what do you mean i can't use your phone??

[downforit2008]

What's next? Are you going to let the lady use YOUR car just because she forgot to run a personal errand? Your property, your rules! And who cares if the lady knows you work there? You're not her personal lap dog!

[Eisa]

On a greyhound trip when I was waiting in the bus station for the very last leg home, all the pay phones were in use, and some lady asked if she could use my phone, and I let her. And she gave it right back, which was nice.

But in general, I won't lend out my phone--granted, I also have a POS one that's cheap as shit, if someone INSISTED I hand over my phone cuz it's fancy and expensive, I'd be inclined to tell them to go fuck themselves.

[depechemodefan]

Telemarketers are starting to ignore the DNC list, political calls are starting to ramp up.

At the library, patrons call us and ask, "Can you look up this number? Someone called me from this number and I want to know who are they/what they sell."

Looking up in the national business/residential directory, I hit nothing, but googling it, I get sites that tell me they are telemarketer or probably scammers, with no names. Of course, telling the patron that gets a response of, "but who are they?"

Also, when we had an "emergency phone" at the front desk, people would of course use it for non-emergencies. Like this conversation:

sc: Hi...did you go out with her...did you sleep with her?
me: time to get off the phone.
sc: *to person he was talking with* I have to go

or people would make drug deals. "YOu have it? Ok, I'll meet you." This they would do in front of the police officer, but because it's vague, popo can't do anything about it.

[Andara Bledin]

E.g., the sound for "1" is either the combination of the sounds for {123} and {147*} or the note halfway between the two, I'm not sure how best to describe it.

There are two tones. One for the row and one for the column, and both together are the "note" for the key itself. There are actually 4 columns of tones, but the final column is primarily used for administrative and technical purposes and doesn't appear on commercial phones.

Is that holding down the 9 key, or repeatedly pressing the 9 key? and what exactly is it supposed to do??

I mean that when I get those calls, I press the 9 key once. That almost always results in the other side disconnecting and I have a suspicion it takes me off their list. If that doesn't work, I'll try other keys until the call goes away or I run out of them and hang up.

At the library, patrons call us and ask, "Can you look up this number? Someone called me from this number and I want to know who are they/what they sell."

Looking up in the national business/residential directory, I hit nothing, but googling it, I get sites that tell me they are telemarketer or probably scammers, with no names.

These are mostly spoofed numbers. Some of them aren't in service, some belong to unlisted people, and some belong to businesses.

We have quite a number of customers who have business phone numbers who have numbers on those lists. Nearly all of them, actually. Big companies will have sites referring to them come up first, but the little guys who don't even have websites almost never have any other results.

^-.-^