Try saying, “This is Ed McMahon”
Kevin James (aka King of Queens) has a great bit about this. He also riffs on phone number rhythm. There’s a pacing to where the spaces are supposed to go. As he listens to the message.
“I’m at four. One four.” (rolls eyes, writes down 414)
“Two” (writes a 2)
“Six” (writes a 6)
“-teen Seven” (he explodes in anger. I already put the 6 in, there’s no room to back and put in a 1!)
I hate leaving phone messages, and if I’m not careful I tend to find myself rambling because I hate it so much. Because of this, I’ve developed a very quick and simple way to leave a message. Like some of the other posters, I just say, “Hi, this is (me) at (phone number). I’m calling about (very quick summary of reason). Again, my number is (number). Thanks.” I think the key is to repeat the number at the end. I hate it when a caller makes me wade through the damned message twice, because half the time it’s a useless message anyway (a salesperson or whatnot) and I don’t bother writing down the number until I know what the call is about.
I have a friend who drives me crazy–every time he calls, he leaves these long, rambling messages that can sometimes literally go on for 5 minutes. And I know his phone number, so that’s not even the issue! Mark me down as a proponent of short-and-sweet phone messages. “Just the facts, ma’am.”
I knew someone who did that just to get a rise out of people. It worked. :rolleyes:
While I totally agree with the OP, my current complaint is the exact opposite. It concerns paying a bill or taxes over the phone.
Your current past due amount is
One
hundred
thirty
four
dollars
and
eighty
seven
cents
with an additional surcharge of
two
dollars
and
ninety
five
cents.
for a total of
One
hundred
thirty
seven
dollars
and
eighty
two
cents.
If you would like to pay
One
hundred
thirty
seven
dollars
and
eighty
two
cents
which includes an additional surcharge of
two
dollars
and
ninety
five
cents,
please press 1 now.
beep
You have indicated that you would like to pay
One
hundred
thirty
seven
dollars
and
eighty
two
cents
which includes an additional surcharge of
two
dollars
and
ninety
five
cents
If this is correct, press 1 now, otherwise, press 2 now.
beep
Your credit card will be charged
One
hundred
thirty
seven
dollars
and
eighty
two
cents
which includes an additional surcharge of
two
dollars
and
ninety
five
cents…
Do you? I’ve never heard you, especially on the phone, but I have been calling Canada a lot lately and am not surprised. Southern Americans (not to be confused with South Americans) think Northerners like me talk fast but we don’t hold a candle to the denizens of Toronto and Montreal I’ve spoken with. Jesus, it’s like talking to a Mexican disk jockey, except they slow down for phone numbers. “Cinco … cinco … cinco … uno … tres … quatro … dos.”
I saw it on Sweat the Smal Stuff. Very funny.
You tube links to the appropriate segments:
Phone Number Rythm
Tim Duffy Message
As to the op, I agree. I say my number twice, and I try to pretend I am writing it so I say it slow enough.
For work, I leave lots of messages with lots of different people. I’ve adopted the name+number at the front and repeated at the back. Slowly. With time to write down the digits. What do I get for my troubles? People making fun of it. Ok idiot, for you it’s
“TastesofChocolatewithAcmeWidgets.Callmeatfivefivefieonetwoonetwo.”
What gets me is when someone leaves the whole loooong story, so I call back with the answer. But they feel they must repeat the whole loooong story before I can just respond.
Or they call and ask for the information, but leave out the one piece of information you must have to answer the question; working in accounting, it’s incredibly frustrating how many other accounting drones leave messages about invoices and don’t give you the invoice number. Now I have to call back to get it, and THEN go searching for information on it and call back again. Way to double the time and effort for everyone, jerk.
Ooh ooh! I can play too.
Or they leave a message, just to say that they’ve listened to the outgoing message and they’ll call back during business hours.
Or they wait for the answering machine to click on before they hang up.
Or they leave (‘best’ effort, a couple of months ago) six - *six *freaking messages because they keep forgetting vital bits of info and then ringing back and forgetting which bit they corrected and trying to repeat it but now they’ve forgotten something else - so they have to ring back to repeat the info they think they got right in the first message, but probably forgot in the third.
I hate ramblers. Our local postie stopped bringing in the mail when she walked in on me yelling at the answering machine “Just tell me what the fuck you *want *for fuck’s sake!”
sweet jebus, i HATE that … though I work in email mostly .
I format the subject of my outgoing emails
Our location ID number Their account number [or numbers if there is more than one] [and if it is already in collections, the collections account number]
and in the body of the email I use the invoice number, or service month if I dont know the actual invoice number, and occasionally if for some reason or another if I cant find an invoice number or an account number the full service address.
I do think some of this is Dilbertesque “running out the clock”…they have a deadline. They need a bit of information from you. However! If they finish this project on time, then they’ll just be given a new project to start from scratch. But if they can manage to stretch things out, they can goof off as much as they want. “Did you get that information?” “No, but I called and left a message. They haven’t gotten back to me yet.”
This goes for faxes, too. I swear, there’s no way that someone deliberately faxes us a request for information using a 30th generation xerox copy as their fax original unless they have no intention of actually recieving that information.