Really you can. Its very simple.
But no, you stumble through what is at best an incomprehensible greeting and figure…“Well, I guess that’s written in stone…can’t fix it now…people will figure out who the fuck I am and what the hell I’m trying to say”!!!
You are a complete and utter moron!
Your greeting goes something like this:
ring…ring…ring…
“Judy Dumbass”
-Okay, lets stop right there for a moment. That’s what people hear when they’re put into your voice mail. Your name. You simply state your name, followed by silence…and more silence…and enough silence so that the caller will undoubtedly start saying “Uh, hello? Hello?” Let’s continue.
“Uh, err, um…this is Judy Dumbass…I uh, err, duhhh…I’m not here right now so you can…uhh…ummm…if you’d like to leave a message you can…uhh, ummm…I guess you can do that…and then I can…uhh…call you back…or you can call me later…uhh…oh yeah, if you want to talk to someone else, you can press zero…I think…and that should connect you to…ummm…someone else…(this is more, painful silence)…okay…goodbye.”…BEEEEEEP
Hey Judy! We all screw up our V.M. greeting the first time we record it. You can fix it. Please do.
I know, I know. Why should I give a shit about this petty stuff? I dunno, it just pisses me off to no end when people cannot grasp simple technology.
I get more impatient with those who like to recite their favourite hundred-word quote right along with their greeting, myself. Extra points for a system that cuts you off after the first four words when you finally get the chance to leave a message.
If I had a cell phone, my VM message would be “Leave message.” Either that, or I’d deliberately make it about twenty minutes long to discourage people leaving messages.
But I avoid it all by not having a cell phone. I’m sorry, but despite all the praises about “digital networks” and such, they still sound like shit. I’ll consider it again when they develop phones that use neutrino emissions as a means of transmitting information…
My machine used to say, “You have reached [555-5555]. You know what to do. beep”
Now it just says, “You have reached [555-5555]. beep”
It occured to me to change it from a 20-second greeting many years ago when I would call friends and listen to their 20-second greetings. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard all of that. Just beep, dammit!” So I made my message as short as usefully possible so that other people wouldn’t be thinking what I had been thinking.
I’ve got you all beat. My answering machine message is “Beep”. Or maybe “Beeeeeeeep” depending on how many messages are on there. Really, anyone I want calling me knows I don’t have an outgoing message and anyone confused by it isn’t someone I typically want to be talking to anyway. I’ve only had one person really complain about it, to which I informed them that when they pay my phone bills, they’ll have some say into how I work my telecommunications.
I got my inspiration from the show Mad About You. Their phone message was “Hi, we’re out, leave a message.”
That’s basically what mine is, except I say, “Hi, you’ve reached 555-1234, we’re out, leave a message.”
Short and sweet.
I’d like to know what possesses normally coherent people To…speak…like…this…on…their…answering…machines…when…leaving…their…outgoing…message.
My sister’s old cell phone message: Some from a punk band she listens to (can’t remember the name): “HELL YEH MOTHERFUCKERS!!!” My sister: “Hey you’ve reached Cammy’s cell phone; you can leave a message, but please don’t because messages suck. I’ll get your number and call you back beeeeeeeeep” I have to agree with her on that one messages can be such a bitch .
An added bonus of having a very short outgoing message is it confuses the hell out of predictive dialers/telemarketers. Usually by the time the telemarketer switches onto the line my VM is already recording and I get a VM of some twit saying “hello, could I speak to soandso?.. hello? Helllooooooo…”
Of course it won’t work for people who still use old-fashioned answering machines, but many of the new voice mail systems will allow you to completely bypass the entire greeting by pressing the # button at any point, which will take you straight to the beep. I do that every time I get a voice mail now and 90% of the time I get the beep immediately and don’t have to listen to the greeting at all.
Because I have to leave a somewhat lengthy greeting on my work voice mail, telling our hours, etc., since we don’t have standard office hours, I pay my callers the courtesy of stating at the beginning of my recorded greeting, “to bypass this message at any time, press the # key to get directly to the beep.” Regular callers to my office who manage to miss me, now know they don’t have to listen to my entire schpiel.
My mother’s outgoing message not only includes the entire “Hi, we’re unable to come to the phone right now” story, but there’s some fruity pseudo-jazz music in the background. And her message…(arpeggio) is timed…(tweet tweet tweet) to the saxophone…(looong arpeggio) solo…(short fast arpeggio) in the…(squeak) music…(yet another arpeggio) and the message continues until the song ends! AAAAARGH!
She wonders why I never leave a message.
My outgoing message: none. I don’t have an answering machine. I’ll call you back when I see your number on my caller ID.
