“If I show up at your door, chances are you did something to bring me there.” – Martin Blank, Grosse Pointe Blank.
There’s a very good reason why the contacts in my phone have made the journey with me through the years. They’ve stayed in place from clamshell to flip, from sidekick to smart phone, from Blackberry to Droid. There are people that I haven’t talked to in years in my contacts. There are cryptic code names that I no longer even remember why I originally gave them to the person in question…but I remember who they belong to. A good percentage of the numbers likely don’t even work any more…but I’m not calling just to check. And so they stay.
Why?
Because when you call me, I want to know who you are before I decide whether or not to answer my phone. Even if I hated you (no, make that especially if I hated you) I want to know who you are before I decide whether or not to answer the phone.
Because if there’s one thing that I’ve learned over the years (especially since this group really started taking off)…it’s that I’m eventually going to get The Networking Booty Call from you…
I’ll admit to a certain level of gamesmanship with this move – I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings that I have the upper hand in this situation. You may think you’re going to catch me off guard…and you might not even think I’ll remember you. But when I answer the phone knowing who it is and addressing you by your name…it always throws you off.
It stops you in your tracks, and completely obliterates the rehearsed speech you had all planned out in your head.
Which is exactly how I want things to be.
99.9% of the time, these calls aren’t just a random “catch up” moment triggered by a wave of nostalgia that overtook you suddenly and so you picked up the phone and dialed…no, you need something from me. You just got laid off and need the name of a few recruiters. Things aren’t looking good for you lately, and so you want to know when the next event that the group of mine you’ve heard about is taking place. Your brother just got laid off and needs a job, and you’re wondering if I can hook him up with a few leads.
You can relax…I’m not going to call you out. I’m not going to remind you of the several lunches that we’d planned so that we could stay in touch that you bailed out of at the last minute. I won’t bring up the multiple times we were going to meet for drinks, but then there was always something more important that came up that kept you from showing. The deposition that you lied your ass off during won’t get recapped. I’ll never mention the couple of voicemails that I left for you that went unreturned before I just stopped calling.
But please…don’t think I’m an idiot with alzheimer’s who doesn’t remember those things. Don’t insult me or my intelligence. We both know me better than that.
I am not your booty call.
You can’t just call me up at some random point in time and expect me to invite you back into my world so that you can get what you need and move on. Yeah, we had some good times back in the day…but those days are long since gone, and I don’t even really know who you are any more. I don’t know what your skillset is like these days…I don’t even know if you’re any good. I don’t know where you’ve been or who you’ve been with that may have corrupted you or even ruined you to the point where I shouldn’t want to be anywhere near you again anyway.
But I’ll take the high road – that’s something ITintheD.com has been really good about teaching me over the last few years. I will agree to meet you for lunch, or drinks, or chat over the phone with you for a bit to see if there’s anything I can do…but I probably won’t inconvenience myself to do it. A few years ago? Pffffft…you and I both know I would’ve dropped everything and made helping you one of my highest priorities. But now?
Meh. Like I said – I am not your booty call.
So as you pick up that phone and start to dial my number (that you had to get from a friend of a friend of a former co-worker of ours, by the way…because you’d long-since purged me from your contacts…oh yes, they told me you were thinking about reaching out…) you should try and remember that. Don’t expect me to answer the phone with the same enthusiasm and excitement that I would have a couple years back in time. Don’t bet the house payment on me being willing to move mountains for you based on a two minute chat. Don’t think that I’ve forgotten everything.
Don’t Be That Guy…because I am not your booty call.
Until next time…
Make sure you check out our other Don’t Be That Guy entries…