"And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." (Isaiah 65:24)
The telephone is a mixed blessing. It IS a wonderful invention. It is great to be able to pick up a telephone receiver and speak to someone (whether across the street or across the country) as if they were just eight feet away! Of course, in the past few years, cell phones have opened up even more accessible communication. The bad part of telephones is unsolicited business calls.
I realize there are "Do Not Call" lists, and in fact, I've signed up for the "Do Not Call" list for my home phone, my cell phone, and the church number. One big problem with "Do Not Call" lists is that most Non-Profits are exempt from being restricted by the "Do Not Call" rule. Also, I believe that if you are a regular customer of a business, they CAN call you.
Calling me is NOT a way for a business to impress me.
Many "church plants" (brand new churches) use computer generated "blanketing" telephone calls to attract people. In some cases, each household within five miles of the new church will be called. Such efforts are amazingly successful. I say "amazingly" because I would never attend a church that phoned me like that. I consider such calling very intrusive. Years ago, the Christian school we sent our kids to wanted to do computer generated calling of households all over the MetroWest area. Right in the middle of a Parents and Faculty meeting, I yelled out "Please DON'T!" They didn't.
I AM very thankful for "Caller I.D." If an incoming call is identified as "Unavailable" or with a strange toll-free number, I let the answering machine pick up the call. Each day at the church, a call comes in identified as "Unavailable" and the caller hangs up just before leaving a message. EACH DAY. At home an Alabama call comes in at least twice a day- just hanging up. Also at home, a 1-866 toll free number comes in 2 or 3 times a day, every day. I wish they'd just stop calling. I just keep erasing the Caller ID, and they just keep coming in. It's annoying when I'm watching television and the phone rings...I run to the phone and its "Alabama" or "1-866-..." or "Unavailable"...
At the church, I've run upstairs to get to the phone, only to have it be "Mr. or Ms. Unavailable"!
I know a lot of high-tech people will really laugh at this one but I still have the very slow AOL dial-up. When I'm on-line, my telephone rings "busy" at either the church or my residence. Think I wanna change that? Think I wanna be able to get phone calls while I'm on line?
WHAT DO YOU THINK?? :-))
EMMYS 1970: My World...and Welcome To It
1 year ago
3 comments:
I feel your pain regarding unwanted phone calls. Every day I get a phone call from John that is computer generated. If you hang up on the phone call the computer will call you back. The Do Not Call lists do not apply to business phones so each and every day I will hear from computer John. When I have extra time I am going to call the 800 # that computer John urges me to call . When they pick up the line I will put them on hold so they will have some of their day wasted like they have been wasting parts of my day. I hear the phone . Hopefully it's not computer John
tasmccarthy
We do the same thing with 866 numbers and numbers and names we do not know. All I can say is PTL for caller ID.
Yes, I agree ... It's annoying to get interfered with by uninvited phone calls ...
Did you know that '*69" allows one to call back the person calling you, if for any reason you missed the phone call ... I believe there is like a 30 minute time limit on this ... We had an opportunity to use this feature once to track down one of those univited phone callers to have them stop calling us ...
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