Who screens there calls? I DO I DO! I love that I have a digital answering machine on my cordless phone, because even though I have voicemail with my Comcast VOIP service an answering machine allows me to screen my phone calls {with the help of caller ID – a feature I LOVE}. So I wonder how many other people screen their calls?

Here is my rule; if I don’t know the number or it’s a private number on my caller ID {this includes “unavailable” ID’s} then I DO NOT answer it. I may even choose not to answer AFTER the person is leaving a message and I realize who it is, just because I don’t like to admit to everyone that I was screening my calls {there goes my cover, now it’s on MY BLOG}.

The reason for my screening calls story – is a phone call I received all day yesterday, seriously ALL DAY, on my “Message Phone”. I have a Tracfone {prepaid wireless phone} to use on the rare occasion I am away from the house or the home office. This is my way of making sure anyone can reach me if an emergency arises. The Tracfone is also used as a way for my business contacts to reach me, allowing them to leave a message and schedule a time for me to call them back. I enjoy scheduling phone calls, it’s so much easier when working from to schedule calls, and I prefer to do so. Scheduling phone calls allows me more time to complete my projects for clients.  So here is my letter for the person who kept calling me yesterday:

Dear Mr. or Mrs. Unavailable,

I must ask that you kindly refrain from calling my cell phone every 10 minutes, do you not realize that if I don’t know who you are I am not going to answer?

If you are calling me for business reasons or if you have my house phone number my message clearly states to leave a detailed message or call my house phone. I would appreciate it Mr. or Mrs. Unavailable if you could please leave a message the next time you call.

If the call is so vitally important that you require calling every 10 minutes, I can only assume that you want me to pick up my phone. Since I have not picked up the phone all day, and my business site clearly states “Message Phone” I would think a message would have been left after the first two phone calls and no one answered.

This is just me, but I normally call a person one time, and leave a message if I feel the need to. If I don’t leave a message the first time I try to call and no one answers I will most certainly leave a message the SECOND time I call. No not YOU, Mr. or Mrs. Unavailable, you prefer to call over and over again. You will not break me, I will not pick up. If you continue to call me I may pick up and hang up – which is not very professional, so please Mr. or Mrs. Unavailable please don’t make me hang up on you or shut my message phone off, I would really like to have it on so I can get Dwan’s text messages!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Annoyed

Don’t you ever wish you could write this or pick up the phone for annoying calls like this and just tell them something along the lines of the above? Oh gosh – it WOULD be fun!