to be annoyed when people always 'just have to take the other call'

[sunnysidesucks]

All the time…. A friend calls me to chat, and after a minute or two a call comes through that she has to take, and says she will call me back. It is so annoying!! Not just her - people do it all the time. I don't do that. If I call someone, I make the call, and end it when it ends. I ignore other calls that come through. Is this normal and acceptable these days?

I dunno, It could be an emergency, or she is expecting say, a call back from someone that she needs like the Dr, Medical, plumbers etcb

Maybe you are not very interesting. Never happens to me

That would seriously annoy me too.

SEsofty- what a pathetic thing to say.

I have a friend who does this, if a member of her family call her on her mobile while i am on the landline she cuts off her call to me straight away. It is usually a call from one of her ds's that are not an emergency, it does get very annoying.

Sesofty did you mean to be so rude?

I hope I'm not boring ?! It happens a lot to me! But then if I was that boring, maybe I wouldn't get the phone call in the first place?

I don't think it's very nice they just have to take the other call.
If you ring someone and it's engaged and important then you text.
If it happens again I would just say "oh ok, good to talk, catch up soon" and hang up. If they ring back I would ignore or text back. You shouldn't have to be a puppy waiting for attention like that.

Just hang up and she can ring back.

It's nice that you chat to people on the phone. I rarely do these days. Don't think I've ever had another call come through.

Of course YANBU. Dunno what to advise. Maybe stop taking her calls?

Many years ago at the large insurance company I worked at, our 'instructor' on our induction course told us, "If you hear a double beeping while you're on the telephone then you must finish that call as soon as possible because somebody else wants to talk to you." In other words, caller B trumps caller A. Silly cow she was.

So if I'm on the phone to my mother having a gossip and a call comes through from the school am I supposed to finish finding out what her new neighbours are doing to their house this week or can I see what the problem with one of the dds is?

Cant' say it's ever happened to me but actually, thinking about it how often do people make actual phonecalls these days? Pretty much the only calls I take or make are work related. Are you phoning people while they're working?

I'm not phoning people while they are working - it is when they call me to chat, and then they go because another call comes in (sometimes within a minute or two of calling).

I like that point of view, that I am lucky to have people to chat to, thank you :)

I think that if a call comes through from school then that is always a priority, and that kind of goes without saying?

All I meant was….I receive a call, let's say from friend A. After a moment, she says, oh, friend B is on the phone, I'll call you back. It's irritating.

I'll try to let it go, and not be too irritated ;)

MIL does it to us all (including our DCs) in person - mobile rings and she jumps up, takes call and leaves the room. She gets lots of short, frequent calls from the same person, a taxi driver who calls between fares. We call it phubbing (phone snubbing). She knows we hate it but she doesn't care. It's not personal as she quite literally does it to everyone. If she is babysitting then she leaves her phone in the other room. It's some sort of compulsion.

I think it's rather rude to ditch a conversation you started to talk to someone else, unless they need to talk to them in a timely manner, or expect it to be very quick.

But if this happens all the time, especially when you make the call, or if you know they don't ditch others to take your call, you may want to take a hard look at how you are on the phone. I've had dear friends that I like to talk to, but I can sense when they go into "shaggy dog mode" and are going to tell a long story that all I can do is say "Uh-huh" to a lot. At those moments, while I still cherish them, I'd love a call to interrupt!

I have a low-tech phone, so I literally don't understand this thread.

I think she sounds rude, though.