Sometimes places call me and it already has their info despite them not being a contact I have saved. Like they have a name not a number, and even a pfp that isn’t a colored circle with a number or letter in it. If I was lost and got a call from the fire department that said it was the fire department I think I might pick up.
I don’t know how that system works tho. Do you have to register somewhere? Like the opposite of the old white pages where you had to opt out instead of in?
Caller ID has been around since the 80s.
That’s not what they’re talking about. Some people/businesses have a “smart” caller ID so the business name shows up instead of their number, even if you’ve never heard of or been contacted by them before.
That’s up to your service provider.
When I was 19, I had friends from high school who were still younger, and one of them was my friend Julie who had helicopter parents (she would have been 17-18). I was doing security at an event where the radio headsets we had were super-shitty, and the guy running security was a dumpster fire on his own. Julie’s parents forbid her from going to the event, and grounded her to her room. Then her dad called the hotel where the event was being held, was told Julie had “run away” to this event, and that I was somehow responsible. Given she was a minor, the event runners were understandably concerned, although they were frustrated that Julie’s dad was unable to describe her in a way that was useful: “Asian, wearing black, or a tee-shirt, or something. Ask Punkie where she is.” So they contacted the head of security to find me on my rounds to see if I knew what this crazy man was talking about. The head of security said “okay” and did nothing.
At some point, the head of security was fired for a variety of reasons, and this increased the level of miscommunication. Meanwhile, Julie’s dad was calling every few hours, demanding to know where his daughter was. And soon there was a concerted effort to find me, which was complicated because of the communication issues. By the time someone found me and the connection was made, my response of, “I have no idea, Julie said her dad forbid her coming here,” was not what they wanted to hear, and met with skepticism “You’re not hiding her, are you? Like she ran away with you in some tryst? She’s 17 and you’re 19, that could have legal ramifications!” No. We’re platonic friends, I don’t know where she is. if I tried to bonk the poor woman, she’d clobber me.
Meanwhile, Julie’s dad finds Julie in her bedroom, right where he left her. Julie later told me that she was ignoring her dad calling for her, and didn’t “come downstairs” like he demanded because she assumed it was a trap to get her punished for leaving her bedroom while she was grounded. So naturally, her dad assumed she wasn’t in the house. Because he called for her and she didn’t answer.
Poor Julie. Her parents were crazy-nuts.
This is one of the better stories I’ve seen on Lemmy. Have a pineapple emoji 🍍
This is the type of story you can’t make up because it’s not realistic enough.
Are you still in touch with Julie? I hope she moved out and went on to become a well-rounded, functioning adult with a good job and healthy social life.
When that’s the type of parents you grow up with, having a well-rounded and functioning adult life with a healthy social aspect becomes a bit of a long shot. Not impossible, but jeez, I can’t imagine how fucked up that girl’s trust and social skills must have been when she was leaving the house. That’s the kind of parenting that leads kids to go absolutely off the wall and down a pretty dark path.
I was for about 15 years post high school, but her life was rough and I was always the one initiating contact, so we drifted apart. I hope she okay. Smart woman, gifted arist, terrible parents.
Then her dad called the hotel where the event was being held, was told Julie had “run away” to this event, and that I was somehow responsible.
Why would the hotel tell her dad that Julie had run away?
I think he meant that the dad told the hotel.
English keeps confusing me (I’m a foreigner)
If it makes you feel better, I don’t think the misunderstanding was on your end. Although I agree probably the dad told the hotel that, it was actually phrased like the hotel told the dad that.
“Help! I’m trapped in the mountains! I’m freezing and starving to death.”
“I understand, sir. But for a small fee of just $30 a month, your computer can be protected from viruses.”
Honestly if a telemarketer called while someone was actually an emergency and they explained that the telemarketer would probably hang up if that’s their usual response to anything that deviates script lmao
I remember this one. Someone else lost him, but he knew where he was and wanted to be there.
This is like when I was 11 and my family went hiking up a mountain in Yellowstone. My young cousin and I thought my brother was ahead of us on the trail so we hurried up trying to catch up to him. We were passing many hikers on a busy trail and being safe.
An hour later my brother comes running up behind us saying everyone is looking for us! Apparently the park rangers had been mobilized to search for us, the missing children, and when we got down the mountain an hour or more later our families were down there in tears fearing we had fallen off the mountain or something.
Point being, it’s totally possible for everyone to think you’re lost and in danger when you are fine and know exactly where you are.
Did you read the other guy’s story in this thread, pretty funny
Yeah that’s the only way it makes sense.
I mean if you have a functioning phone and you felt you were in danger, would you sit around waiting for someone to call you?
Our guy was obviously having a merry old time out hiking, and ignoring unknown numbers. Then only found out later someone else was freaked out about him being lost.
But a story like that isn’t going to get shared as a facebook meme…
That’s his first mistake, taking the phone into the woods.
You can always tell the people who aren’t actually outdoors people with these comments.
You should have as many forms of communication as you possible with you in the outdoors.
This depends on your goals.
If your goal is to not die in the outdoors, you should take your phone.
That’s assuming you have cell service. Lots of outdoors places do not. Satphone / locator devices are a good idea though.
Even if your destination doesn’t have signal, it will still be useful for part of the journey.
I do also have a PLB for this reason.
Better than nothing.
Sure, you can always use it to play solitare or as a light, compass, etc.
Phones are excellent for navigation, and there are multiple topo maps available that can be downloaded and used offline.
I rode a mountainbike into the woods once, and a helicopter out. I was really happy with my phone.
How many bones on the helicopter were not as intact as they were on the bike?
Just one, but it one of those really important ones you use for getting to places.
Ah yes, the baculum of course
unfathomably based behavior
Probably also didn’t listen to any voice messages, ever. Then complains that he was never contacted.
Whoa there, buddy. I’d have to first ever set up my voice mail service.
I have set my phone to silence always, I don’t want to answer anyone in my free time 🤷🏻
Same and when I am hiking I also turn on “Do Not Disturb “ mode. It infuriates my spouse, but oh well. 🤷♂️
You can set Do Not Disturb to ignore certain numbers. Consider adding your spouse lol
I don’t want to answer anyone
But yeah maybe they should
Wife bad
Sounds like the average lemming! One of us!
Someone find him an instance! Is there a hiking one? What place is he from?
I get the logic. If it’s some random ass number and you’re stranded with no charger, why waste time on what might be a spam call? That and I don’t want one of the last things I hear to be someone talking about car insurance
The second time the same number calls back, it becomes a different story.
You haven’t met scammers/spam callers local to me. Assholes are persistent.
I never get these calls. My secret? I never give my phone number out to anyone except hospitals and other health related professions.
When I gave out my number I got them all the time.
Weird. Yeah since like 2009 I have almost never seen a spam call come from the same number twice. I’m in the US.
Meanwhile my phone…
Not pictured the 4 other calls at the same exact time.
Weird. The numbers look american. Is that true?
The same number always calls you? It’s typically a new number every time for my spam calls.
Same.
Fucking spam has ruined another communications medium.
We really need to go ahead and rip the band-aid off with the telephone network. “Even the small amount of meaning these digits used to have has been lost to time with cell phones and VoIP technology so any user can contact any other user appearing to be any rando with no authentication making the system rife for scams and fuckery and we have no plan to fix it. Participation is as mandatory as we can get without a constitutional amendment.”
They’re not bugs, they’re features.