We all get busy. With career, family, kids and other obligations going on , who has time for drama? With that in mind,  I present Angela’s rules for cell phone ettiquette:

1. Don’t get upset when I don’t answer or return your call or text during work hours. It is unreasonable for you to expect I will. When I’m at work, I’m working and do not even check my personal cell phone until after work hours. I’m busy, it’s not personal.
2. Please do not put me in the awkward position of telling you no by asking for my work number. My work phone is owned and paid for by the agency I work for and is for work calls. If there is a true emergency, please contact my husband or mother who have my work number (and no they won’t give it to you.)
3. Please do not call and/or text me multiple times in a short time frame. This in no way increases the likelihood of me answering or returning your call/text during work hours. In fact, it decreases them as I get annoyed by it and am passive aggressive.
4. I appreciate and love most of my family and friends so when I do not return your calls/texts in what YOU deem a timely manner, please do not go all drama queen on me, I am not mad at you, ignoring you or avoiding your calls. Unless you do any of the things on this list frequently, then I might be.
5. Outside of work hours, there is a high probability that I am in class, doing homework, working on work stuff at home, writing an article for my column, shopping, paying bills, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, playing with my kids, bathing my kids, reading to my kids, feeding my kids, putting my kids to bed, fixing problems my kids come to me with, homeschooling my kids…(you get the idea), spending time with my husband, and occasionally eating and sleeping. Sometimes I even (gasp) leave the phone inside while I’m outside with the kids and/or animals. While these, and many more, are all valid reasons for not answering my phone (see number four, it’s not all about you), I don’t actual owe you an explanation of what I’m doing with my time or have to justify that it was important enough to ignore phone calls for. Please remember that YOUR priorities are not necessarily MY priorities.
6. When you call me, if you would like a return call, please DO leave me a voice message or a text message that ACTUALLY STATES what you are calling about. I return calls and texts by priority so just saying or texting “call me” tells me nothing and I will assume it wasn’t important and move it to the bottom of the list.
7. When you text me, please, please, please do NOT use all caps. I don’t know why you are screaming at me and it’s rude. When you consistently use all caps to convey urgency yet it turns out it was nothing urgent at all, using all caps ceases to get your call returned quicker and will in fact have the opposite effect because it annoys me.