Jinx,

On Sat, 31 Jul 2004 09:45:52 +1200, Jinx wrote:

> My favourite is when you ring an office and the receptionist asks
> "can I say who's calling ?". So you tell her and get put through to
> who you called, who has no idea who they're talking to. Maybe
> it's screening, maybe it's just sloppy, seems common anyway.
> I've asked why and only ever got a mumbled nothing answer

The firm I used to work for insisted that every phone call (including transferred calls) were announced to the
recipient.  You weren't allowed to just press the transfer button and allow it to go through automatically,
for just the reason you say.  It *usually* worked, and failures were often followed up to find out who needed
reminding of the procedure!

The thing that annoys me is when the receptionist/secretary says: "Can I ask what it's about?" because nine
times out of ten it's nobody's business but the person I want to speak to.  I'm awfully tempted to say: "I
want to deliver a ransom demand!"  ;-)

Incidentlly I understand that in the Netherlands it is customary to always state your name first when calling
someone - so whereas in the UK we tend to say "Hello, can I speak to Joe Bloggs please" in the NL it would be:
"Hello this is Fred Smith, can I speak to Joe Bloggs please?" (except that it would be in Dutch! :-)  Perhaps
Wouter can confirm or refute this?

Cheers,

Howard Winter
St.Albans, England

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