The back door

I stopped answering my phone every time it rang a long time ago. I've got a post-it stuck on the phone with a list of numbers on it, which is both a blacklist and a whitelist depending on deadlines, my mood, the position of the moon, etc. And I suspect I'm not the only hack who screens calls like this.

But PRs have obviously cottoned on as they've become ever inventive in their attempts to get through. There's the 'External call' coming through from the PRs corporate exchange (might get picked up); the 'Unknown number' from someone calling the customer service desk and getting transferred (never gets picked up); and then there's the ones where actual numbers show up so I can Caller ID them (always gets picked up), unless its (never gets picked up).

We've seen all the tricks - call from a mobile phone so you get a different number; call from a mobile with 'Private number' switched on; call reception at the office; and call someone on the same team who sits nearby and get transferred.

But there's this other one as well - the back door. Call a random number at the company the journo works for and get them to transfer the call. So if I see an internal call coming through from someone I don't know, I know what's coming: there'll be a flustered colleague on the other end who thinks they've got a really important call for me, which they need to transfer, and if I don't answer they'll feel obliged to take a message.

These people aren't my fucking receptionists, they just happen to work with me. So I feel obliged to answer these calls, inevitably to find that the 'important call' is just some flack pitching a press release.

Annoyingly this tactic was used twice the other day, by the same person. I fielded a back door call and gave the PR in question my email address, only to have her call back ten minutes later using the same trick to check I received the press release (the most pointless and annoying kind of call).

It's a dirty trick. If you can't find a journalist's direct line, or even their email address (hint: it's usually on the website/magazine/newsletter/paper they write for), using all the 21st century tools you have at your disposal, you're not very good at your job and might be better placed selling debt management to people who watch daytime TV all day.

At least then the machines dial the numbers for you.