I have long been trying to convince people that I carry a cell phone for my convenience—not theirs.

I am going to have to start using these tactics with my mother.

Even worse are those people who tell their secretary to get you on the phone, then leave you waiting until they’re ready to talk to you. I have no patience for this - I’m busy too. If I want to speak to someone I call them myself, and I expect others to return that courtesy.

Unless I know your phone number and am expecting a call from you, I’ll let you speak to my voice mail. Big exception, of course, for my wife—who I answer no matter what.

Cell phones often make people forget common courtesy. I have a terrible phone plan, so in addition to few minutes, I also get charged for checking my voice mail (on top of air time) So unless I’m expecting to hear from someone important, I only check my voice mail once a week. I never call anyone back who can’t bother to give me a reason why I should. Anyone who knows me knows enough to leave me a text message.

Interesting that he felt he needed to say “not so polite.” I didn’t find any of his ideas rude. Just plain common sense.

I couldn’t agree more. I usually don’t answer the phone—it would have to be an emergency situation in which I’m waiting for someone to call me back immediately, and frankly, I can think of none that fit that description. I mean, if someone’s bleeding, we’re on the way to the ER, not sitting by the phone, for Pete’s sake.

While home for the holidays, I had the pleasure of listening to my Dad take a call from a group looking for donations. I’m not (yet) old enough to feel comfortable doing it but …

Dad: Hello?

listens

Dad: Skip the nonsense . What do you want?

listens

Dad: We’ll call you back.

hangs up.

All good ideas, and I have a co-worker who puts this in his VM message. “…and I will promptly return your call, unless it is an unsolicted sales call”

I myself go with this. “You have reached the voice mail box of (change voice and give name). This mailbox is at 90% of total capacity.” It either causes people to get to the point, or they hang up.

What I can’t stand is that whenever I call anyone at SBC (Some Big Corporation) they never answer their phone. I can call 50 times, and it goes to VM no matter what time of the day I call. I can call from any number, it doesn’t matter. They have an internal culture of letting every call go to VM, no matter what.

Heather, your dad RAWKS! I can hardly wait until my next unsolicited call. My brother does the same thing (usually he just listens for 20 seconds and says, “No thanks. I’m not interested” and then he hangs up. His wife scolded him for this behaviour, but his rationale was that these people phoning are usually trying to make money with each phone call. The faster you can help them get to a customer who will donate money, the better off they are. So you are helping them get to the money calls. Sounds good to me.

[…] I treat my phone calls like this and I always thought I was just being a prick. Well maybe I am, but at least I’m not alone. Bob Parsons’ hardass time management | 43 Folders […]

[…] Merlin Mann at 43Folders commented on Bob Parsons’ ideas for handling phone calls, interruptions, and other time wasters. At first read, they sound a little harsh, but the more you realize what he’s saying, it’s a very logical way to control your own life and time. And the fault is really on the people who will be most offended—those who are presuming on others’ time. It has nothing to do with politeness, it has to do with 86,400—that’s how many seconds you have in a day and you don’t need to waste any of them. […]

If you were in boy scouts you might remember the communications merit badge, where if you didn’t know already, you learned how to leave phone messages that people will actually return. The gist of it is to just have respect for other people’s time by telling them who you are, what you’re calling about, and why you’re calling them about it. Don’t leave people wondering why someone named Fred is calling them from an area code they don’t recognize

Two things from my past are perhaps relevant here:

(1) I spent a difficult few weeks working as a telemarketer. Our instructions were that, if we got blown off (e.g. “No thanks, I’m not interested,” ), we should put the card with that number back in the stack, so someone would call them again in a couple weeks. If, on the other hand, someone said, “Don’t call this number again,” or “Take me off your list,” or anything else involving concrete instructions for the future, we were told to rip the card up and throw it in the trash, to make sure they never got another call from us.

Since then I always say, in a totally friendly voice, “Please take me off your list and don’t call again. Thanks a lot and have a good day.”

(2) Remember that book, “Life’s Little Instruction Book,” that was next to the till in every bookstore in America in like 1992? One piece of advice in that book was, “Never allow the telephone to interrupt an important moment. It’s there for your convenience, not your caller’s.” It totally changed my perspective, and now I answer the phone maybe 40% of the time.

[…] Dans la mine d’or qu’est 43Folders, voici une façon très élégante de ne pas se faire surprendre par son téléphone. […]

“I very rarely return any voice messages”

This advice is dangerous if misinterpreted. I think the advice is reasonable for messages from people that you don’t know: “This is Company X, please call us back at…” It is unreasonable for messages from people you know well or, even worse, your colleagues at work.

People do in fact use this approach at work and it’s the “I’m too busy, if it’s important then they’ll call back” syndrome. Well, other people’s time is important too and why should they have to keep calling this person until he answers the phone?

I know people who have the same rule with e-mail: delete it and if it’s important then the person will call. Well, if a colleague doesn’t reply to e-mail or voicemail, why bother trying to reach them at all? That person has effectively cut themselves off from all of their colleagues who do not sit in the office next door. If most employees operated that way, companies would cease to function.

My job demands a mix of client time and quiet time for creating more business to increase client time. I control the input by scheduling blocks of time to be open to clients and interruptions. This way they’re not interruptions…whatever walks in the door is expected, until it’s time to go to a meeting with myself to screen out all input and create…research, write, brainrain…finish projects…and manage that client time to achieve the promises I made during quiet time.

Parsons is rude. Yes, his tactics may save time. They may also be the only tactics that make sense. But I don’t think so. Since when is it good business to treat people like crap? That’s what he’s doing. If it takes an extra five seconds per encounter to be polite and kind to others, and even if all those little five second moments add up to something big, SO WHAT? Bob Parsons - guaranteed - did not get where he is by being disrespectful to people. Now that he’s there, he thinks he’s earned that right. I wonder if he’s lonely.

Seriously: advising disrespect is never good advice. Not for your soul, not for your personal life, and not for your business.

• dan

I agree with Dan. Parsons’ advice is simply arrogant rudeness masquerading as authoritative get-stuff-done advice. At best these tactics will work in some niche business where your contacts enjoy being treated like crap; at worste you will end up alienating current and potential customers, employees, et. al.

I agree with Dan and Sah. Like everything in life, balance is the key — and there’s a wide, wide range of choices between being rudely agressive and being a doormat. By respecting both others and ourselves, and, by extension, our time and others’ time, it’s really not that difficult to arrive at a a golden mean of polite assertiveness. (Except, perhaps, for the current lack of public role models — but that’s another story, sort of.)

Those of us who need to learn to be assertive and protect our time will be put off the Parsons’ advice, and those need to learn to be more respectful of others certainly don’t need his advice.

Reading over some of your “responses to telemarketers”, I’d like to share a few of my favorites … (My response to a telemarketer/door-to-door salesperson) “Yes? Do you have an appointment (to speak with me)? No? Well, I charge $50 (to $100) an hour for you to speak to me, do you have your check book ready? No? Well, I guess we can’t talk then until you make an appt. See, you’re interrupting my day and I only work by appt. Bye!” Or my favorite when the newspaper calls with their specials, “Oh, I’d love to get your paper, but ‘I can’t read!’” Or, “Really, only $.30 a week? That’s what it costs me to walk it to the trash-can. Besides, I get it free on the Internet, why are you still wasting trees?” Oh, one more, for the door-to-door solicitor; “Really and how much is that? $14.95? Really, because that’s how much I charge PER MINUTE for you to be able to talk to me. Do you have your check book ready?” (They run!) ;-) Well, hope these little tips help …

Brent, interesting comment. I just started working for a company that made it abundantly clear that all voicemails and emails are to be returned within 24 hours. You don’t have to have the answer, but you have to return the call/msg. So far, after three weeks, it seems like everyone adheres to this; they may have others cover for them while out, or return the msgs from home with no new information, but it works.

And it goes back to that “Just get it done, then it’s done” mentality. Why drag something out when it’s probably just a quick call back to say, “jump in a lake.”

Of course, that doesn’t apply to solicitors. Those calls and emails should never be returned. The trust factor that has been established is that when I call a co-worker, I have a reason. And my reason is as important as the co-worker’s reason for ignoring it.

But, I’m a skeptic. I’ll be keeping my eyes open to see how long this 24-hour rule lasts. And maybe I’ll call the Chairman and see how long it takes him to return my call. =P I’ll have a darned good reason to call, I’m sure!

I can’t see that Parsons is doing anything rude. He doesn’t say that he is abrupt or unfriendly with the person when he tells them they have 30 seconds. He doesn’t say that he rushes the customer off the phone - to the contrary, he says he listens to the problem, then gets the info he needs to deal with it.

Lastly, he doesn’t say that he never returns voice mail messages. He doesn’t return messages from people who don’t say what they want.

I’ve been following the same rules for years.

I spent two days as a telemarketer, enough time to learn that the quicker you hang up on them the better off they are. They are forbidden to hang up on you: as long as you keep the conversation going, they are obliged to counter every argument you say. If they do not get a firm no they have to keep talking to you. The nicest thing you can do to a telemarketer is hang up on them as soon as you realize you will not be buying what they are offering. They will be just as happy if you do not waste the seconds to tell them what you are doing, either.

Interesting thoughts. I myself have operated on both sides of this line. I used to allow myself to be held hostage by telemarketers because I was brought up to be “nice”. The end result was nearly always that I’d patiently listen to their nonsense, then politely decline, only to have THEM hang up on ME before I even finished my sentence. When I finally woke up to the fact that being nice made no sense at all, I used to have a little fun with them. For a while my standard answer was an earnest “Oh, I’m sorry … we don’t take calls from telemarketers!” Often their response was a startled, “Oh, oh! I’m sorry … um.. ” as they stammered confusedly. But now I just politely get to the point … “Not interested, but thanks for calling.” Click. Occasionally I remember to ask them to remove me from their list, but I honestly haven’t had any luck with that .. they almost always call back anyway.

Anyway, while I agree with the premise of not allowing others to dominate your time without your permission, I do find the notion of saying something like “You have 30 seconds to get to the point” to be a blustery, unnecessarily rude method of handling the matter, and typical of many self-important men I know. After all, is the point be to get off the phone quickly or just to be offensive? The point made here seems more to be “I’m far too important for the likes of you, prove to me why I should listen to you.”

One last thing … you never know who might be calling. For a while, I was in a rude phase with unknown callers. During that time, I managed to be quite rude to people who didn’t deserve it … a headhunter calling for my husband, a client, etc. No, not everyone practices good phone manners (identifying themselves immediately, saying why they are calling), but it doesn’t mean that I need to practice poor phone manners as well. It is possible to take charge of your time without being a complete jerk.

I would add that you should always take care of the folks that you want to answer their phone/email when you call/write. Answer and be helpful. It may take a little time, but it saves alot of time when you really need them.

I use caller ID at home to screen out telemarketers. On my telecommuting days - when I answer all phone calls - I’ve found just saying “Sorry, I’m telecommuting today” works just fine. Same concept as “This is a business phone” when they accidentally call your office direct number. The telemarketer apologizes and hangs up. Polite & effective.

I have found a courteous way of keeping phone calls focused is to answer them:”Hello, [callers name]. What can I do for you?” It implies an attitude of service while offering little oppurtunity for time wasting banter.

Also with solicitors I greet them with: “Hi! What are you selling?” Only the well prepared solicitor isn’t totally thrown by that. Most are only prepared to do their spiel. If I’m not interested in what they are selling,I tell them so and politely bid them good day.

If I am interested then I typicaly say: “Okay, give me your pitch”. A well prepared pitch will get me the information to decide wether I wish to consider a purchase faster then me asking a bunch of questions up front. I know that most have a prepared pitch so I work within their comfort zone to get the information I want.