Do you have an incredibly asinine voicemail greeting?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My home answering machine greeting is asinine in that it’s 15 seconds longer than it needs to be. The husband created it, and the guy is a complete ham. After a long story about who’s been reached, and who’s not available to take a call, he raps it up with “And please (dramatic pause) have a great day.” Right. Asinine.

My mobile voicemail says “Leave a message,” and that’s it. You know why? Because it’s not 1987, and everybody knows how to work voicemail by now. You tell me what the hell you want, and then I call you back. If you just want to shoot the breeze, you usually don’t even need to leave a message because all of the relevant information, such as who called, the time and date, are made available to me by caller ID.

At work, there’s not much more. “Hello, you have reached MeanPerson at Faceless Conglomerate X. I’m currently away from my desk, or out of the office. If this is some super duper emergency, 1) it’s not, but 2) if you insist, press 0 for the operator, and someone will figure out who to get you to. Otherwise, leave a message and I’ll call you back.”

When I worked corporate HR, I was forced to be needlessly explicit and repetitive, because before doing so, 98% of the voicemails received were entirely useless. “Hi, I have a question about my benefits” and that’s it. Well no shit, you do. You called the benefits people. Nothing about who the person is, or what the person wants, or how to contact him. I will admit, some people were slightly more detailed. “Hi, my name is Bob Jones. I have a question about my benefits, and would appreciate a call back.” Ah, so now I know that you would like a response via telephone, but who, precisely, is Bob Jones? Do you know how many people work for this company? A gazillion. Do you know how many are named Bob Jones? A gazillion and one. So after starting the greeting with who I am, and the usual, I’d have to say, “Please be sure to include your name, employee ID number, and be as detailed as possible about the nature of your concern. Please leave specific contact information, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.” As it turned out, saying this only once resulted in people omitting at least one of these things about 50% of the time. I then rerecorded my greeting and said it twice, which narrowed it down to about 10% of the time. So my old work voicemail was completely asinine, but it was forced on me.

I’m creating this poll because I just left a message with someone whose voicemail greeting was 102 minutes long.

2

102 minutes long? Yikes.

My voicemail message is just my recorded name and then whatever blather the machine lady says. And that’s still too much. I tried and failed to figure out how to just make it beep. If anyone knows how to do that for a Verizon cell phone, please fight my ignorance.

Have a great day!

3

My home v/m is simple: “You’ve reached [phone number]. We can’t take your call, so please leave a message and we’ll call you back”.

The work v/m is very long and detailed, with express requests to speak clearly, leave your name, case number or SSN, daytime phone where you can be reached, and a detailed message. I also note that if you don’t leave enough info so I can find you in the system, you probably will not receive a call back. Of course 20% leave “This is Jane, I’m calling about my child support. It’s very important. Call me back.” Uh, WHICH Jane?

I also get irked when calling some of our clients back. Many have very long, music in the backround, religious v/m intros. [cue: Usher/R Kelly/Korn/Billy Ray Cyrus] “Hey, you’ve called Jane. Today is a gloooorious day in the world of our Lord, Jesus Christ. He who has blessed you with the gift of life. Praise Him. Without Him our lives would be meaningless. I’m not able to take your call right now, as I am serving Him. It’s our duty to serve Him. Leave a message and I will return your call at my convenience. Blessings to you for calling. Have a great day in the world of our Lord.”
Erm, Jane? I’m just returning your call, asking who you are, as there are a bazillion Janes’s in our system and I can’t assist you if I don’t know who you are.

I also despise the twee v/m’s - ones from the toddlers or the animals. Oy.

4

Slight exaggeration. Slight.

Hilarious! Working in HR, I had to deal with a lot of this crap. I remember seeing a Verizon commercial advertising some service that would play music in callers’ ears while waiting for you to answer. I thought, “How incredibly annoying. Why would this be desirable?” I was perfectly content believing that nobody, except maybe teenagers, would do anything so stupid. It turns out I believed this lie mainly because I don’t have telephone conversations with the types of people who would. After working the HR job, I realized a staggering percentage of people cannot even record a voicemail greeting without a full minute of religious zealotry, and/or honestly believe I would like to listen to Souljah Boy every time I call them.

5

I’m not in a customer service role at work. Mine is short & sweet. “Hi, you’ve reached name, title.”. Our voicemail system automatically follows the greeting with “To leave a message for this person press one. To reach an operator, press zero. To do something else, press star.”

What drives me batshit are folks at my company (and others) who restate all the various instructions. Somehow they just can’t stand for their greeting to not be a complete free-standing explanation, even though the voicemail sysyem will aleady, before and after the greeting, cover all that.

6

No. Mine is pretty simple: You have reached <my name>'s Voice Mail. Please leave a message.

This isn’t because I’m above being asinine. But due to HIPPA laws medical types can’t leave a message unless the voice mail clearly states the name (or so I was told.)

7

I need to add a slight aside to this thread, after having just pulled voicemails.

It’s not only v/m intros that drive me batty, it can be the voicemails themselves, beyond the leaving no identifying information. When I pick up the phone to call someone, I turn down the television / radio / step away from loud appliances. When TheKid was little and I knew the call would be business related, I would call when she was napping or otherwise occupied.

Two of my voicemails had the TV blasting so loud in the backround that I could barely hear the speaker. One was obviously holding a screaming baby right next to the phone. The person used almost the entire time alloted, giving detailed information - which I appreciate - all while the baby was crying, sniffing, snorting into the phone.

8

Mine is my fiancée in her “secretary” voice saying I am very busy doing very important things and I will return the call when I am done with my meeting between gentemen and scholars.

9

We need to talk about possible copyright problems, as you are using my message.:eek:

Years ago, when cellphones were all new and stuff, I had a cutesy message. It was me, asking the caller to please leave a message. In English, followed by the same message in Spanish, then German, then Italian. It got old quickly, but it was fun while it lasted.:smiley:

10

Only one person willing to fess up to the asininity of their voicemail greeting? Lies!

Edit: You know, my mother leaves her greeting, followed by the Spanish translation because it is possible someone calling her doesn’t speak English. Still, I’m certain everyone calling understands her name and the concept of voicemail systems. I’d be shocked if they couldn’t figure it out.

11

My home answering machine message was recorded by our son, then 11 or so, which to my mind is a violation of good taste right from the start. My wife won’t let me change it. (Our son is now 16, and his voice is more than a bit different than it was then.)

My office voice mail says “As far as I know, I am in the office today”. If I am out of the office, I change the message. People seem to get a kick out of this for some reason.

12

My voicemail message at work, when I’m out of town, is long and obnoxious. I may have to make my standard VM a bit obnoxious as well. It’s for good reason, though.

I work in research at a medical center. My voicemail is my own, not monitored by anyone else, and certainly not covered on weekends. It gives my name, title, and department with the word research tacked on at the end. So please don’t leave urgent or semi-urgent medical matters on the voicemail. If I’m not in, no one else will know that you/your patient is having a problem. Call the freaking clinic, where they have receptionists and doctors and an answering service!

I specify this when I leave an ‘out of office’ message for times that I’m away any significant amount of time, but I may have to change it in general. Some idiot in the hospital operator group forwarded a request for consultation in the ER to my voicemail, and the doctor who was forwarded actually left the message. (To her credit, she did sound unsure, and I determined in my call back to her the next morning that she’d gotten hold of a doctor.) But study patients should not be leaving their medical problems on my voicemail either, and I keep handing them business cards with the clinic number on it and strict instructions to call there for medical issues.

13

Now: no, definitely not.

But back when it was the 1980s, well…

We had a Macintosh SE in our campus newspaper’s office. Ran System 4, had an actual hard drive, etc. Also had Macintalk :slight_smile: I had the computer record the voicemail greeting.

14

Did it have that awful robot voice that was incapable of stressing any syllable in a word, and was also devoid of any tone or inflection? Because that would have been super.

15

If you’ve ever watched the “1984 Apple Shareholders” video where Steve Jobs introduces the Mac, it’s that voice.

(around 3:02, if you’re clicking the link)

16

My voicemail consists of me stating my name and telling them to leave a message after the beep, me miming the beep and 5sec later the actual beep

Good thing I don’t believe in an afterlife!

17

My home phone and cell phone are both using the preprogrammed Verizon mechanical voice greeting. “You have reached xxx-xxx-xxxx. If you’d like to leave a message, you may do so after the beep.” On the cell phone I think it says that there are other options if you remain on the line or press pound or star or some such. Very simple and easy and non-revelatory to strangers who might call me.

18

Voicemail messages are useless.

I get a lot of calls for Nick and Cynthia Wolf (still, 4 years now after getting this number).

My voicemail message says “Hi, this is the [mylastname] residence. Please leave a message.”

People still just yammer on leaving messages for Nick and Cynthia.

Rubbish.

19

I voted asinine.

I’ve mentioned it before, but mine (home line) says something like “The more profanity in your message the more likely we’ll call you back.” This is fun at first, but now everyone who calls regularly has heard it, and when someone new calls and swears a lot it’s just baffling because we’ve forgotten. I’ve actually said to my husband, “What’s up with this Mike dude- is he a total asshole?” because the message was so bizarrely hostile. Then: oh, yeah, the outgoing message! Duh, we should change that. But we never do.

20

Psssssst.