Hung Up
One thing about life here that does annoy me occasionally is the culture of the missed call. I’ve never come across it in the UK, and the first few times it happened here I thought my phone was faulty. But no, missed calling is a national pastime, second only to eating meat.
Your phone rings, and, if you’re me, you get all excited because Somebody Loves You, and then you realize that some idiot wants you to spend all your phone credit calling them, even though they want to talk to you. The disappointment can be crushing. Crushing, I tell you.
There are some instances when a missed call is acceptable. If you work with someone, for example, and they want you to call them back on the office phone. Or if you’re letting someone know you’re outside their house, and can they come out and let you in.
I don’t like it, however, when someone I barely know calls me and hangs up, and then expects me immediately to return the call. Because, boy oh boy, if you don’t call back within half a nano-second, they will call you again. And hang up.  Again. And again. I once had seven missed calls in a row from someone I’d called by mistake. “Sorry, wrong number!†I said cheerfully, but that wasn’t quite enough for him, obviously. If I’d known who he was, I’d have hunted him down, put the phone on vibrate, made him insert it up his back passage, and then spent the next hour ringing him.
It’s just bloody cheeky. Just because I’m white doesn’t mean I afford to yak on for hours to some almost total stranger any more than anyone else. If you want to talk to me that badly, then pay for it yourself.
And if your house is, in fact, on fire, and mine is the only number left on your smoke-logged phone, then you might just have an excuse, but if you’ve got enough money on there to ring me, then you’ve got enough money to yell “Help! I’m burning!†into the receiver before expiring.
So. Missed calls. The only thing more annoying is a mosquito in your undercrackers.
September 6th, 2006 at 11:11 am
This happens in Kinshasa, too. It’s called ‘beeping’, and yes, it’s an irritation (unless prearranged). It’s not as though text messages are expensive here.
Fair assumption that the recipient has more credit, cultural misunderstanding or just plain rude?
September 6th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
It happens so much here that the cellular phone company has now set up a system that allows people to send a pre-set message saying ‘please call me’ if your phone has no credit! Whenever I get one of them, I ignore it and delete the person from my phone book…
September 6th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
I think this must be a Pan-African phenomenon. Here in Nigeria it’s referred to as ‘flashing’ - as in, ‘I’ll flash you later’, ‘he just flashed me’ etc. Dunno about you, but I have to suppress a smile each time I hear those phrases!
September 6th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
And in Sierra Leone - it’s called “flashing” someone (although I understand that has other meanings in other countries). Yes, it’s irritating. But no, I don’t pay my own phone bill so,…
September 7th, 2006 at 5:55 am
That would bug me incredibly. They do not do that in Asia, even if they know you have more credits and way more money. They respect the invention of the *text message*.
September 7th, 2006 at 11:32 am
Blimey - it does seem to be pan-African.
And text messages are the best invention ever - why miss call when you can send a wee note? Mind you, I’d also be unlikely to respond to someone if they wrote ‘hi can u cal me :-)’.
Case - you don’t pay your own bill? Lucky man.
Fred, I don’t know - I’ve thought about it. I don’t think people see it as rude, although I find it so. And re the credit - it’s not a fair assumption. I am frequently credit-less. I think it’s just one of those things that people do. I just don’t like it!
September 7th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
Yes I agree completely. I’ve had so many missed calls since coming to Namibia, mostly from numbers I don’t know.
I just ignore them. After 8 calls!!
September 9th, 2006 at 8:56 am
Well written, I really hate this rude Miss Call, as she is called in our office.