615-469-0355 – New Number For “Financial Stimulus” Robocall
Habits can be hard to break but I intend to make a concentrated effort to stop writing phone numbers with parenthesis around the area code. I don’t know if all parts of the U.S.A. have made it necessary to dial the area code when making a call within the area code but I assume most of the country has. The parenthesis, I think, identify digits which are either optional or otherwise supplementary to the unique 7-digit number. Area codes have not been optional for a long time, and their relevance in terms of identifying where a call is physically coming from has faded. I will continue to use dashes in phone numbers as well as social security numbers, for as little as I have need to write the latter. In those cases the dashes format the otherwise arbitrary looking string of digits to indicate what type of number it is.
I remember when 10-digit dialing was made mandatory. I don’t remember when, exactly, the change was announced by the phone company but I recall it being conflated into an an actual news story. A local television program interviewed representative citizens to ask how they felt, and how 10-digit dialing would impact their lives. People were livid, claiming this extra bit of busywork would mar their daily routines with inconvenience and consume enormous amounts of time over the remaining years of their lives. I heard these complaints and marveled at the tininess of certain human beings.
Before proofreading this I saw that the opening of the first sentence said “Habits can be heard to break …” I corrected that with the assumption that this habit will be broken inaudibly.
