rid of my ads and trackers blockers.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#375

Post by mdaEyebot »

raisedbyninjas wrote: post #274
wruza wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't tell her the truth, make her puzzled. Few days ago I had to help my grandma with hiding some utility cables behind a cover on a new door. I decided that a guy from tv cable company would be the most experienced with this and called their support. Please describe your issue? TV has no signal (it has). Are you at home? Yes (no). Let me check it... hmm, it's okay on our side. Did you try to rescan channels? Yes (o…

Ignore the voice tree. Just shout profanities or "representative". Decent systems will pick up your frustration and divert you to the human queue.

This often works, but not always. And it's not always clear when it does work; the systems don't usually say something like, "Since you would like to set our entire executive leadership team on fire, we will transfer you to the next available agent."

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#376

Post by downut »

VLM wrote: post #357
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have my phone set to silence calls unless they are in my contacts list. [...] Honestly I think this should be the norm. There's no reason for a random stranger to need to call you I teach an after-school coding class. Some weeks ago, the parents of two children didn't arrive at pickup. After 20 minutes, I called the parents using the phone number listed in my company's system. The parents confirmed they were runn…

The authorities have no reason to be involved. It's 20 minutes, and children can take care of themselves. At least 99.9% of my voicemails are a couple second long robocalls, but in the rare event of it being a genuine phone call, I get the google transcription of someone saying 'please call me back' on my watch and then I do so. Just because I'm willing to glance at notifications on my watch of incoming voicemails fo…

My kid is in CA, I am selling a house in AZ, and my wife is buying a house in GA. Most of my friends are out of state. Voice has immense emotional bandwidth advantages over any form of text. It definitely helps everyone in the stress pool maintain levity. I do prefer all business to be conducted through text formats (email preferred) though.

In the case in the GP, maybe a message would have worked too but I don't see the problem with calling.

That said, I get a lot of spam calls on my Fi phone but I simply don't answer if I don't recognize the number. Fi asks me if the number was spam and it's simple to give a brief scan of the transcript if there is one and tell it yes or no.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#377

Post by abhgh »

As others have mentioned on this thread, Pixel's call screener largely solves this problem. For me it's a godsend feature and prevents me from getting into a bad mood from answering multiple robo/spam-calls in a day. I seem to have a heavily recycled number (multiple owners before) - as a result, I seem to have been receiving more than one person's share of spam calls.

For those unfamiliar: you can use Pixel's call screener to accept calls from unknown numbers. The effect is, an automated voice from your end handles the call, all the while printing on the screen what it says. It also transcribes what the other end says (mostly correctly). So you can "see" how the call is going, on your screen - its like a chat unrolling in real time. If you are convinced the call is legit (after having read enough of it), there is an option for transferring the call to you/mic and then you can take over. It also has some canned prompts you can have the call-screener speak out (these options appear when the screening is in progress).

Very helpful!

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#378

Post by mcculley »

VLM wrote: post #357
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have my phone set to silence calls unless they are in my contacts list. [...] Honestly I think this should be the norm. There's no reason for a random stranger to need to call you I teach an after-school coding class. Some weeks ago, the parents of two children didn't arrive at pickup. After 20 minutes, I called the parents using the phone number listed in my company's system. The parents confirmed they were runn…

The authorities have no reason to be involved. It's 20 minutes, and children can take care of themselves. At least 99.9% of my voicemails are a couple second long robocalls, but in the rare event of it being a genuine phone call, I get the google transcription of someone saying 'please call me back' on my watch and then I do so. Just because I'm willing to glance at notifications on my watch of incoming voicemails fo…

> Voice phone calls are dead

I am amused by this blanket assertion. It really depends on the age/type of people involved and the kinds of interactions they are involved in. I am 50 years old and work in both software consulting and run a tugboat company. I had to take over the tugboat company two years ago due to a death in the family. For 30 years prior to that, I was working almost exclusively in software. During the last couple of years before taking over the tugboat business, I had my phone set to do-not-disturb almost all of the time. In the tugboat business, that does not work at all.

For dealing with software people in purely technical matters, text/Slack/Teams is fine. I respect the needs of others who don't like real-time conversations. For doing business deals in software, I often end up having phone calls with decision makers.

For the tugboat industry, it is too fast paced and too much money is on the line in quick deals to screen phone calls.

Don't assume that everyone works the same way.

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#379

Post by stonogo »

SoftTalker wrote: post #373
ipython wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That worked until my son was hit by a car, and my wife in her shock had no idea where her phone was. I’m still to this day guilty that I didn’t pick up the phone the first time it rang. The truth is that this problem will kill the telephone system and honestly if this is how the telcos treat it, it deserves to die.

What did you have to feel guilty about? You could have done something for your son, remotely, that wasn't already being done?

This is utterly bizarre. Why are you inventing conditions the parent poster never mentioned? For all you know they were on a different floor of the hospital, unaware they could have been comforting their child had they but known. Why go out of your way to be an ass about someone else's trauma?

Re: The first minute of every phone call is torture now

#380

Post by creeble »

daggersandscars wrote: post #242
klooney wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got a Pixel phone and spam calls have almost disappeared (1 a month). They seem to be doing something around extra screening that's pretty good and useful.

If you're using a non-Pixel Android phone, you may be able to get the same benefits by switching from your manufacturer's Phone app to Google's. Doing this on a Samsung S22 Ultra took me from tons of spam calls to none.

Where does one find this magical app? I see lots of "phone" apps in Play Store, but I can't identify one specifically from Google.
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