Can I Call You?

Three interruptions, and the four-word question that would have spared all of them

My phone rang in the middle of a lecture. It was the delivery boy.

It rang while I was hearing mass. That time it was a patient, calling to ask for another copy of a prescription.

It rang in the middle of a meeting. A relative abroad, asking for news.

None of them meant any harm. The parcel had to arrive somewhere. The prescription is needed by someone because he lost the original. And a family abroad wants to hear from home; I understand that better than most. But three times I was pulled out of a room where I was supposed to be fully present, and three times the matter could have waited, or could have been typed.

That is what this post is about. Not rudeness, exactly. Just a habit most of us have never been taught to question.

The call that comes the moment we remember

Most of us call the instant a thought occurs to us. We notice the prescription is gone, we dial. We wonder how everyone is back home, we dial. The call is timed to the caller's convenience, and only to the caller's.

It is a natural thing to do. The phone is in our hand and the question is in our head. Waiting feels like forgetting.

But the person on the other end does not live inside our head. They are somewhere. They are doing something. And a ringing phone does not knock. It walks straight in.

I declined all three calls in different instances. But declining does not undo the ring. By then the interruption had already happened.

What a call asks of the other person

A text waits. A call demands.

A message is read when the other person can, and answered when they are able. When you call, you are asking them to stop whatever they are doing, right now, and give you their attention. Sometimes that is exactly what the moment needs. Most of the time it is not.

Think about who you are calling. A teacher is standing in front of a class. A doctor is with a patient or in a meeting. Someone is at church, at a wake, in an interview, at a hospital bedside. You cannot see any of that from your end of the line. All you hear is the ringing.

There is a simple fix, and it already has a name. Phone etiquette.

"Can I call you?"

Before calling, send a short message first. Can I call you? Or, Are you free to talk?

That is all. Four to five words, and the whole situation changes.

If the person replies, they are free, and you may call. If they do not reply, they are busy. Delay the call. Do not ring anyway, and do not ring three times in a row to make the point. Silence is also an answer. It usually means not now, not never.

This matters even more when you know the person's line of work which keeps them occupied.

Assume they are busy unless they tell you otherwise.

Asking first is not formality for its own sake. It is respect. It tells the other person that their time belongs to them, and that you know it.

When a text is enough

A good number of calls do not need to be calls at all.

Information that needs no conversation. The butane ran out. The parcel is at the gate. The meeting moved to three o'clock. These are messages, not calls.

News that can wait an hour. Asking how everyone is doing is a lovely thing. It can also be answered properly in the evening.

Anything you could say in one sentence. If the whole call would be "Ma'am, where do I leave the package?", type it.

When to call anyway

There are times you should not wait for a reply.

Emergencies. Someone is sick, hurt, or on the way to the hospital. A fire, an accident. Call, and keep calling until someone picks up.

When the person has told you to call. Some people prefer calls, and some relationships run on them. Know which ones yours are.

A useful test: if the person would be upset that you did not call, call. If they would be upset that you did, text.

For those of us on the receiving end

A word to the other side, since I am on it so often.

We can help too. Put the phone on silent before a lecture, a meeting, or mass. Tell the people who call us most, the helper, the delivery riders, the family, that a message is better and that we will call back. Most people are not being thoughtless. They simply do not know a text would have been welcome.

And then, when we are free, we do call back. That part is ours to keep.

A text message is a knock on someone's door. It is kinder to ask first whether they are home.