The sender said had an issue with that advice, saying that I had things backwards. He continued by saying,
It's common courtesy for the caller to identify himself when the phone he
calls is answered, before stating his request -- not the other way around.
"Hello" is a perfectly good answer for the callee to give. Nothing unprofessional about it.
It also isn't any more of a time-waster than the way you suggest.
Either way any time-wastage is essentially the same.
In replying, I said that we were really addressing two separate issues. My focus was on the CALLED party answered the phone. His focus was on how the CALLER responded to the "callee." In particular, he was concerned with callers who then would say, "Who's this?" I told the e-mail sender that in this case, I agreed with him that asking "Who's this?" is unprofessional and rude. I went on to say that regardless, answering with "hello" wastes time and is equally unprofessional.
This exchange illustrates what I call a "violent agreement" lol. Two people appear to disagree, but actually, when you look at it, are saying the same thing, often because they're addressing different issues. Stay tuned to Tech Republic, because I have an article coming out soon on how to keep disagreements under control.
