We keep playing phone tag all morning.
phone tag
idiomA situation in which two individuals attempting to contact each other by telephone repeatedly do not get a live person and instead trade messages, such as by voice mail.
Origin
disputed originphone + tag (children's game)
I have been playing phone tag with the doctor's office all day, leaving messages but never catching them in the office.
After days of frustrating phone tag, the two lawyers finally connected to discuss the settlement terms before the court deadline.
- 01
dog
[Cockney slang]phone
- 02
hold the phone
stop; wait; whoa.
- 03
phone in
To fulfill a responsibility with a minimum effort rather than the appropriate level of effort.
- 04
tag along
To accompany, join, or follow; to go with.
- 05
telephone tag
A situation in which a person unsuccessfully attempts to contact another person by telephone and leaves a message instead, and in which the second person then unsuccessfully attempts to return the initial call and leaves a message for the first person, and so on as if the two are playing a game of tag in which the most recent person to have been left with a message is now designated as "it" (i.e. as the player now obliged to chase the other and to attempt anew to make contact).