Exactly
‘I go to watch a movie’, not ‘I go and watch a movie’. The latter suggests two quite different actions.
GMG. But I am a pedant.
Oh,
Yeah, I don’t think that’s worth getting annoyed about. If anyone said either of Steve’s examples, I would fully understand what they meant.
Whereas, Westland, I don’t think either of yours work. I think there’s a tense confusion?
Somehow I have inherited the Senior Comms Officer’s phone number at work so now I get all sorts of calls intended for her. I don’t even work in comms.
I’m in a similar boat, previous extension was held by a head of buying and get all sorts of vendors ringing up only tell them they’ve left the company.
They seem to still think I can help though or I personally know every member of the 2000 strong office team
Both of you need to speak to your IT dept. Assuming you use VOIP phones, else your company phone provider… they can add a recorded message before first dial tone. Depending on your company’s settings you might be able to do this yourself.
Just put a 5 second message saying 'this is the phone number for Joe Bloggs, to connect your call please stay on the line."
If they didnt want you but the other person they will hang up. Problem solved.
Ummn we still have a telephone exchange lol
I don’t want to start getting these calls. I like having a job where I don’t have to deal with people!
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My work mobile number was previously held by a Councillor from Bolton. He died about 4 years ago. However, I routinely get calls from Mr Angry of Bolton saying his bins haven’t been emptied, that somebody needs to do something about the pot holes, or that there are some yobs on the green setting fire to cars again.
Last year we managed to get the final trace of it removed from the local Labour website, the facebook page and the Council’s pages. However, they are refusing to have it removed from the minutes of public meetings (although have conceded that they probably shouldn’t publish them on minutes going forwards). As such, I’m still getting random calls - just not as many as I used to.
Do you help with their problems? Or just tell them to bore off?
I would have almost as much fun with that as I used to with the PPI people.
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My work phone has somehow got on to a list of numbers that insurance scammers use, I get a “we want to talk about the car accident you were in” call once a day.
I tell them I died in the accident and ask how to claim. Always fun.
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I used to get these to my work number in a previous job… At a Personal Injury firm. We had so much fun with them because those calls gave us all a bad name.
I used to get calls from people wanting to complain about their local NHS issues, simply through a mis googled name. They were often so angry they would not let me interrupt them and I spent a good 10 minutes on the phone to me telling me some very intimate personal medical details before I could stop them.
Made my day.
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If it is a “real person” rather than AI voice system, I point out to them that they have got through to a member of Cambs Police Internet Fraud department… click!
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If your name and number are not in my phone I do not answer, with held numbers also get ignored 
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I try and keep them on the phone as long as possible before they hang up
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I always used to go with a really bad concussion causing memory loss, then play “how many times will they repeat themselves”.
I’ve always been tempted by the Becker approach though.
I hung up on a spam caller once after saying I wasn’t interested and they actually called straightback, quite annoyed that I had hung up on them! I’m assuming they were new, as I would imagine that most people they call hang up on them!
I think I signed up to free register where you aren’t supposed to get as many spam calls and I also tell them not to call back and remove my number or I’ll report them.
Reminds me of a Ted talk on what happens if you reply to a spam email. It is quite amusing although I’m slightly sceptical it actually happened.
James Veitch.
I went to school with a (different) Jamie Veitch, who proposed to his gf on live tv…