Telephone

When to make a call
First of all, pay attention to the time. Between friends or where there is a close bond, there are no time limits.
For anybody else, the acceptable calling time limit is from 9.30 am onwards.
It is better not to call prior to this time and, either way, not after 10 pm: it may be the cause of alarm to the person receiving the phone call or may even seen an unpleasant way of checking on that person. In the case of telephone calls from a distant country, pay attention to the time zone: it may so happen that the person on the other line is sound asleep. Try to avoid calling during meals, even though a lot of people are only available at those times.
What should you do then? The solution for those people who do not want to miss an important phone call and at the same time do not want to be disturbed during meals, is to connect an answering machine with a recorder message that states that the call will be returned within hour. Anybody wanting to communicate via telephone should first ensure that the person who receives the call will be willing to converse. This will make you appear as a respectful person and will avoid the embarrassment of having to say: not now, later.

On the telephone
If it is necessary to make a phone call from another persons home, having asked the permission of the lady of the house, try to keep the phone call as brief as possible and maintain an acceptable behaviour throughout the phone call.
First of all, greet the person on the other end of the line and state your name and surname. Try to avoid saying "hello, who is it?". Telephone calls made from a public telephone box should always be as brief as possible, especially if there is somebody waiting in line to use the phone. The phone calls made should never be more than two.
It is not polite to have your secretary or another person make the phone call on your behalf and then say "I will now pass you to Mr. Rossi". At times it may happen to call the wrong number or to be called by a person that meant to call somebody else. In the first case, apologise and state the number dialled in order to understand whether it is incorrect or if you simply made a dialling error.
In the second case, the procedure should be the same as for the first case, explain what has happened and saying good bye.

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