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The first minute of every phone call is torture now

theatlantic.com

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

#361

Post by namaria »

jmbwell wrote: post #186

Article plays up the fumbling for effect, but is otherwise spot on. The PSTN was immensely overbuilt. Old Western Electric equipment is, literally, built of tempered steel, from the crossbar switches in the CO to the red telephone on the desk. The human artifice erected in between, electrically and mechanically connecting a microphone at one end to a speaker at the other, was staggering in its analog complexity, and…

One thing not taken into account on this rant (and it is just a big rant) is the incredible increase in scale. Nearly everyone has a phone and can make phone calls now and we're almost 8 billion people. The old, understandable, analog system would have never scaled like this. Quality didn't degrade because of greed or degeneracy. It was a trade-off and I say the level of access we have now trumps whatever nostalgia people feel for the past decades.

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

#362

Post by nickstinemates »

Outside of mobile computing/internet, I do not use my phone. I am sure with very minor adjustment I can get away with getting rid of a phone number entirely.

So many services are just plain better with the internet as the abstraction vs. a phone number.

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

#363

Post by fasthands9 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #278
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…

> 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…

I'm guessing the reason you waited 20 minutes is because you know a call isn't a casual form of communication these days. I think people would say the norm should be that after 10 minutes you text the parents. In most case you will get a response sooner and if the didn't pick up you wouldn't be left wondering if something went wrong or they just dont pick up unknown numbers.

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

#364

Post by Blahah »

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…

If someone is looking after my child, I have their number. I block calls from unknown numbers adn and some prefixes, and silence calls from numbers not in my contacts. This is pretty normal I think (because of spam).

I've only once had the problem that someone from the school used their personal mobile to call me and didn't get through, but I was already calling to let them know I'd be late.

There's no reason for parents to be able to contact you socially unless you invite it, but surely you should contact them from a school/shared number?

I'm suggesting this not for the sake of others, but for your sake. Given that people will block unknown numbers, I would think using a known number makes your life easier.

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

#365

Post by dpkirchner »

crooked-v wrote: post #342
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.

Or they would have seen that there was an actual message left and called back. That's how I tell the scammers from actual calls 95% of the time - the scammers never leave a voicemail.

I wish that were the case for me. Most calls and most resulting voicemails I receive are from scammers.

It's frustrating because all we'd need is some way to trace calls back to source providers and then let us apply client-side filtering akin to UBlock Origin. Easy.

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

#367

Post by kergonath »

bluedino wrote: post #178
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are being paid to answer your phone, then answer your phone. I’m not, so I don’t.

Or if you're waiting for a call from _____

Then I add an exception for ______. If they cannot tell you their number (happens with some companies), then they can:

- arrange a call, which is great because then I am guaranteed to have the time to deal with the topic, I do that sometimes with my bank;

- leave a voice mail, which is not great but then I am not responsible for their phone number policy (nobody leaves voice mail anymore);

- send an email (or a SMS, a WhatsApp, FB Messenger, Skype, whatever, I am not picky), possibly to arrange a phone call, also great because I can answer written messages on my own terms and not when they feel like calling me;

- (most of the time these days) have a chat over whatever IM platform they integrated into their website.

My time is not theirs to use however they want. If they want me to be on call, that’s fine, but with compensation.

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

#368

Post by kergonath »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #136
xnickb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it solved for someone who has to have phone calls? Since when saying "it's not a problem for me" solved any problems?

If you are being paid to answer your phone, then answer your phone. I’m not, so I don’t.

Exactly!

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

#369

Post by mcculley »

armchairhacker wrote: post #240
tristor wrote: post #188

I have never had any of the issues described in this article and I've been using AirPods w/ an iPhone and a MacBook since AirPods came out. My issue with phone calls is 1. Robocalls 2. Robocalls 3. Robocalls 4. Robocalls 5. Robocalls I've been all over the world, and it is straight up fucked how bad this issue is in the US and it's not like this elsewhere. It's completely fixable, but American telcos make money off l…

> 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…

> There's no reason for a random stranger to need to call you

I get a lot of calls from people for whom my first introduction/interaction is a phone call. I make a lot of money and otherwise get a lot of value from some of these interactions. Some are completely bogus telemarketer calls, of course, but I find that being reachable is still valuable. I have learned how to filter out the most obvious telemarketers. I hope that my competitors ignore unsolicited calls.

(This depends on industry and role within an organization. Certainly people who never have to interact with strangers can screen calls. But don't assume this is true for everyone.)

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

#370

Post by ipython »

armchairhacker wrote: post #240
tristor wrote: post #188

I have never had any of the issues described in this article and I've been using AirPods w/ an iPhone and a MacBook since AirPods came out. My issue with phone calls is 1. Robocalls 2. Robocalls 3. Robocalls 4. Robocalls 5. Robocalls I've been all over the world, and it is straight up fucked how bad this issue is in the US and it's not like this elsewhere. It's completely fixable, but American telcos make money off l…

> 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.

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