Monthly Archives: September 2004

Phone ettiquette (a rant)

Someone just hit a button and reminded me of some of my personal pet peeves about personal phone calls. These things have been cropping up a lot in the last six months and seem to be getting worse. Nobody else may care about these things but they really grate on me.

Don’t play guessing games!

Calling someone and responding just “hello” to their “hello” is just damn rude. They could have no idea who you are, one word is not enough to recognize your voice.

When answering a phone where there are a number of people could be the one answering, you shouldn’t make someone ask who you are so they know what to tell you/ask you. Asking who you are speaking with fits in a business environment but feels very awkward for personal calls.

If you have a common name like Dave, Mike, Jennifer, etc, don’t assume that you are the only Dave/Mike/Jennifer/etc the recipient of your phone call knows. You have to have a pretty uncommon name to be the only “whatever” somebody knows. You don’t necessarily need to always add your last name but you do need to do something that will identify which one you are, like if you know them from X, mention that when you are speaking to them. Even speaking enough so they can recognize your voice is good. That takes more than three words.

When you call someone, tell them why you are calling. Initiating a call and then waiting for them to say something beyond hello is bad. This is especially important if you are calling them at work. You have no idea what they are in the middle of when you call and starting the call out with chit chat is rude. Don’t make someone wait to find out why you called or force them to ask. Saying at the beginning that you are just calling to chit chat is fine because they can tell you if they have time at that moment or not.

Good manners would include:

Identifying yourself when you are calling someone. Identifying yourself when you are answering a phone that could have different people answering it or answering a phone you don’t normally answer. There is no visuals when using phones so the voice is all we have to go on.

Don’t assume someone has your phone number (unless they are your bestest friend that calls you all the time). They may not know it or may not have access to it at the moment. Speak slowly when leaving a phone number on a message. Just because it is old hat to you and you want to say it quickly, that doesn’t mean they won’t have to replay the message 4 times to try to get each number in the right order.

When calling someone, get to the point right away. Tell them why you are calling. After that you can dissolve into casual conversation.

Don’t make people ask who you are or why you are calling. It is hard not to be rude when asking for this info and nobody whats to be rude to a friend on the phone if they can avoid it.

People didn’t use to be so rude when making phone calls. Caller ID and cell phones have removed the need for the information that has gone missing but that is no reason to be lazy. There are people out there without cell phones/caller ID, or don’t recognize phone numbers when they show up or don’t have time to read the display before they pick up the phone. These things don’t really seem to be a problem in business calls because people follow some basic guidelines and the information is given.

The land of the crazy does October (The Season Schedule 2004)

I was thinking of how busy I have been and decided to look forward. This is the schedule for the Halloween portion of The Season (Oct-Dec). It is costumes galore. There are other things going on but this is just the costume portion.

On the current schedule
Oct 9 – Geek Grrl – Danger Twin’s Season Opener Party, Mutate! – Still making corset, need leather suspenders, have most everything else, I think.
Oct 22 – Skull queen – Dance Macabre (Friday Night Waltz) – Have skirt/shirt, need to hem shirt and put in a waistband for skirt.
Oct 23 – Kimono – Witches Ball, Silk Road – Outfit out of the closet, nothing to worry about except maybe hair sticks.
Oct 29 – Bambi – Skylab Party, 60′s Japanese Monster movies – need to make tail (need it anyway for rabbit), make ears, make spots, make spats, actually rather little to do.
Oct 30 – Valkyries – Gaskell’s – Make skirt, figure out waist band/shoes/arm bands, make cape thingy, improve head piece, fix breastplate.
Oct 31 – Some kind of Goth outfit – Goth Picnic in the Cemetery – Something out of my closet.
Nov 6 – White Rabbit – Bal Des Vampyre – Out of closet for the most part.

Sadly, Halloween is not on a work day so I don’t get to do a work costume. Usually I manage to do something costume like the day before Halloween too so I am going to miss out on two outfits. Will I ever survive? *sigh*

Just to be complete, here is the schedule for the rest of The Season:
Nov 1 – Day off to go Halloween clearance shopping
Nov 6 – Bal des Vampyre
Nov 7 – 7th seas RPG
Nov 10 – my birthday which I might ignore
Nov 12-14 – 9sisters retreat
Nov 20 – Was suppose to be the GBACG Pirate’s Feast but that looks hosed. It will probably be the Pit of Scorpions annual party (we have so many Scorpios, we have a party to see if we can survive each other. If we do, then we will take over the world)
Nov 25 – Thanksgiving, who knows what this will hold
Nov 26-29 Loscon and garment district run
Dec 4 – Wow, an open spot, run around screaming Surprise Funeral for a friend
Dec 5 – ridhwan services (not that time consuming)
Dec 11-12 – An open weekend, shall a pool get started to see how long it stays that way? Dickens should be in there somewhere.
Dec 18 – Xmas Gaskells
Dec 25 – Xmas, which is actually quite empty for me. I hide in bed until the damn day is over the the world starts up again.
Dec 31 – New Years
Some time in January is going to be 12th night and that usually is the final event of The Season that starts in Oct.

This does not include Holiday events, work parties (had three of them the year before) and friend’s parties. I am scheduling breathing for Jan and Feb.

[Edit to Dec 4th now that I have the official date]

What a weekend (I am insane)

The weekend was very full and very productive. I finally did laundry on Sat. I think the last time I did laundry was when I came back from my Enneagram training in July, something like July 22. So a full two months between laundry trips. I used just under $20, 7 regular machines, 1 double loader and 2 triple loaders and finished in under 3 hours. What took the most time was sorting the clothes because the laundromat was busy and I had a limited number of machines. I had to be very selective on what went into which machine to make it all fit.

I pulled a Johanna on sunday. In my running around this weekend, I picked up a yard of black tulle with silver skull and crossbones lace on it. How cool would it be to make into an overskirt. But I have a lot to do that I want done by Sunday night and I have so many other costume projects that need work, so this really should go to the bottom of the list. But I would love to have it for Sat. And I am excited about it right now. I laid it out and started cutting. Less than an hour later, I had a finished lace skirt, waistband and all. The reason I am calling this a Johanna is because I want a particular garment to wear dancing so I just whip it together is a very short time. I don’t normally sew that quickly.

After sewing my new fabric, I made/ate dinner, sorted papers and cleaned out boxes and got the apartment mostly in order. It has been a wreck since I had to pull everything out of the back corner to get the phone line repaired. The last barricades and battlements have been cleared away. Movement throughout the entire apartment is no longer restricted. There are still pockets of resistance that will need to be dealt with. As resources return from R&R after removing the roadblocks, they will be reassigned to rooting out the remnants of the resistance.

Weekend Recap: Sleeping in, laundry, drop things off and pick things up at a friends house (with the added bonus of a conversation), make a mess of Mac&Cheese with sauteed hot dogs, picked up Smart Water, 9sisters meeting, made bed (included burping the waterbed, dusting the surface and reseting the layers and layers of blankets that go under the sheets), cleaned up apt, got a mess of music for my mom’s birthday, checked two Ross stores for Boots! (still looking), did a Joann’s run (more fabric), Trader Joes (took longer than Joann’s), cheese from Smart&Final, gas the car, made a skirt, played dress up to check new skirt, sorted papers from 2001-2003, cleaned out boxes of misc stuff with no homes, collected trash from everywhere and got it out, spend the day with a friend. Still didn’t get everything I wanted done like wash the car and fix the license plates. I use to live my life like this all the time. I have no idea how. I would say I am in a manic phase but it doesn’t feel the same. Manic is what Oct will be.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

A friend has Doomed me. She sent me a link to the InfoCom text game Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It is the same text game but it also has graphics. I really (really really) like it. Whaaaaa.

This is the game I had to stop cold turkey in college because I would never pass my classes if I continued (I got as far as getting the babble fish in my ear).

I don’t normally play computer games. They just don’t hold interest for me. Fancy solitaire is the level I like and can lose hours in. This looks like it might just be more dangerous.

So, thanks (I think) arianrhodstorm. You are Evil. :)

Rain

In my last entry, I totally forgot the wonderfulness that was the rain Sunday morning. It woke me up at 8am. It sounded like someone was watering the plants outside except as I moved nearer to the door, it got louder than it should be. I opened the door and there was water falling from the sky and the most delightful feel to the air. I was so tired from the night before I just wanted to climb back into bed (my alarm wasn’t to go off for another half an hour) but I sat in my doorway in my nightshirt just experiencing the rain. I closed my eyes and just felt the breeze of the air and the water pushed it from outside into my apartment. I listened to the drops hit the leaves. I opened my eyes and watched the little plants shiver when they were hit, the ripples as drops hit standing water, branches flow in the breeze, the soft light. I found a smile on my face and contentment in my heart. I was very please to be awakened and willing to get up so that I could experience the rain because I knew it would be gone by the time I would actually leave the for the day. It is really rare for me to be grateful to be up in the morning to just experience anything.

I was very surprised and delighted we had rain in September. I miss the rain and I am so grateful to get a sneak preview of the winter. It makes dealing with the Bay Area Summer a little easier. Now if only we could avoid that one more heat wave that is due at this time of year.

New Wave City announcement

I am insane. To add to a busy schedule, I got this idea that it would be fun to do the special New Wave City this Friday (Sept 17th).

It is a cross over with Death Guild and a special for the upcoming Siouxsie’s concert the following week. New Wave City does Siouxsie, Death Guild does The Creatures and there is also a third dance floor. 7 djs.

It is taking place at Space 550 (550 Barneveld in San Francisco).

fresne and I are thinking to be there around 10pm. I figured I would post this in case anyone else would like to show up.

On communication

I just wrote something and the following stood out for me. I realized that it was true in so many cases not just what I was writing about. So I figured I would share and put it with my other insights into myself.

“It makes me feel so good to get a straight answer even if it is the opposite of what I want to hear. Because it means I can let go, I don’t have to keep trying anymore and I can move onto something else that will actually work.”