Etiquette tips for dealing with a shared home office phone line?

I can’t see any easy answer to this. The best thing to do is get either another phone strictly for business. Barring that, I think you can simply say please leave a brief message under your signature in e-mail.

I went through this same battle myself.

I am afraid I come down on the side of using the cellphone. I just can’t see using a single land line for business at home with other people.

Even if you put all that on your card it leaves it up to interpretation. Every customer has their own idea of what is lengthy and important.

If your in a situation where you wouldn’t be home to answer the phone, you could screen your cell for business calls and let them go to voice mail. Then just check them from home on your land line. That is what I do.

sorry I couldn’t be of more help.

Oh, and what Scamp said

I think I am going to tell my friend to just not pick up the phone. We have caller ID. If she knows who it is, she can pick it up. If she doesn’t, she can ignore the calls. And she can remember the offenders. She has an annoying friend who calls all the time and I always ignore that person’s call!!!

I just added my cell to my signature and wrote this:
**please note that for urgent or lengthy messages the best way to reach me is by cell phone**

you know, additional lines are something like $10 or $15. Why can’t you just get another number and add the amount onto the rent?

You can get Magic Jack phone for $20 per year, do that instead!

OOOOOOooooooooo. You have caller I.D.

That makes a huge difference. Well, yeah, just don’t pick it up if you don’t know them.

I didn’t have caller id. I did have a 3 and 5 year old that liked answering the phone.

i dont think we can add a line. we have a lame-o comcast phone.

I think your solution makes sense.

Also, get a non-power headset for your cell phone to keep from having to have it to your head all the time.

“Is it appropriate to note in my email signature that lengthy or urgent messages should be left on my cell?”
yes it is and i would recommend using https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8206 to handle your email signatures…