Remember when phones used to have a rotary dial, twisty chord and screw capped, circular earpiece?  If it rang, no matter where you were, in or around your house, you rushed to answer it.  There were no answering machines and so a phone would ring until either you answered or, they hung up.  And, if you could, you always answered because surely there was someone calling you that you knew and needed to speak with you.  A few months ago, I watched a news segment wherein they showed a video clip of two teenagers trying to use a rotary telephone.  They couldn’t figure it out, putting an exclamation point on the fact that, when it comes to telephones, times have certainly changed!
Today, we carry our phones with us everywhere, at all times, making us 100 percent accessible to everyone.  Rarely do we even need to dial a phone number; we can simply press ONE button and instantly connect with someone in our contact list.
Answering machines, once non-existent in a not-so-long-ago past, are virtually; once again, non-existent since everyone, everywhere, now uses voice mail.  And since we are now a society that has less time to wait for anything, if we don’t want to answer a call or can’t answer a call, messages can go instantly to voicemail, making a phone call exchange, for lack of a better description, less time consuming.  This is certainly true in my personal life.  Professionally speaking, however, Robocallers and telemarketers are making my phone call exchange experience miserable!
In my hospitality profession, I MUST answer the telephone, every time it rings, as the telephone is an integral way in which our guests reach out for our services.  But lately, I am getting extremely frustrated and down-right angry when I answer the telephone, because more than 50 percent of the incoming phone calls we are receiving, on a daily basis, are from dreaded Robocallers and telemarketers.  I find myself actually placing REAL guests on hold so that I can switch over to answer, what turns out to be, yet another telemarketer.  When, and more importantly, WHY, did this type of business strategy become acceptable?!
As a small business, we have tried everything in order to cut down on the number of unsolicited phone calls we receive in a day; Nothing has helped!  I have stayed on the line and pressed the “required” buttons and/or spoken to the “required” person and asked to be removed from the calling list.  Ten minutes later, They call again.  I have yelled and threatened harassment.  Ten minutes later, They call again.
It’s almost as if They know that I HAVE TO answer the phone, regardless of whether or not I am in the middle of helping another guest, and They are just purposely toying with me as I am 100 percent certain that my ‘Google listing’ is not in jeopardy, or that my ‘iCloud Account’ has not been breached.  Nor do I panic when They call to tell me that my business will surely go under if I don’t authorize the use of some internet advertising service. Once, after answering the phone with my cheeriest, most professional greeting, the Telemarketer on the other end actually said “Hello? Who did I call now?”  I responded as politely as I could before placing Them on a longgggg hold “I’m not sure, let me go check…”
RING! RING!

Kathy Naumann, possessor of NATURALLY curly hair and the understanding that you can’t control everything!

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