Caller ID, German Style

One of the nice things about living in Germany is that the situation portrayed in the above cartoon rarely, if ever, occurs. First off, instead of answering the phone, "Hello?" it is expected that the person uses their last name or the last name of the residents' house they are at. I like to combine my Canadian background with this German social standard, so if you ever call and I answer you'll hear, "Maass, hallo?"

But something that I still sometimes forget is that immediately after hearing who has answered it is now the caller's turn to identify him or herself. The accepted German way to do this is by saying (for example), "Hier ist Maass" (if you can believe it *gasp!* that means "Here is Maass" in English...haha), or if speaking English, "It's Allison" will do. When speaking with close friends obviously I say, "Hier ist Allison," since it's a much more casual situation.

My point is that in this culture (if both people do it "right") the conversation quickly moves forward uninhibitedly due to the efficient self-identification that takes place right off the bat. Never the half-listening-while-frantically-trying-to-figure-out-who-has-just-called dilemma. I guess that's why it's so nice to have call display...it puts both the answerer and caller on the same playing field-!

Anyway, for the record I don't miss "Premature Voice Recognition Assumption" one bit and will be saddened when I have to once again start asking, "May I ask who's calling?" (or in some instances, "Uhh, who is this?!?")