To think it's inconsiderate to text someone at half 5 in the morning

[Jesstheblackandwhitecat]

Or am I being unreasonable? Not an emergency, a colleague asking me something.

[SantasLittleMonkeyButler]

I work nights.

Should I think people who call or text between 8am & 4.30pm are selfish twats?

No, I just have my phone set so that calls wake me up but other notifications - texts, messenger etc. are so quiet they don’t. If anyone texts me while I’m asleep they will get a reply when I’m awake. Simple.

I only have calls set to ring out because I have a 6 year old DD & need to be contactable in an emergency - if school should phone.

[Didntcomeheretofuckspiders]

Another shift worker here. Either I reply to texts/emails at my convenience or not at all. Surely that is the benefit of the written word, rather than a phone call?

[Yeeeha]

It really isn’t hard to manage notifications on your phone so you aren’t disturbed and yet still let the important people contact you whenever needed.

An awful lot of people don’t have landlines and take their phones to bed. It’s 2017. Why would I need a landline phone and my mobile controls the whole house and alerts me to any strange activity at work while I am not there.

People contact me 24/7 via the business WhatsApp/Facebook page etc. I have just woke now and there are messages from a potential customer at between 2 and 3 am?

Is he a night owl? Does he work nights? Is he in bed now or will he be at 09:00? Not my problem. He messages me and I was bright enough to manage the notifications so they didn’t disturb me so I just reply and assume he does the same. I can’t be second guessing when is convenient for him.

Just learn how to use the technology

[Montsti]

I've got a newborn and often reply to messages during the night whilst feeding...I assume people will have their phones turned off, on silent or not by their bed...

[Jerseysilkvelour]

I started turning my phone to dnd last year when one of my friends who has developed an alcohol problem took to ringing me at all hours of the night usually when she wanted to rant about something. Easiest way to deal with the situation. At first I would answer because I was afraid she was having an emergency. Ironically the one time she was (she got arrested) she tried calling me and my phone was on dnd.

[LurkingHusband]

I find DND is flaky

Android user ?

[BulletFox]

Personally it wouldn't bother me as although I'm an insomniac when I get to sleep I'm out for the count.

I did receive a call after midnight last night which very unexpectedly woke me up, someone had a vivid dream I was dead and called to check.

OP you'd be completely within your rights to say to colleague if you found it disturbing!

[bonbonours]

I don't have my phone upstairs so wouldn't hear it if someone text at night, but if someone was repeatedly ringing, as in an emergency then I would. Also have a landline for emergencies.

I think it's a bit harsh to slate people for texting at inconvenient times, they couldn't possibly have a mental diary of what time is convenient to other people. If you are up at 5.30 all the time it doesn't necessarily occur to you that it is early and it's easy to think, "Oh I must text so and so" and not think about what time it is. I have sometimes stopped myself sending a text at 6.30 or so because it suddenly occurred to me that I might wake someone, but I could easily have gone ahead. I do think if you don't want to be disturbed you choose what to do with your phone.

[LurkingHusband]

Quite a few websites and organisations (banks for example) can also send texts at odd hours, if you have them enabled.

I've had 2am texts from Amazon when an order is put on the delivery van. I also have an alert on our current account which can trigger a text the moment the balance goes below a threshold - which can happen at anytime of the day or night.

[Firesuit]

Someone up-thread said there are two schools of thought (on how to combat text messages at unsocial hours.) There are people who think senders should show restraint, and people who think receivers should use their DND settings.

I just want to point out that the two schools are not equal. The problem (of messages waking people) has been thought about, and the logical solution arrived at, namely DND.

DND is not an arbitrary solution where the techies have come down on one side of the argument because they hate luddites. It is the solution because it is overall far, far better than the alternative. The "voluntary restraint" approach would require infinitely more effort overall from phone users to implement, and even after all that extra effort would still be less accurate.

[ILoveDolly]

I run an online business where people frequently buy from overseas, if I did not have dnd on my phone then I'd be getting a loud cash register noise or notification bing regularly throughout the night. YABU just turn off your blardy phone notifications, people's lives run in all kinds of time zones, it is not necessary to get all precious about it.

As to the woman who has her phone on 24/7 because her daughter at Uni might need to contact her, I am surprised anyone would even admit to that level of helicoptering. If she's not an adult and can't handle situations on her own then why did you even allow her to go to Uni

[Firesuit]

So skimming through a day's posts I see that as yet none of the 5am texters have explained how we set the phone to receive emergency contacts from unknown numbers whilst blocking drivel.

You missed my post that said you could auto-reply telling them you were asleep but they could call you if it was an emergency.

Even if this were not possible, I put it to you that 99% of people should not be prevented from using emails and texts in a convenient way because the other 1% need to receive emergency texts from strangers, for "emergencies" that somehow don't warrant a phone call. (Now that I've thought about it, my definition of an "emergency" in the middle of the night would be something worth waking someone for where a response is needed within say half-an-hour. I wouldn't rely on an email or text message for that.)

[Firesuit]

In fact, let's imagine you are a police officer attending a scene of an accident, or an A&E worker dealing with a patient, and you urgently need to contact a relative of an injured person using a number on their phone. (Presumably they were conscious enough to unlock it.)

Let's further presume that what you want to tell them is urgent. That the person has been in an accident is not in itself urgent. But that the relative needs to rush to the hospital to see them before they die might be. In that case, would you send a text message, knowing that text messages can be blocked by DND, and that you would have no way of know whether it would be seen? Or would you phone, so that you know for certain that you've got hold of a person?

The idea of "emergency" texts from strangers is very far-fetched. (But there is a solution for the incredibly rare scenario when it happens. And for people with more mundane ideas of what constitutes an emergency.)

[wildchild554]

YANBU.
I have had this issue and calls from my sister who would call or text at stupid o'clock regularly, was told many times not too, so I changed my number and she lost it permanently. I agree you need your phone on incase there is an emergency and it is unreasonable to text or call at stupid o'clock. However, sometimes a text will be sent at a reasonable time but arrive hours or even days later. It's possible thats happened in this case if it's a one off. If it's a regular thing would reccommend changing your number and not giving it out to anyone except friends and family you want to be able to contact you at all times. Maybe getting a cheap £20 phone putting that sim in it so you can switch it off and ignore it. That's what I've done. Only a handful of people no my proper number ;)

[aspoonfulofyourownmedicine]

Anyone can send me a text any time of the day/night and I doubt I'd hear it! I often forget to switch my phone from silent after work anyway, but then I'm a heavy sleeper and wouldn't hear my phone go off during the night even if it were on loud mode.

I always thought texts were for convenience, so sender sends them when convenient, recipient reads when convenient. :/

Anyway, my DH often sends me text messages that I don't get til hours later. He sent my BIL a 'Happy Birthday' text in August, and he only received it last week

[heron98]

I think YABU.

530 isn't that early, especially during the week.

I get up then and reply to texts I've received during the night as I won't have time during the day at work.

I put my phone on silent at night or leave it downstairs so I never get woken by it.

[KanyeWesticle]

Texts are asynchronous. You're not expected to respond straight away.

[riseandfall]

To the poster who went on about not having a phone in the room and why would we as we didn't in the 1970's or whatever, you could say that about a million inventions really couldn't you .

I keep mine in my bedroom under the bed near me, in case there was a fire or a burglary (had one recently). I turn it onto silent so that I won't be disturbed by non-urgent texts etc so don't care if someone texts me at 5.30am although I do think that is too early to be sending one out if you thought recipient might be asleep and get woken.

Also think people are a bit naive to think that there aren't many emergencies in the night apart from something happening to elderly relatives..

[ShotsFired]

Gosh I hope nobody in the "no" camp tries texting friends and family on New Year's Eve. That backlog often takes hours to clear so you will almost certainly be disturbing people by the air raid siren level sound of a text alert coming in, even though it could be between approved daytime hours.

It's asynchronous. Like most modern communication. Sent when convenient, received and dealt with when convenient.

Synchronous is someone banging on your door at [whatever time you are asleep/at work/busy, night or day] demanding you answer their invitation to dinner for the following week, right there and then.

[bogofeternalstench]

5.30 is bloody early to me! But then I usually don't fall asleep until 1.30 or so.

I'm largely in camp B but I think surely it's not too difficult not to text people between the same hours as those you're not supposed to make noise, which I think is 11-7?
Anyone who doesn't want to be disturbed outside those hours then it's their responsibility to control that.

[Yeeeha]

In fact, let's imagine you are a police officer attending a scene of an accident, or an A&E worker dealing with a patient, and you urgently need to contact a relative of an injured person using a number on their phone. (Presumably they were conscious enough to unlock it.)

If it’s an iPhone and the owner has set it up properly you don’t need to unlock it to access the owners next of kin/emergency contact numbers as they are stored under “medical ID” on the emergency screen where you can dial 999 from any locked phone.

If setup it also contains owners name, DOB and any relevant medical info.

Assume android has the same

[BitOutOfPractice]

On an Iphone DND will be overridden if someone phones twice within 2 minutes which, presumably someone trying to get hold of you in an emergency would do, rather than send a text which is a. unreliable b. not possible to verify if/when it's been read c. takes longer

In short, in a real emergency who's gong to text as Firesuit says. They'll ring. Till they get hold of you. Which will over-ride the DND function even if it's a random number

[Tumbleweed101]

Depends what the text was actually about! And the time your colleague may have had to be up and going to work.