We live in a two area code city, deal with it
It’s been what, three or four years now since Vancouver switched from having only one area code (604) to having two area codes with the addition of the 778 prefix, so why hasn’t Vancouver been able to come to grips with the fact that this is a two area code city?
Part of my job includes giving out new telephone numbers, and it seems that nobody wants to get a 778 number. People will wait a month without a phone in the hopes that a new batch of 604s will appear rather than take one with the (not so) new area code. People shun the unloved 778 like they do the smallpox virus and disco music.
Worse people with 604 area codes are oblivious to the existance of the dual area code world. Ask a 604er what their number is and they’ll give it to you without the area code, which is fine. We all have our habits, but follow up that question with, “And what’s your area code?” and they look at you in horror.
“What?” they looked shocked, “Do I look like someone who would have any other area code? Do I look like one of those country bumpkins with 250? Or one of those refuges from Toronto who get stuck with 778? No, I’m a 604.”
They don’t actually say this, but the look in their eyes does.
The “new” area code, because of its newness, is so much harder to remember. What’s the new one in Toronto again? I remember a Seinfeld episode (I think) when NYC was rezoning and of course the characters were neurotic about losing their area code. There is a cool factor to being “more native” to a city - and 416, 604, and 212 (NYC) have probably been built into many hip-hop songs. =) Finally, since I’m scatterbrained, I read my area code as 877 and that’s the toll-free code!
But you’d think that people would be used to 778 by now. I mean the entire province used to share one area code, but we learned to adapt when that changed.
When I got my last Fido phone, they offered me a 604 number and I asked, “Don’t you have any in the 778 area code?” I’ve now had that number for about three years, and the only person who reacted to it was my mother-in-law, who acted like I was giving her a phone number in South America or something.
I just wish I could get one for the house, rather than just on my cell.
I still miss being able to tell what part of Greater Vancouver someone was from just from the first two digits of their seven-digit phone number. 87x was near City Hall, 25x was East Van, 66x and 68x were downtown, 43x was South Burnaby (and a bit of Vancouver), 29x was North Burnaby, 22x was West Side, 26x was Richmond, etc. Some of those numbers persist, but now that people can keep them as they move, they’ve become all mixed up.
My big pet peeve is people who leave messages and say their area code sloooowly then rush through their number. I have to replay messages over and over to get the number. Don’t they realize? If they have some business it’s in their interest to be clear about their numbers? And for goodness sake, why don’t they repeat the number a second time. The area codes are the easy bit.
Btw, Derek, 42x is also a North Burnaby number.