9/27/2006
Phone etiquette...
When I was growing up my parents banned all phone calls after 9pm so I have a very definite sense of it being rude to call people before and after certain times. The parents of my husband`s students obviously have no such sense and as a result we often get phone calls at ridiculous times like 11pm or 6am in the morning. I always want to scream at them "IT`S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT ,I HAVE A BABY... WHO YOU JUST WOKE UP... IDIOT!!!!!" Luckily the phone calls come in waves according to the time of year/ number of problems my husband is having with his students at that time. We have an "oyasumi" (goodnight) button on our phone so for a while I took to pressing the button so that the phone wouldn`t ring out when I didn`t want to answer calls.
This morning the house phone rang at 8.15am. I was excited because the only person who calls at that kind of time is one of my best friends in England but I let the answer phone get it just in case it was a call from one of the parents.. it was in fact a call from someone I didn`t really want to talk to this early in the morning so I felt justified ignoring it!!!
What are the rules in your house about phone calls? What time do you consider it ok to call people and what time do you think it is rude if the phone rings!?!
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4 comments:
we don't have rules in our house, but i feel the same as you, pretty much because my parents had the same idea about phone calls when i was young.
I am the same as you as in when I was young,phone calls after 9pm were a big "No".So,that has stayed with me.I tend to panic when the phone rings very late at night or in the early hours as I always think it is bad news from home(what an optimist,eh!) but leave them to voice mail but listen in just in case!MIL will phone from anytime after 6am,evil woman that she is.
I feel exactly the same as you as well. Both my parents never allowed calls past 9:00 pm. I personally would never call anyone past 9:00 pm, either. Unless it was a family emergency or something like that. And my family and friends never call after that time either.
Now my MIL? She calls our home any ol' little time she wants. She phoned our house last week after 11:30 pm! It was closer to midnight actually. I was on the couch watching Sex in the City, about to go to sleep actually, the boys were asleep upstairs. Well Noah woke up when the phone rang. Was it an emergency? Life threatening? Nope, she wanted to talk to my hubs because she wanted to know if she should pack potato salad in the obentos for undokai! She could have waited until the morning, since it wasn't really serious. Noboru was dead asleep and snoring upstairs. I told her, "chotto matte kudasai." And went upstairs, woke him up. He was like, WTF? He said, what's wrong, are the boys okay? I said "nothings wrong and we are fine...it's your mom, she wants to wake you up and talk about potato salad." He was not happy with her.
That's exactly why I have caller i.d. and voice mail. I own the phone; not the other way around and I have no problem turning off the ringer after hours and just checking voice mail.
(Unless like now when my husband is back in hospital). Then I leave it on and answer it.
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