On the phone: how many rings with no answer?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Aug 3 2006, 03:10 PM) [snapback]297321[/snapback]</div>

It was obviously PETA in a vain attempt to stop the act of rodentcide you were about to commit.
Regards, Mike

 

My parents taught me to let it ring 10 times before hanging up. However, that was in the days before answering machines and voice mail were common so now I let it ring 5 or 6 times. I could probably deal with 12 or 15 times once but repeatedly would definitely be annoying.

 

When answering machines first came out I hated them because I did not want to leave a message, I wanted to talk to somebody! :blink: Now, if there is no answering machine I hate it because I want to leave a message so that I don't have to keep calling back. Is that maturity or what?

It may have been a real emergency with the person on the other end of the line trying desperatly to get someone to answer. But I agree that more then seven rings is enough. Next time take the phone off the hook. It is not worth your frazzled nerves to go through that! :blink:

 

most of the times, im preoccupied with other stuff, (do most of my calling in the car while commuting since i dont have a home phone) so i will frequently realize that the phone has rung about 20 times. usually the charge on the line dissipates and hangs me up at this point.

 

So what's your number?

I'll call before they call so they get a busy signal....


oh yeah, I voted 2-4... For the most part anyway, as I'm too lazy to hold the phone up to my ear for that long...

...seriously.

There might only be one person here lazier than me:

 

Had a similar one to that at a place where I used to work. Some moron keeps calling one phone belonging to a guy who was off that day, after about 10 attempts leaving it ring a dozen or more times each try, one of the other guys in the area picks up the phone and shouts: "Look, if he don't answer, he's not here!" and slams the phone down. No more rings that day. :lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IFixEm @ Aug 3 2006, 03:20 PM) [snapback]297325[/snapback]</div>

I'm an astronomy prof at a local community college. We don't have all the latest equipment so I try to make do when I can.

To demonstrate the orbital speed of planets, I just take one of our lab cats and tie a cord to its tail. They are all seasoned veterans and know the drill after all these years. They seem to realize dinner doesn't come for free and their usual cooperation fills me with pride.

In demonstrating the slow movement of Pluto around the Sun, the orbital speed is so slow that the cat doesn't even wake up.

But when I get to Mercury, closest to the Sun with a very rapid "year" it gets dicey. I have to use a very short cord and the cat tries to take my ear off.

I have taken to putting a little piece of tape over its mouth so that the howling doesn't make the PETA picketers just outside my lab break the door down and set fire to everything.

Teaching science isn't an easy job.......... :mellow:

 

I figure that most voice mails will pick up between 5-7, the missed call will show on most cell phones, and the person may be on another call.

You got to figure some one with a lot of time on their hands is going to let it ring forever, or someone very determined to talk to someone in that department....worse if you do go to answer the phone and it's a wrong number after all that!!!

My bigger pet peeve about the phone is that my 90 year old mother will let it ring and ring as she sits at her desk (where her hand is 8-10 inches from the phone) expecting me to trot around the house, come in from the yard, quit cooking/cleaning/etc. in order to answer the phone. I'll trade for a teenager...at least then the house phone would get answered once in a while! My friends call only on the cell.

 

The standard North American ring cycle is twelve rings per minute (for calls coming from a central office - private phone systems vary, though most adhere to the standard) - two seconds for the ring, three seconds between rings. Six rings is thirty seconds (duh) - if I'm calling a residence, thirty seconds should be plenty (if they don't have voice mail or an answering machine), for businesses, I'll let it go eight to ten. Are you *sure* the psych department wasn't doing an experiment on *you* (insert dramatic music here)?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(glenhead @ Aug 5 2006, 12:08 PM) [snapback]298299[/snapback]</div>

di di dit dah di dah

AC5UA de W6TWA
B)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Alnilam @ Aug 5 2006, 10:07 AM) [snapback]298234[/snapback]</div>

If one of your orbiting cats lets go a "meteor" from its whirling nether end that impacts a student, do you give the cratered student extra credit for demonstrating the effects of interplanetary collisions?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Aug 5 2006, 07:26 PM) [snapback]298495[/snapback]</div>

This goes to show you one can always learn something new. A single demo that explains Keplerian orbits and meteor showers should make the Astrophysics Journal!

I'm grateful to you, biplane guy. I see Teacher of the Year coming up.......

(That was probably the committee trying to call me when I couldn't answer the phone. The cat got my tongue. Literally!)

 

Well, I said 5-7, but if I KNOW someone has an answering machine that picks up on the 4th ring, and I don't want to leave a message, I go for three. When I call my own house...the machine picks up after 2 rings if there are new messages. What REALLY drives me nuts, though, is when my CELL phone is ringing UPSTAIRS and I am DOWNSTAIRS or vice versa, and the 30 second or whatever it is delay I have built into that doesn't let me get there...But then again, I am of the opinion that, since all of my phones DO have answering devices, then anyone who chooses not to leave a message didn't really want to talk to me anyway.

But I also have a nasty (according to dh) habit of just ignoring the phone(s) if I don't feel like talking. Drives me nuts when someone answers the phone and obviously doesn't really want to be talking. DH cannot stand to let a phone ring. HIS problem, I tell him...that IS what the answering machine is for, as far as I am concerned...PLUS...CALLER ID...now I never have to take a call again from our ex-wife!

Pet phone peeve--CALL WAITING--and people who dump you because whoever is on the "other" line is so obviously more important to them. My mother is a MAJOR offender in that realm. I reckon that if god had intended us to have call waiting, she would not have created the busy signal. B)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Alnilam @ Aug 5 2006, 08:42 PM) [snapback]298519[/snapback]</div>

EWWWWW.... :blink:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rufaro @ Aug 6 2006, 12:30 AM) [snapback]298548[/snapback]</div>

If someone is talking to me at work, and the phone starts to ring, I ignore the phone. It's danged funny watching their reaction - "Aren't you going to answer that?" - "No, I'm talking to you." A majority of the people act like I've committed some sort of heresy. There's a lot to be said for the old saying "If it's important enough, they'll call back."

 

All of you people who voted 2-4, stop making phone calls. You don’t have the patients for it or you didn’t need to call them anyway.

As for those of you that chose 5-7, you need to call later because you don’t have the time right now.

 

What I really loved was when I was in college, and lived in a dorm room.

I always wondered, who the f*** calls a DORM ROOM (you know, a 7 x 10 foot space that has two beds in it) and lets the phone ring more than five or six times? No matter how asleep someone is, there's ONLY SEVEN FEET TO TRAVEL, max, to get to the phone!

That really pissed me off. I can understand why galaxee went ballistic over this. It's partly because a ringing phone is a sort of summons -- it creates a certain tension to answer that you can't just totally ignore.

On the bright side, I have become a person who can, totally guilt free and without thinking even once about it again for the rest of the day or for an instant being angry, hang up immediately and without a single word when a phone solicitor calls me. Even getting angry is giving them too much of a reaction!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(zapranoth @ Aug 7 2006, 03:00 AM) [snapback]298927[/snapback]</div>

Congratulations!! IMO ignoring a ringing phone (in comfort) is a big step in becoming at peace with life. Isn’t it wonderful? I don’t really know at what level I am in the quest for being one with the Cosmos, but I know that at every level, life just keeps getting better and better.

Hooray for team Zapranoth!