“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 793 (Wednesday) – ignore

So many unknown numbers.

Another season of mysterious out of area phone numbers has arrived. Seven of the 13 incoming calls to my cell phone in the past week or so have been from unknown numbers from Colorado, western Massachusetts (area code 413) and New York. Most of these came during work hours and I feel perfectly justified when ignoring them. 

I accidentally answered one of the calls from Colorado on Tuesday. It was work hours, and even though it said “Colorado” I answered before the info registered, saying “Hi, this is Tammy” like when it's a known colleague calling. The caller asked if I was Nancy Some-long-last-name beginning with L. I said “no” and added there is nobody by that name at this number. It was very polite and it was fine. It was the third Colorado call in a week, but from a different number than the first two. 

Later, I did a Google search on the name the Colorado caller was looking for, but nothing came up for that name. Now I’m curious about Nancy L and wishing I had asked who was calling and if I could take a message.

Tonight, I answered a call from one of the 413 numbers. It was after work hours and curiosity kicked in. I said “hello” and there was a big pause, often a sign of an auto dialer. I said “hello” again, and there was a pause before a voice piped up with “hello” a couple times, then began to launch into the greeting that the caller is with some generic police something-or-other association. I hung up. The western Mass numbers usually ring in to solicit money for a fake sounding police charity. I keep blocking them, but they keep using new ones.

While doing searches on some of the unknown phone numbers, I punched in my own. That was fascinating. Names I’ve never heard of were linked to my number, likely before it was issued to me eight years ago. It also yielded results with names of neighbors and relatives of former spouses as “possible associates.” There is lots of not always accurate info available on the wonderful world wide web. 

The most fun "possible associates" were listed at house numbers that don't even exist on my street. The highest house number before the end of the street and Beaver Brook is 135, but at least one person is listed for the non-existent address of 150. There used to be a tree house in one of the trees on the other side of the embankment along Beaver Brook, so maybe that is the mysterious number 150.