Ring, Ring… Ring, Ring…

What are your thoughts, should we answer the house phones or not?

My mind keeps wavering on the topic. After all, we aren’t a secretarial service and friends usually know if their friends have gone away so won’t call, but (on the other hand) we are keeping an eye on a person’s house and what if we need to be given a message? Thankfully, so far, most of the houses we’ve stayed in have had answering machines, so there’s been no need to answer - just monitor.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t occasionally answered, most of the time it’s instinct after the jobs I’ve had throughout my life. But… would you believe… that just about every time I have picked up the receiver during the last twelve months (every time except twice that is) it’s been a sales call! What’s more, the person on the other end of the phone hasn’t been too happy to hear I’m a house sitter. In fact, some have got quite short tempered with me and just about all have hung up on me! Which only re-enforces the concept that I shouldn’t have answered in the first place.

Then there have also been the salespeople who’ve got quite shirty with me because I don’t give out the name of the homeowners or the date they are returning or other personal information. For some reason the faceless strangers don’t agree with my concept that they should know who it is that they are phoning!

I ask you… is that such a strange expectation?

Of course, it does make us somewhat difficult to get hold of because we don’t have a landline number to give out to people wanting to talk to us. It also concerns me, what if it’s the homeowners who are phoning to check that everything is fine, and that we haven’t run off with their fine china? Will they be concerned if nobody, continually, answers their calls home?

So many things to consider. In the meantime, I listen to the phone ringing knowing that if it’s somebody wanting to talk to me they’ll either leave me a message, or email, Skype, or Facebook me or simply call me on my mobile. But all the same… Should we answer the phone?