‘I don’t think I have your number’.
You can tell that’s me speaking because I know I don’t have her number, but I am so damagingly polite (this is how someone recently described me – it’s why I get places, but get there slowly apparently – actually I think it’s probably as good an assessment of me as any) that I say think rather than know. Just as I will write a reminder email if you didn’t get the original.
‘My work mobile is…’ she says and recites it.
So. Two mobiles. Work and Personal. Perhaps this is nothing new to those of you who work outside your own garrets.
Some of my students seem to have several. I don’t know what it’s about — moving from plan to plan, maybe.
I hate mobiles – no way I could manage two.
And I do that ‘polite’ thing too .. although in my case it’s usually a case of being passive aggressive ..
😉
I have two, but one’s dedicated to the person who gave it to me and the other is so old you can only read the word ‘Nokia’ if you already know that’s what it says.
My version of ‘I don’t think I have your number’ is ‘Do I have your number?’ You’ve made me think about why I do it, too — I do it just in case I DO have his or her number and have forgotten and he or she might be offended by my having forgotten. I don’t know whether this could be called damaging, though. More ‘tortuously polite’.
I have two, but one’s dedicated to the person who gave it to me and the other is so old you can only read the word ‘Nokia’ if you already know that’s what it says.
My version of ‘I don’t think I have your number’ is ‘Do I have your number?’ You’ve made me think about why I do it, too — I do it just in case I DO have his or her number and have forgotten and he or she might be offended by my having forgotten. I don’t know whether this could be called damaging, though. More ‘tortuously polite’.
I know, h&b, I almost got rid of my one, but texting…I looooove texting. It is the poetry of our times (imho).
Yes, well, I would have thought I was merely tortuously, but several people over the last year have taken the time to point out to my instances where I could successfully have been less polite (and more pushy) culminating in this astonishing ‘damagingly polite’. It has shattered me!
I just (de)graduated to a crackberry.
It’s a long slide down the greasy pole…
I had two phones at my last outside-the-home job. Drove me insane. Two phones to lose, two phones to find deep in the recesses of my bag, two phones to go flat…why, I wonder, couldn’t we just have, say, two numbers going to the one phone, maybe with different ring tones, if it’s so important to differentiate? (Do you think I could make millions from that idea?)
Anyway can’t be that close a friend if she gives you her WORK mobile.
I don’t even have ONE mobile. And I hate texting. Those tiny bloody keys and all that pressing three times to get the letter right. I wish I could conduct my entire social communication via email. (Bar the odd phone call to my mother or my husband.)
I’d loooove a blackberry, but with no employer and with an income that’s far too easily offset by what are pretty minimal expenses…
mikhela, you can do that double ring on your home phone. I used to do it for a while. Why? I have no idea. And she is definitely a colleague rather than a friend. I mean we like each other, but the things we do together aren’t the kinds of things to be doing on a Sunday afternoon.
Ariel, you should get a full keyboard phone. And then, I’m sure you will be converted. Texting rocks.
To Mikhela; my daughter has a mobile with a different ring tone for each of her friends and family members. So probably 6 or 7 different ring tones. Don’t know how she remembers which tone is for which person…….
NNnnaaah. Never two phones, nooooeee. That way lies madness, I’m already quite forgetful enough.
Also I have a brother who uses answering services rather than mobiles, so now I’m committed to checking ours when I come in every afternoon. He’s a professional muso and it seems to work just fine for him.
(Which reminds me, I made the commitment last week and I still haven’t checked teh phone..)