Phone Etiquette
...I said "etiquette!" ;)
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Phone Etiquette
The guy grabbed the phone from me and looked at it with disbelief.
“500-thousand emails? You have half a million unopened emails?”
He and I were talking about something, I forget, and I pulled out my phone to show him something. It just happened to be opened to my email thing. I wasn’t trying to show off or anything. I thought everyone had a few hundred thousand unopened emails.
This was a while back, a few years. I just looked at my phone, and now those little red notification numbers on the email thingy aren’t even showing up. What, did they get rid of them or something? Not sure. But back then, those tiny numbers, white on red, were there, 500,000 plus.
“That’s just one email thing,” I said. “I got a few Googles, too.”
Did you hear that sound? That was the sound of either this guy’s jaw hitting the floor or Helen Keller falling over in the forest. I’m not sure which.
“I mean, it’s time management,” was my weak excuse.
“But what if these are people who need you to do something?”
“You’re saying I’m neglecting half a million people?”
His expression changed when I quantified it. Instead of a guy who knew him and we had some stuff in common, I had suddenly wrapped myself in a bat-cloak and stalked out into the world to exsanguinate young virgins.
Look, I got it, I own it, I wear the badge proudly. I can easily be one of the most infuriating people you’ve ever tried to talk to. I use logic and numbers like a samurai uses chopsticks. Most folks don’t really like that.
“How many people email you per month?” I asked.
He looked upwards at a 47-degree angle. “I guess twenty or so, including work.”
“Well, this makes you neglecting far more people than me, by about half a million.”
“How so?”
“What’s eight-billion minus twenty?”
No response.
“Now, we’ll make the math easy. What’s eight-billion minus half a million?”
His tight smile told me he understood. “You’re saying I ignore more people than you do.”
“You just don’t have their email addresses or whatever.”
It went on like this for a few minutes, but then our meeting was called to order, and we had to sit down.
Funny Story
Okay, funny story, funny ha-ha, but there’s a germ of truth to this. (It actually happened, btw.)
There’s much to be learned about the skill of ignoring people.
Your wife—yes, please!
Your husband—uh, never had one of those, so I’m pleading the 5th.
Your boss—maybe? As long as you can pin it on someone else.
The utility companies? Probably not.
Old friends from high school? Assuming you have any, case-by-case.
The car salesman you stumbled across over the weekend? Yes.
The company that wants you to take a sample of your own poop and send it to them so they can screen you for cancer and other dreaded diseases? I’m fifty-fifty on this one.
Napoleon was a great one for ignoring people. I read that he waited sometimes months before answering letters, figuring that things would normally take care of themselves.
He was right!
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