what should you do in this situation

amother

Tue, Nov 01 2011, 4:42 pm

if you have a friend round at your house and you are in the middle of conversation and the phone rings should you say to your friend please excuse me while I answer the phone, or should you ignore the phone?

mom23

Tue, Nov 01 2011, 4:45 pm

In today's day in age with caller ID, I say it depends on who's calling. I would definitely pick up the phone if it was one of my kid's schools calling, or my husband who travels and only has very limited time to talk during the day. If it is another friend, or an organization calling I would let my machine pick up and call back later.

marshmellow

Tue, Nov 01 2011, 4:47 pm

in my opinion I don't think there is anything wrong with initially answering the phone as it is your house and it may be an important call/emergency. if you answer it and it is another friend or family member wanting to "chat" for ages, you should say to her politely please could I call you back later, I am busy at the moment.

if this friend who is at your house has come SPECIFICALLY to sit and talk with you and spend time with you alone, it is very rude to go and have a long chat with someone else on the phone, however it is ok to answer to excuse yourself and answer the phone just to know what the reason they are calling is and who it is and arrange to call back if it is not an important call. if it is an important call, or a call from a family member in another country who you rarely hear from or something, obviously very politely apologise to your friend for having to leave her alone while you were on the phone.

if there are many friends at your house, or like it is more of an informal meeting with her it's ok to maybe talk for 5 to 10 minutes in another room and come back. she wouldn't be left sitting there on her own

Last edited by marshmellow on Tue, Nov 01 2011, 4:49 pm; edited 1 time in total

morah

Tue, Nov 01 2011, 4:48 pm

In general I would ignore, unless it was my husband (who only calls in the middle of the day if it's important) or something really important that I am expecting and cannot miss. If the former, I would say "excuse me, I have to take this, it's DH". If the latter, I would make clear at the beginning of the visit that I am expecting a very important call and if it comes while she's there, I apologize in advance, but I'm going to have to take it.

invisiblecircus

Tue, Nov 01 2011, 5:10 pm

I have not got caller ID on my phone.

I would excuse myself and answer the phone but if it was going to be a long call I would tell the caller that I couldn't talk right now but would call them back later, asking what time would be convenient.