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by SoftTalker 547 days ago
Yeah I’m old enough to almost be a boomer and I don’t answer the phone if the caller is not in my contacts.
1 comments

I am a boomer, and I don't answer the phone. "If it's important, they'll leave a message."
Though I deactivated my voicemail cause I was tired of getting spam on it.
Admittedly, I have to let some things through because I'm a freelance musician and if I don't take a call, the client will move on to the next person on their list. But at least leaving a voice mail means the caller doesn't know if they've reached a live line or not.
And if it’s really important they’ll send a letter.
All the important stuff comes by either certified mail or a legal process server.
I only accept and send Horde Mail.

A personalized Viking Raider takes your package on a saga to your chosen destination, looting and pillaging on the way while yelling battlecries and occasionally throwing an axe.

Extra charge if longboat is required.

Yeah, but I bet they just pass any resulting weregild right back on to the customer...
And once they have done that in triplicate, I might answer the phone.
I'm with all of you - not in contacts, not gonna pick up the call.

But I read about a situation which would probably open the doors a bit...

see https://toronto.citynews.ca/2024/12/02/toronto-public-librar...

A girl got lost. She wanted to call her mom, but the girl had left her phone at home. So she went to the library to phone her mom. The librarian refused to let the girl make a call. [N.B. Yes, the librarian got in hot water for that move]

The girl eventually convinced a stranger to let the girl call her mom using the stranger's phone.

The mom, who was frantically trying to locate her daughter, took the call even though it was from an unknown number.

How many people would make an exception in that case of an unknown number calling?

>> The mom, who was frantically trying to locate her daughter, took the call even though it was from an unknown number.

>> How many people would make an exception in that case of an unknown number calling?

Duh! What a stupid question. Almost everyone in extreme distress due to losing their child would take anything, call, stranger knocking at the door, medium talking to the ether. Anything! :)

I get this is an Idiocracy-level type of question: "If you have one bucket that contains 2 gallons and another bucket that contains 7 gallons, how many buckets do you have?"

That's the point - all the people who said, "Not in contact list, do not pickup" (including me), did they think about an exception list?

I know I didn't. Short-sighted reaction after getting inundated with mandarin-speaking spammers.

I don't know what the globally correct answer is. But "never pickup" seems too extreme (even if the person, calling on the unknown number, leaves a voicemail, if you can't reach them with a return call, what then?)

>The girl eventually convinced a stranger to let the girl call her mom using the stranger's phone.

She could send an SMS.

"When you hear the beep, please hang up and send me a freaking text."