The Millennials Guide to Talking on the Phone

I really hate talking on the telephone. As a member of the 'millennial generation', I am far more comfortable chatting people on Facebook and Gmail, texting, and emailing, than I am talking to people on the telephone. I blame this on the fact that, really, who talks on the telephone anymore? The only people who actually 'call' me are my parents. I've taken a brief survey of my other 'millennial' friends and discovered that I am not alone in this. Millennials, despite the fact that a lot of us used telephones in our youth, really dislike calling people. I mean, I have no objection to face time and audio text messages, but an actual phone conversation? That's barbaric!

Fortunately for Millennials, use of the telephone is pretty limited these days. Unfortunately, there are still some situations in which it is required, like making dentist appointments, talking to customer service, and, sometimes, doing phone interviews for jobs. That last one is the worst. So, as a gift to all my Millennial compatriots, I have decided to create a guide to talking on the phone.

Let's start with a brief history of the telephone. The telephone was originally invented in the 3rd century BC by cave people who were looking for a replacement for the boomerang. Boomerang making required a lot of skill and, at the time, the boomerang makers union was striking for complementary dinosaur service and dental benefits. Anyway, the cave people tried to make telephones with non-union workers, but they didn't really know what they were doing so, instead of returning to their owners, the boomerangs would go to random other people, causing many an allegation of boomerang theft. Obviously, something needed to be done.

The cave people invented the telephone to throw at their enemies; the cord was attached so that they could pull it back to them and make sure that no one stole their telephone. The telephone also had the added advantage of being able to contact other cave people while out on the hunt. For a while, it became the fashion amongst young cave people to wear the telephone cord around one's waist like a belt. Eventually, the boomerang maker's union realized that they didn't need dental coverage because, as cave people, most everyone had lost all their teeth by the age of 25, so they went back to work and that's when the cordless telephone came along. That was pretty much all that happened in the evolution of the phone for a few thousand years until Steve Jobs came along and man invented the iPhone.

So, there you have it. People have been talking on the telephone for thousands of years; if cave people could do it, you can do it to. All you have to do is follow these simple tips:

1) If you need to make a telephone call, you may want to take some time to mentally prepare yourself first. It can be a little jarring to have to engage in an interaction in which you are expected to generate an immediate response. It's a bit like when you're talking to someone on Facebook chat and they know that you saw their message and you are expected to respond in a timely manner. The only difference is that the response is far more immediate and, oddly enough, verbal. It's helpful to think of a telephone conversation as a face to face conversation (which I'm sure some of you have experience with). You may want to practice or script your responses. Long silences while you think of something to say or consult with friends are a lot less socially acceptable during a telephone call than in text messaging.

2) If it will be your first telephone call, familiarize yourself with the mechanics of the procedure. Before you begin a telephone call, you are expected to dial a phone number. Don't panic, this is a relatively simple procedure. Simply press the buttons corresponding to the individual numbers of the phone number. Remember that it is important that the numbers are in the correct order. After that, the phone will begin to make a startling noise somewhere between a fire alarm and the pinging sound of a new chat message. Don't panic, you have not broken the phone; this is normal. The phone is ringing. This is done to alert the person on the other end that you are attempting to contact them. You may be able to find recordings of this sound on YouTube.

3) When answering a phone call, the social convention is to begin the call with a greeting such as "hi" or "hello". You may also want to identify yourself and ask who you are speaking to. From there, it is expected that you ask the caller how they are and spend several minutes in engaging in other social niceties. Diving right into the conversation with such exclamations as "you'll never guess what happened last night", "FTW!", "I'm so mad at ____" or "#yolo", while acceptable over text or chat, is, inexplicably, considered rude when engaging in a phone conversation.

4) If the person you're calling doesn't answer the phone, you can leave a message, which is something akin to a personalized podcast. In the message, you are expected to state your name, phone number, and reason for calling. Once again, begin the message with a greeting and at no time use hash tags.

5) Remember that telephone calls are a soon to be antiquated technology that will disappear sometime in the next 2 to 5 years. You should regard a telephone call as a chance to "re-enact history" and "live like pioneers". If you think about it, it's really quite quaint.

If all of this goes according to plan, at some point in the future, you can regale your grand children with fantastical tales of the days when the only way of communicating with other people was to speaking into a hard-plastic box (not to mention writing letters, but let's face it, no one is going to believe that).

Just sayin'