Incomprehension at distance

[caddyman]

It is my custom to turn off my mobile over night so that no-one can call me and disturb the night's sleep. I figure that they can leave a message and that's the best way to deal with it. If it is important enough to call me at that time, it is also just as likely that I can do nothing but fret for several hours, so I may as well not know. By turning off the phone, people can feel happy that they've made the effort and I can get the news close to a time when I can do something with it.

So, as a rule, I turn my mobile off at night.

I think that I shall refine this rule and start turning it off around 11pm, unless there is some over riding reason to leave it on, such as an expected late arrival, or something.

What I am anxious to stop is the drunken phone call, the one where I am sober, can barely hear the conversation from the other side and can understand less. Those calls where it becomes rapidly clear that I do not have the relevant code book and after which through no fault of my own, as far as I can see, other than not being psychic, I end up feeling a complete heel because of the backwash of unspoken disappointment from the other end, simply because I cannot fathom out what I am supposed to say or not in a conversation that has rules of which I am entirely ignorant. More annoyingly, I know that only I feel this and it is an over reaction, but it kicks the stool out from under my equanimity and I shall sleep the worse for it.

So, all things being equal, 11pm is closedown time from now on.

Comments

[mathcathy]

So different from me. My mobile is on silent for text messages all the time, and the only time when I'm guaranteed to be near enough to hear it if it rings is at night. Maybe that's because there have been times when I've needed someone in the middle of the night and I'd want my friends to be able to reach me in an emergency, even if all I could do is be a voice with care in it.

I know the kind of call you mean

[november-girl.livejournal.com]

I used to get 3am calls from flywingedmonkey that went something like:

James: I'm lost. How do I get home? You musht helpp.
Me: Where are you?
J: By the railingsss.
Me: Which ones?
J: Don't know. Lossshhht.
Me: Can you get a taxi?
J: No. Taksi men gone.
Me: Where did you go out for the night? Aren't you near there?
J: Nooooo.
Me: Walk to the nearest street sign and read it to me.

Then there could be a variety of amusing places he could be, and sometimes I could help and sometimes not. It does, however, pale into insignificance when compared to the 11pm call that called for me to act as a getaway driver after he and Simon had nicked the booze from [Bad username or unknown identity: missis -jules]' company dinner!

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

Telephones, mobile or otherwise, being the invention of Satan, I would switch off the ringer on mine for days at a time when I was single, and had no answer machine. Invasion of privacy and all that. No-one likes a 2 a.m. call, staggering into the kitchen, picking up the thing and hearing, "Is Raoul there?"
"What?"
"Is Raoul there?"
"No. You have the wrong number and it's two in the morning, you cataclysmically stupid git."

Mind you, I've been known to treat callers the same way at two in the afternoon.

[binidj.livejournal.com]

So drink quicker, phone earlier ... I understand

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Bin, you're a star!