To know if I'm on speaker?

[Ahappymediumlarge]

I've increasingly noticed that when I call certain friends / family, I'll also get their DH/DP/other family members chipping in to the conversation, so I can only assume they have the phone on speaker at their end.

I get that speaker is more comfortable than holding the phone to your ear, and sometimes having other people joining in can be quite jolly (although sometimes hard to catch what the random other person is saying if they're not close to the phone) but equally it can be a bit disconcerting if I'm not expecting it.

It's not like I always call to discuss private matters, but sometimes I'd just like to know if I'm speaking to the whole room! AIBU?

YANBU. It's normal practice/good manners to let someone know they're on speaker.

This drives me nuts! In my job I need to phone and impart important information to the head of the company, which they won't be happy to hear. I am put on hold for ages (5-10 mins not unusual) then when I finally get to speak to the 'boss' who they "couldn't locate, hence the long wait" I am SO bloody obviously on speaker and they have the rest of the board with them. Do they tell me? No, but I can hear myself echoing back!

Bosses: stop assuming we are too stupid to know we are on speaker. It just pisses us off even more.

This reminds me of giving PhD tutorials during lockdown and discovering student's partner was in the room with them .

My parents always do this and it drives me mad! I think it's really rude to not tell you that you're on speaker (also what if you said something awful about the other person in the room?!). Not that I don't want to talk to them both, on occasions, but often I'd rather have a proper conversation with just one of them without the other in the background shouting 'WHAT? I didn't hear her.'