The World According to Mitch

I was standing outside in the cold filling my gas tank recently when my cell phone rang.  A friend of mine called, but because he was calling with an international calling card his number was not displayed. He had just moved to a different country so his phone number changed, and I knew I wouldn’t have it in my phone yet. I asked him to e-mail it to me so I could call him back.

Oh you have it… I sent it to you on Facebook a while back.

This is not nearly the first time I have heard this. So for everyone to understand where I am coming from let me make my position clear:

1. Facebook is not a serious method of… Anything. Don’t use it to contact me if it is for anything serious.
2. While Facebook has all sorts of algorithms for mining your data, thus far they have not shared any of it with me. So please assume that if you sent it on Facebook and it was not in the last five minutes, it is gone forever.
3. While I have no problem using Facebook for personal communications, if it has anything to do with business, serious family issues, dinner plans for Friday, tickets to a baseball game, whatever… Facebook is not a good way to get in touch with me. Yes, I use it… But not reliably. For RELIABLE communications I use e-mail and phone calls and that’s about it.
4. If I am standing outside in the blowing snow for any reason, I am going to get off the phone fast. Sometimes it will be politely… But only if you say ‘ok I know… Please call me back.’ Anything else will likely be responded to harshly (without rude intent) and will likely be followed by your discussion continuing with a dial tone.

Now please understand that none of this is because I do not want to talk to you. If that were the case I would blow you off very politely and then not call you back, and I would not take the time to explain all of this. I DO want to talk, but in order to do that I need to be able to reach you.

Have a great week!