LMAO!!! Thanks for the laugh! I'm trying to get out of the habit of saying "hello?" at my desk phone at work.. I used to screw up and say "Hellyea?" (start to say hello then quickly morph it into 'yea') and the clients/cowowrkers just think i'm being a badass by answering my phone with Hell yea!
It doesn't bother me. I mean if it's an unknown number then I answer with my name. If it's someone I know I go "waaassssssuuuuuup"
I'm not sure why it'd be arrogant, specifically. Maybe pointless or annoying, but why arrogant? When I answer my work phone, I usually say, "Hello, this is Sam," and sometimes I forget myself and answer the same way on the cell. It makes a lot more sense to say your name on a landline, since multiple people might answer it, but with a cellphone, who else is going to answer besides you? (Actually, I answer my wife's sometimes, which always throws her callers for a loop.)
I prefer when people answer using their names, because it allows me to skip the next line saying, "may I speak to whoever, etc.."
To me, if I don't recognize the #, I will answer "This is Jim." I don't think that is bad. Correct me if you wish, but I ain't changing.
That actually wouldn't bother me. It's the plain "John Smith" exclamations that get under my skin. The "speak" thing is supremely hollywood-ish. Anyway, for work I can see the need for it, but for a private cell phone it just makes little sense to me. Maybe it's my common sense approach to sticking with a simple "hello" that has me hung up about it. Call it my "upbringing" I guess, but "hello" is not so hard is it? "Hello. This is ____ ____." Is that so excruciating?
In Kinky Friedman's(gubnatorial (sp) candidate) first detective novel- the detective answers-"START TALKIN'
