Why, Whitney?
Archive for January 11th, 2006
Annoyances and Sound Byte
Let’s go for the sound byte first, because they’re easier.
Overheard from a Biggest Loser contestant leaving the building:
“I’m not taking my clothes off for anyone!”
Not a good visual. Not even remotely.
Now for the annoyance . . .
One of my several pet peeves has to do with urgency of communication. I never try to turn my urgency into someone else’s urgency. I thank others to have that same consideration.
Last night, a guy I know was blowing up my phone at midnight. Both phones. He called my house three times in a row, and then my cell. It’s like he was calling, getting voicemail, hanging up and immediately hitting redial. Kinda creepy.
Now . . . this guy . . . before anyone starts thinking that he’s looking for a midnight rendezvous . . . he’s a strictly platonic friend, although we’re not extremely close. We usually talk whenever I’m hiring him to do work around my house — like any sort of complication installation. He’s really quite good at contractor work.
In the meantime, I’ve decided that I only answer the phone for a small handful of people after midnight, and since I didn’t immediately recognize the number, I had no intention of picking up. (Truthfully, I have phone issues anyway, but I’ll get into that later.)
He left messages on both phones, and when I checked my cell voicemail, I had a message marked “Urgent,” which was a very nebulous ranting about how I need to call him IMMEDIATELY because he has something VERY IMPORTANT to talk to me about, and could I please call him ASAP.
I was annoyed on two counts. First, a message marked Urgent should indicate the presence of a true emergency, which can be defined as:
- My parents or a member of my family is in danger
- Someone (that I know) has been beat up, maimed or dismembered
- God forbid, someone (that I know) has died
Things that do NOT qualify as a true emergency include:
- You want to make sure that your message goes to the top of the queue
- You’ve been dumped
- You want to know where the party is
- You want me to drop what I’m doing or wake up to do you a favor
- You want money
- Anything else not covered in the official list of true emergencies
The second count of annoyance was the fact that there was no additional information in that message besides that it was very important that he talk to me immediately. If you’re going to leave a message like that, at least give me some context. Tell me what kind of emergency you’re having, and what you need. Jeez.
As it turns out, he needs money.
