Hello?

"This week, Matthew, I'm going to be... a receptionist!"


And boy, has it been fun. Answering the phones, filing, binding, getting paid, all that kind of stuff.

We have a system on our phones, whereby if someone is calling you internally you know who is ringing you because their name flashes up on the phone. This is useful because it means that instead of answering in your very best phone voice every time, just in case it is a client, sometimes you can let go. Instead of saying 'Hello, blah blah world trade?' or 'Good afternoon, blah blah world trade?' you can say ''WAZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAH' or 'Oh what NOW Katrina? Didn't I tell you I was BUSY doing the BINDING. God.' Or, more commonly, 'Hello.'

The difference between 'Hello.' and 'Hello?' is that when I say 'Hello.' the person on the other end of the line knows I know it's them. When I say 'Hello, blah blah world trade?' I say it like a question because I don't know who is on the other end of the phone. It is like saying 'Welcome, who are you?', but in a more polite and socially acceptable manner.

This distinction is very important. I caused a huge amount of confusion today by answering the phone to the CEO, who I knew was the CEO because I could see his name, with 'Hello?'. I think it came out like a question because he scares me and I wanted to sound helpful. Anyway, he thought that I didn't know who he was and said 'Oh hello it's blah O'blah here.' He also thought that I answered the phone to everyone with just 'Hello?' which obviously isn't allowed when you are a receptionist. So that weeny little change got me in trouble!

I have also begun to think about how I answer my mobile. I still always say 'Hello?' even though I normally know who is calling as my phone tells me. Why do I do this? Why do I not just say 'Hello.' like at work?

My theory is that this habit is a legacy from the days before mobiles, when you genuinely didn’t know who you were answering the phone to. I wonder if, in 20 years’ time, we will still say ‘Hello?’ upon answering the phone. Maybe we need to get a new word altogether.

As any smartarse worth their salt will tell you, Thomas Edison made ‘Hello’ the standard word for a telephone greeting. (The word did exist before then as well. If any smartarse tells you it didn’t they’re NOT worth their salt, whatever the hell that means anyway.) But that phone was one of those old crackly ones with a turny dial, not one of our sleek, sophisticated new machines. Now we have 3G and touchscreen and Caller ID and hold and all that stuff on our phones, greeting people as if you don’t know who they are seems a bit outdated. Our new word needs to be brisk and modern. And it needs to be easy to say. People these days barely seem able to cope with saying more than one syllable per word. (Seriously, the amount of people who shorten my name to ‘Luce’ when I have just met them is astounding. They don't seem aware that it makes them sound like a 'hey I'm hip' teacher or a sinister man with a beard at the bus stop. Shudder.)

Anyway, I’m going to advocate the word ‘Hi.’ It’s informal and annoying, but it’s easy and impossible to say as a question. Go on, try saying ‘Hi’ like a question. You can’t. So that settles it.