Phone Numbers

[Will-Mun]

Okay Customers... Whichever ones might be reading right now. Lets get something straight... This concept isn't new anymore... It's not! It's been going on for YEARS now. There are too many phone numbers out there today! A seven digit number doesn't cover it anymore!

Area Codes are required for phone numbers now.

Toys R' Us asks for your telephone number before each transaction. They do this for distribution only, who buys what where, and I think the flier as well. One, you don't have to give it... Not a problem... but when you do... For Veccna's sake AREA CODE FIRST.

I cannot stand getting three digits in and realizing you forgot the area code, and as you're halfway through the last four digits I have to STOP you and we start again. Is it that hard? As far as I can remember this has been going on for at least four years now, if not LONGER.

[BookstoreEscapee]

How do people not know to start with the area code around here by now? I realize that not all areas are into 10 digit dialing yet, but c'mon, it's New Jersey - the most densely populated state in the country (literally and figuratively, apparently...)...I'm pretty sure the whole state does 10 digit by now...

[qaxons]

I work phones... we call all over the country... Sometimes, i ask people to confirm their phone numbers to me... AFter they know I'm calling from a different state.


and they still don't start with the area.

Now, when I hear the first three digits, I immediately ask "Is that the area code?"

>.< 90% of the time "Oh, no... You need that?"

"No, I just want you to do extra work."

[smileyeagle1021]

even utah has gone pretty much 10 digit by now... for 2 reasons, one we have so many people who move here from other states that never change their cell phone numbers, and second because it is not that unusual for me in salt lake to have friends and coworkers who live off the wasatch front (there are only 2 area codes in utah, one for the wasatch front and one for everyone else).

[TNT]

I have no idea what you're talking about... the central part of my state is still 7 digits and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

[Brentos]

even in this crazy country north of y'all we gots ta use them fandangled 10 digit thingy doodles.

[smileyeagle1021]

I have no idea what you're talking about... the central part of my state is still 7 digits and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

i'm not sure if TNT is responding to my utah comment sense I don't know what state he is in, but if he is in utah responding to my comment, then I should point out that I work in a call center where quite a few people commute in from Toelle, so we've gotten used to just using 10 digits here.

[Listerfiend]

I've lived in two general areas in my life. One was rural, and people always told me their area codes. The second is in an urban area, and the people almost never tell me their area codes. The problem is that the first area was a very small town, and so it was fine to assume the area code. However, my current area is in the midst of two different area codes, but people never tell me what their area code is. It makes me wish I could just read people's minds...

[Sylvia727]

My metropolitan area used to have one main area code (111). Years ago, maybe 10 or more, they introduced another (222). Most folks have figured out by now that one needs 10 digits to call someone. However, there is a certain demographic--middle-aged non-businessmen--who assume that everyone knows they meant 111 because that new-fangled 222 stuff just ain't for them. Even though I automatically ask "Can I have your phone number with area code?" they start off with 7 digits. Then they get impatient when I can't just add the area code to the front of whatever they said, because my work's computer software wasn't made idiotproof.

So I cut them off with "Is that the area code?" if they don't say either 111 or 222. I get glares from out-of-towners who follow my instructions precisely only to be interrupted, but hey, you can't please everyone.

Now another crowd--still in high school and only calls cell phones (which tend more to 222 as there are more still available)--is starting to leave off the area code, and get impatient when they have to start over. I just want to lean over the counter, smack them, and yell "It's been ten digits for ten ing years, how do you not know how to give your own phone number???"

[Captain Trips]

Is that anything like when you (I) doing support for our stores ask which store they are at (which could be anywhere in the US, Canada, or Puerto Rico) and they answer "The one on Main Street, of course!" (As if I were just in the back room of their store?)

[chops]

Oh gawd...in my tech support days I always got some wiseass who would say, "YYY-ZZZZ, area code XXX."

I was more of a prick then, so I'd make them say it over again the right way. That tended to piss most of them off.

[GolfCart34]

Up here in northernmost New England (i.e. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont) we still don't use 10-digit dialing. HOWEVER... And this is a big however... I went to college for a year just outside of Boston, the same year in which they enacted 10-digit dialing in the Boston area. I got so used to giving out the 10 digits of my phone number that I do it everywhere I go. I especially do this where I work now since I work right on the NH/VT border.

What scares me even more is when people don't know their area code. Just because you don't dial the area code all the time doesn't mean that you shouldn't know it (same goes for zip codes).

[drunkenwildmage]

My Wife is from a small town, and all the phones have the same Area code and the first set of numbers are the same , so in affect every number is is form of
217-555-xxxx, just the last 4 numbers are different.

As a result, most people would only give out the last 4 digits as the phone numbers., being that I'm from an area that does 10 digit dialing, it drove me nuts.



Me: "Hey if you are going out, what number are you going to be at"

Wife "9874"

Me:


Since then Cell phones have hit the area, so people had to get into the habit of giving out the full phone number.

[conflictedwbrg]

I moved from Atlanta with 10 digits to Florida where you only need 7.. I hate it. Im always getting people laughing at me because i only need 7..

[napoleana]

If I'm at a shop, I don't usually give my area code unless I'm out of town. It seems natural to assume that unless they say otherwise the person lives in the same area code as the shop. *shrugs* Maybe it's different other places, but I've never been complained to about it, and only rarely do they say "That's ###, right?"