Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

March 18, 2021

Should you Text before calling someone?

Filed under: My Thoughts — Suramya @ 8:49 AM

I saw this article over on Lifehacker.com, that talked about how You should Text Before Calling someone. According to the article:

That’s why—barring some exceptions—you should try sending a text prior to calling someone on the phone. Even if it seems like an indirect route for getting someone to pay attention, it’ll likely help your relationship with them over the long run.

Nothing screams “I demand you dedicate time to me” like an impromptu phone call. Even in this time of isolation, people are still busy, with a constant stream of digital notifications and Zoom meeting reminders vying for their attention. A phone call insinuates an immediate demand for another person’s time; a text message nudges the ball along just a little bit, using a polite suggestion to talk more when you get the chance.

I thought about this for a while, and for the most part I disagree with this. There are certain scenario’s where I would text someone before calling but those are usually when I know the person is super busy and I need to make sure I am not interrupting anything. (Think calling my manager for a question or someone senior who is very busy). Another scenario when I almost always text before calling is when the other person has a young child. Believe me, you don’t want to be the one who woke up a toddler who finally went to sleep after ages of effort.

Other than that, I just call people when I need to get in touch with them. If they are busy or unable to take a call then they can (and do) reject the call or don’t answer and then I just wait for them to call back. I follow the same pattern for when people call me. One rule that I do follow is that I rarely call people after 8pm unless it is urgent or we agreed to have a call post 8pm. This is because I was taught that it is not nice to disturb people after that time unless it is an emergency. Jani makes fun of me sometimes about this but I still find it hard to call folks after 8. I rarely call them before 10am either, but that is mostly because I am sleeping and don’t wake up before that time ;).

For me Text messages are good when I need an answer that can wait, however if I need to talk to someone I will call them without first prefacing with a text message. That is just wasted effort. I know there are a lot of people who don’t feel the same and maybe it is a generational thing as I see my parents generation and most folks in my age-group calling without texting first. Some of the younger folks I work with have the tendency of only texting, or texting and then calling.

There is no right or wrong way of looking at this, but I personally am comfortable with how I approach it and so far no one has complained about it so I am good :).

What do you think?

– Suramya

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