Playing "Guess who's telephoning!"

[bopper]

Make it so it is tedious for her.


Telephone rings. I answer: "Hello?"
Caller: Hi!!"
Me: "Yes, hello?"
Caller "Don't you know who this is?"
Me; "No, I am afraid I don't."
Caller: "It's Jane!"
Me: "It would be much faster if you just identified yourself right away.  I do not have Caller ID so I have no idea it is. So if you don't say your name, we have to go through this dance each time.  So may I suggest that you say "Hi, it's Jane!" and then I will be happy to talk to my friend Jane. If you don't, then we have to go through this whole converstation and then I think "Ugh, Jane did that whole song and dance with me and that is annoying." So, would you rather have me be happy you called or annoyed? Because I think happy would be better all around.  So, Jane, what's up?

[Lynn2000]

I can see someone assuming you know who they are, and just continuing on with the conversation... Phone voices often sound so different from regular voices, I think, but people forget that or they think everyone has caller ID or whatever. I don't think it's rude to sound mystified as you talk to them, or to outright ask who they are. If it's someone well-intentioned they'll probably be embarrassed that they made the assumption in the first place (at least that's what happens to me) and then you can laugh and say something self-deprecating about phone voices or background noise.

I don't like the guessing game, though. I don't like personal guessing games in general--"How old do you think I am?" "Guess my job!" "What country do you think I'm from?" A random sampling of answers might be interesting for the asker (vainly, I'm always curious how old people think I look), but it puts the other person on the spot and often results in them looking/feeling foolish. I'm not Sherlock Holmes, you know... I always refuse to answer those kinds of questions--big smile, "No really, I have no idea, where are you from?"

[RooRoo]

For my own, slightly different experience with this, see http://www.etiquettehell.com/smf/index.php?topic=111673.5985, posts 5995 & 5995...

in which I lose my cool...

[cabbageweevil]

I usually just keep them talking for a few moments until I can figure out who it is.  My nephews are not good at identifying themselves on the phone but at least they don't intentionally make it a guessing game.  And none of my friends make it guessing game, either, at least not on purpose.
(snip)
My passionate hate for people not identifying themselves may come from my childhood...     Although it was really amusing/insulting to be mistaken for my brother on more than one occasion.

And Adelaide (post #14) tells of her grandmother's sometimes getting wrong, the gender of the recipient of her calls (on a person-specific phone).

I sympathise with posters for whom phone situations of the type concerned are an annoyance, and a needless one. (Plenty of good suggestions have been given for dealing with non-self-identifiers.)

Re gender-confusion experiences: I'm terrible at identifying voices on the phone, and am quite capable of mistaking male for female and vice versa; have more than once thought I was talking to my SIL, when in fact it was my brother. I dislike using the telephone in the first place, and don't own a mobile (American -- cell) phone.  Would certainly find life easier if everyone who telephoned me were just to start off, "This is XYZ".

[veryfluffy]

Even if I know it is Jane (because, actually, I am pretty good at recognising telephone voices quickly), I just find it a rude and childish thing to do. I feel school-teachery saying, "why play guessing games? didn't your mother teach you telephone manners?"

So would it be awfully PA to pretend I don't know it's her -- or to guess completely wrong on purpose?

[Lynn2000]

Even if I know it is Jane (because, actually, I am pretty good at recognising telephone voices quickly), I just find it a rude and childish thing to do. I feel school-teachery saying, "why play guessing games? didn't your mother teach you telephone manners?"

So would it be awfully PA to pretend I don't know it's her -- or to guess completely wrong on purpose?

Eh, maybe. If she says, giggle giggle, "Guess who it is!" hee hee, could you respond in a completely bored tone, "Hi, Jane. What's up?" Like, sigh, your little games are tiresome to me. I presume people do this because they want attention, so maybe it would be best to take that away from them, basically ignore their game and proceed as usual.

[VorFemme]

Even if I know it is Jane (because, actually, I am pretty good at recognising telephone voices quickly), I just find it a rude and childish thing to do. I feel school-teachery saying, "why play guessing games? didn't your mother teach you telephone manners?"

So would it be awfully PA to pretend I don't know it's her -- or to guess completely wrong on purpose?

Eh, maybe. If she says, giggle giggle, "Guess who it is!" hee hee, could you respond in a completely bored tone, "Hi, Jane. What's up?" Like, sigh, your little games are tiresome to me. I presume people do this because they want attention, so maybe it would be best to take that away from them, basically ignore their game and proceed as usual.

Ask if it is your five year old niece or nephew.....?  Keep guessing the names of small children in your family or circle of friends.  If she gets upset and tells you it's "Jane" - act bored with the whole game since the other player is too old to play such silly games.

[wolfie]

When I call someone I always say "this is wolfie - can I please speak to whoever I was calling?"

One of my co-workers told me I don't need to do that anymore - apparently I do have a distinctive voice. Unfortunately I don't think that id distinctive in a good way.

[norrina]

I have known DF and his (11 y.o.) son for 4 years now, and we have lived together for just over 18 months. A couple weeks ago, DF and I were out running some errands when I received a call on my cell phone from a local number that I didn't recognize. I answered and the call went thusly:
Me: Hello, this is Norrina (I receive professional calls on my cell so I identify myself when I answer)
Caller: Hi
*pause*
*pause*
Me: May I help you?
Caller: *indigninantly* It's FSS. Don't you recognize my voice.
Me: It's the middle of the day, you're supposed to be in school! And what happened to your cell phone?

It turns out that he had been sent ill to the nurse's office and was calling from the school phone to be picked up. But if, at least when caught unawares, I cannot even recognize the voice of my own future stepson, how can anyone be expected to recognize the voice of a friend? Although I do plead guilty to not IDing myself when I call my parents and say, "Hi mom/dad!", but then again I only have brothers (and the vast majority of the time I cannot tell their voices apart, nor them from dad). And I once called my then boyfriend and had a 20 minute conversation with his adult son before we realized neither of us were speaking with who we thought we were. I called, a man answered, and I inquired, "Shane?" Shane's son John, mishearing the name as his own, replied yes. I then said, "It's Norrina," and we commenced chatting because John had a friend also named Norrina and thought I was her. The conversation became progressively more surreal until we finally realized something was very odd indeed and got to the bottom of what had happened.

[MamaMootz]

This happened to me on the phone at our temporary housing the other day.

Me: Hello?
Caller: HellOOO.
Me: (silence).
Me: (silence).
Me: (silence).
Caller:..... Betsy?
Me: Nope sorry wrong number.

Apparently I sound a lot like Betsy and Betsy knows the caller very well, from the tone of the hellOOO.

[Danika]

But seriously, who is so narcissistic that they expect a group of strangers to recognize them from an “it’s me”?

I think that's the crux of the issue.

I had a female cousin and a male friend who used to do this to me, back in the days before Caller-ID. After a while, I knew who it was, not because they had distinctive voices and I could figure out who they were by them just saying "hello" back to me after I answered, but because I only knew one female and one male who did it, so I could figure out who it was. I still thought it was incredibly entitled and narcissistic. I don't know why they did it. I think they thought they were clever or enigmatic. I always just responded like I was annoyed and didn't know who it was. I didn't want to reward annoying behavior.

Now that I know them better, I know they're both very narcissistic. That's my guess as to what's going on with Jane, too.

[snappylt]

My favorite (true) story on the "who's calling" topic happened many years ago, when I was single.  My mother was still alive then, and she had come to visit me for Christmas Day.

The phone rang and I answered with a simple: "Hello."

Caller: "Snappy?  Snappy LT?  Is that you?"

I answered, "Yes, this is Snappy..."

Caller: "Snappy, this is John.  Oh, I am so glad to speak with you after all this time.  How have you been?  What are you doing?"

I had no idea who this John was.  I knew several people with that name, but the voice didn't sound familiar.  I went ahead and answered the question, hoping to figure it out:  "Well, my mom is visiting for Christmas.  We just had a nice dinner and now we are sitting here talking."

Caller:  [Silence.]  Then, in a very odd voice: "Your mother?  You're talking with your mother?" [Another pause.]  "Wait a minute.  Are you SnappyLT?"

Me: "Yes, I am."

Caller: "But are you the Snappy who went to high school in [town and state]?"

Me: "No, I've never even been there.  Do you suppose maybe you're trying to reach a different SnappyLT?"

Caller, sounding very relieved:  "Oh, that must be it.  The mother of the Snappy I know passed away when he was a little boy.  Sorry to have bothered you."

After all these years I still remember the odd tone of voice that caller used for just a moment when he thought I was talking to a ghost.

[Hunter-Gatherer]

Telephone rings. I answer: "Hello?"
Caller: Hi!!"
Me: "Yes, hello?"
Caller "Don't you know who this is?"

I'd see nothing wrong with making ridiculous guesses at this point, but that tends to match with my sense of humor anyway, and hopefully someone who thinks we're close enough that I should recognize their voice would know that.  It might go something like this:
Caller "Don't you know who this is?"
Me "Mickey Mouse?"
Caller "Seriously.  You don't know who I am?"
Me "Darth Vader?"
Caller "It's Jane!  How could you not recognize my voice?"
Me "We don't talk on the phone all that often, I'm bad at recognizing voices, and I don't like guessing games.  So, how've you been?  Good?  Me, oh I was just snacking on some lovely bean dip."