[some_moron]: Hi David!
[some_moron]: Are you there?
[me]: Hi. Yes, I am. That’s why my status isn’t “away”
[some_moron]: Oh, great!
[some_moron]: Can I call you?
[some_moron]: What’s you’re number?
[me]: You’re already talking to me now. Why do you have to call me?
[some_moron]: Because, I need to ask you some questions
[me]: And this can’t be done over IM?
[me]: *sigh* OK…
Why oh why do people time and time again do this to me? If you want to call me, just call me! Don’t IM me, then ask me if you can call me. It’s completely redundant FFS. If I can’t speak to you on IM, there’s a pretty good chance (like a 100% chance) that I can’t speak to you on the phone.
And asking for my number. At work we have this really nice corporate whitepages system, which some poor group of developers have spent lots and lots of their time, coding, so that people don’t have to do dumb stuff like send emails (which already have signatures with phone numbers of the people that they’re asking the number of) or IM’s asking what somebody’s number is.
These tools are there to make like easier… use them!