The Phone or Email?
I much prefer to use email when communicating with most people. The reason being is that I don’t need an immediate answer in most cases, but I do need one that is clear and receiving it in written form gives me the opportunity to re-read it (as opposed to re-playing it - which you can’t do with a phone call after it’s finished, unless it was recorded) and respond at a time that is appropriate for me. It also means I don’t have to worry about what time it is wherever the receiver is - as opposed to picking up the phone and calling someone.
But over the past few months I’ve had people pick up the phone to talk to me, and whilst this normally wouldn’t be a problem if they were local, the people ringing me were from other countries, and they hadn’t checked what time it is where I am before they rang. Which can be a real problem. I really don’t like getting phone calls at 10.45pm, 2.55am, 6.15am and at other odd times. It really surprises me that the callers don’t even think to check before they call to work out what time it is in another country on the other side of the world from them. After all, on the web, there are sites like the World Clock which allows you to work out what time it is right now anywhere else in the world. So, why don’t people use it - particularly those who are in business?
About a month ago I’d had a lady call me at 10.45pm because she’d just received an email from me. She was in India but it hadn’t occurred to her what time it might be in Melbourne, Australia and she just picked up the phone to ring me to discuss what we’d been emailing. I got a bit of a surprise because I honestly wasn’t expecting a phone call at that hour and was just finishing up things for the night so I could go to bed.
So, the point of this post is to prompt the reader to think first before picking up the phone. What time is it at the destination end of your call? Might be better to send an email asking for a convenient time to call and use the meeting planner at the world clock to assist your planning. KMT
