Answering the phone

One of the things I've had to get used to when my wife became a Rev is that most phone calls to the house are now for her in her Rev role.  

At first I'd pick up a ringing phone if I was near one - but as it was almost always for her this either meant:

a) I had to take a message if she wasn't around;

OR

b) the caller would almost always - rather sweetly - engage in small talk with me before asking to speak to the Rev.

I soon learnt that to save time for myself and the caller the best approach is actually to let calls go to answerphone.  If it actually was somebody trying to get through to me I could always pick the call up as they left a message.

A mate of mine whose Dad was a dentist shared another "trick" to screen calls - family and friends are told to let the phone ring 3 times, then hang up, then call back straight away - the 3 rings then hang up approach basically alerts the household that a friend/family is about to ring.

I've also read advice that the answerphone message should (sadly) be in a man's voice as apparently this tends to discourage the more cranky messages and callers.