"Romney's residence Ryan speaking."
My Dad was crystal clear. That was the "proper" (Romneys are all about being proper) way to answer the telephone. The instruction was given dressed up as a Family Home Evening.
In my family we had some seriously fun family home evenings. We had backwards dinners (where the dishes and the participants came backwards), we had costume competitions, and we had an ice cream stairway to heaven lesson (and I sincerely doubt my parents were influenced in any way by Jimmy Page).
However, sometimes FHE was a big fat trick. The worst of all was the "Yard Party" that my parents announced a week in advance, refusing to provide any more details than "it's going to be fun!" For an entire week my eight year old mind conjured images of my Dad at the BBQ flipping burgers, with mom organizing games and pony rides and a clown to entertain me and my nieghborhood friends while that mean kid around the corner peered longingly over the fence feeling deep remorse for all past wrongs. Come to find out, a yard party consists of Dad barking out orders to seven children of various ages dragging an assortment of rakes, shovels, garbage bags and a lawn-mower around our back yard for the better part of two and a half hours.
Our phone etiquette FHE was not quite that bad. However, it did involve my dad role playing how the average phone call was handled by us kids. His mimicking was dramatized in such a manner that you couldn't help but feel shocked by the poor behavior he mirrored for you. He then followed up by telling us about his co-worker's Korean child (my dad could always find some kid from another country to use as an example of how we were failing to meet expectations) who answered the phone with perfect manners in the middle of studying twice as hard as we did. We were then subjected to rigorous telephone training.
While the aliterative nature of the telephone greeting was impressive, the training seemed a bit unnecessary and ... well ... kind of silly. That is until I had my own children answering the telephone in the most surprising ways.
-RING- ... "Who is this?" was one of the better greetings that our kids came up with. So after hearing Jessica's repeated complaints, I remembered how a Romney solves such a dilemna. We schedule something special - FHE. Actually in our case, we required 2 back-to-back FHE's. Last week we covered how to answer the telephone. This week - how to place a call. The components were simple:
1. Hello
2. This is (say your name)
3. Request the people you are calling for.
4. Talk or leave a message.
5. Goodbye
My Dad was crystal clear. That was the "proper" (Romneys are all about being proper) way to answer the telephone. The instruction was given dressed up as a Family Home Evening.
In my family we had some seriously fun family home evenings. We had backwards dinners (where the dishes and the participants came backwards), we had costume competitions, and we had an ice cream stairway to heaven lesson (and I sincerely doubt my parents were influenced in any way by Jimmy Page).
However, sometimes FHE was a big fat trick. The worst of all was the "Yard Party" that my parents announced a week in advance, refusing to provide any more details than "it's going to be fun!" For an entire week my eight year old mind conjured images of my Dad at the BBQ flipping burgers, with mom organizing games and pony rides and a clown to entertain me and my nieghborhood friends while that mean kid around the corner peered longingly over the fence feeling deep remorse for all past wrongs. Come to find out, a yard party consists of Dad barking out orders to seven children of various ages dragging an assortment of rakes, shovels, garbage bags and a lawn-mower around our back yard for the better part of two and a half hours.
Our phone etiquette FHE was not quite that bad. However, it did involve my dad role playing how the average phone call was handled by us kids. His mimicking was dramatized in such a manner that you couldn't help but feel shocked by the poor behavior he mirrored for you. He then followed up by telling us about his co-worker's Korean child (my dad could always find some kid from another country to use as an example of how we were failing to meet expectations) who answered the phone with perfect manners in the middle of studying twice as hard as we did. We were then subjected to rigorous telephone training.
While the aliterative nature of the telephone greeting was impressive, the training seemed a bit unnecessary and ... well ... kind of silly. That is until I had my own children answering the telephone in the most surprising ways.
-RING- ... "Who is this?" was one of the better greetings that our kids came up with. So after hearing Jessica's repeated complaints, I remembered how a Romney solves such a dilemna. We schedule something special - FHE. Actually in our case, we required 2 back-to-back FHE's. Last week we covered how to answer the telephone. This week - how to place a call. The components were simple:
1. Hello
2. This is (say your name)
3. Request the people you are calling for.
4. Talk or leave a message.
5. Goodbye
Things started out alright with Emma and Gabe. Jane wasn't quite as quick. Jessica took calls on the cellphone from the kids. I hung back to prompt them when they got stuck. Here's about how it went:
Dad: Dialing mom's cell for Jane Mom: Hello?
Jane: hi, ummmm
Mom: Hello?
Jane: hmmmm ...
Dad: *whispering* who is this?
Jane: Who is this?!?!
Dad: *whispering* no ... who is this calling (pointing at Jane)?
Jane: Who is this calling?Dad: *whispering* no, no, no ... who are YOU (pointing intensely at Jane)?
Jane: Who are you!?
We couldn't quite get this call off the ground. We obviously need to call in the experts...even without the Dorothy Hamill haircut and the sweater polo-shirt...we think Grandma and Grandpa could whip Jane into shape. Look at how I turned out.
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