[dhosek]

A few years ago, I borrowed a combination lock from my wife while I went to the Y to work out in the pool. When I finished my swim, I realized I'd forgotten the combination. I called her from the pool office phone. It took several calls and a couple messages for her to pick up and answer.

I too will often not answer the phone if it's an unfamiliar number, but I do answer if it's the local area code which is not the area code of my wife's and my phone numbers since I figure it's more likely to be something legitimate like a call from a school or a local business where maybe I've forgotten I had placed an order or left dry cleaning and my stuff is now ready. If she had this policy, I would have spent less time waiting to get the combination.

[gurjeet]

My policy for calls from unknown numbers:

1 call: very likely spam; let it go to voicemail.

2 calls: Someone genuine is trying to reach me; let it go to voicemail. Listen to voicemail as soon as it arrives.

3 calls: emergency, pick up right away.

Exception: PagerDuty calls; pick up on first ring.

My wife is aware of this policy of mine. And I store kids’ school numbers in contacts.