When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.
When did this become a thing: a person emails you and tells you to call him. Please don’t ask me to call you. Please let’s not make a phone date. Just pick up the phone and call. If I’m not there, leave a message and I’ll call back. Isn’t that how we used to do it? I always thought that was a pretty good system. What’s the point of using email to make a phone date. It’s an extra step and it puts the onus on the wrong party.
Am I right?
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Betsy Lerner 
Betsy, I’m just leaving you this message on your blog because I don’t have time to email you. Please email me your phone number, so I can text you my Snapchat name, so you can join up and send me a friend request, because there’s a cool photo I wanna show you, but I wanna show my other peeps too, and I don’t have time to show it one at a time, yeah? Then when you see the photo — you’ll know which one it is, probably, but if not, leave a message for me on Facebook and I’ll PM you there — show it to your peeps, and if they like it, call me and let me know, okies? Actually, you don’t have my number, do you? Listen, download WhatsApp, and I will too, or — you know what, it’ll be easier if I just write a novella and use the photo on the ebook cover, and I’ll call the book Betsy the Lerner, and as long as you’ve got your Google Notifications set up right, you’ll see it and download the book, then you can just leave a review on Amazon. But make sure you make it clear you’re only reviewing the cover photo and not the book, okies? That’d be confusing.
Client contact is a large part of my job and yes, this has become a thing. I refuse to do it. If the person hasn’t left even the vaguest bit of a question, I respond to the email with an answer and tell them to call me if they have further questions. And then I mark that motherfucking initial contact as complete while muttering to myself about how much I hate people.
Has left, not hasn’t. If they haven’t left some kind of a question, I write them back with my direct line and times when I’m available to talk because if I don’t, they seem to think they can call at 7am or 8pm because don’t we all work 24-7 now?
Back when I worked in the corporate world, in IT, I wrote a white paper on new communications and etiquette and this was the exact thing I pointed out. Aside from a rundown on all the new technology at the time (web conferencing was just getting started back then), + Instant Messaging (IM), and email, etc., I noted this extra step. The email or the IM to ask, “can you talk?” Or, “can I call you?”
No one could decide if it was a good thing or not. It became ingrained in the culture of where I worked.
You make a good point about the difference between internal and external communications. Internally, we all seem to IM each other first to see if it’s a good time to call.
Exactly – we did just that, and we sort of laughed about it.
Funny thing, my agent emailed me the other day and said, “I was going to tell you about x,y, and z, but it’s easier to call and tell you – now a good time?
You betcha.
People check their emails more than phone messages, especially while traveling. Yes, it’s putting the onus on you, but that means you can decide how to respond. Or not. Personally, I get an email, I respond with an email and vice versa for phone calls. It probably all comes down to how much you want to talk to someone. I don’t think it’s intended to stir up animosity, but just an attempt to navigate the high seas of technology. Sometimes we flounder….
Ring, ring, is this the party to whom I am speaking?
Send. This is the party to whom you want to speak but would rather email because you can edit what you want to say without sounding like a dork.
You are right.
Emails are forever. Technology hasn’t arrived to make all phone calls forever…. yet. Anything over the Internet can’t be erased. Besides, I don’t need spellcheck for the phone.