If it's a compliment...I'll take it.

I was having lunch with a small group of former co-workers (the four of us have remained good friends although we haven’t worked together in several years) last week and we were, of course, yakking away during the meal. So we’re trading stories, catching up, blathering on, and I mentioned that I kept getting these voice mails from some guy I didn’t know, and that even though the messages he was leaving were on my cell phone voice mail, the guy was mentioning another woman’s name. The guy had left a message on my voice mail, for someone else, just the previous night.

“I don’t know why this guy keeps leaving messages on my voice mail for some chick named Amanda,” I said. “You’d think he’d have realized by now he has the wrong number. If he’s not leaving a phone number to call back, they probably know each other and it’s implied she knows the number - so why can’t he get her number right?”

My male friend: “Silver, the guy obviously wants to hear your voice. You’ve got that phone-sex girl voice so of course he’s going to keep calling your voice mail back.”

Laughter round the table while I tried to think of a snappy comeback, but of course, I couldn’t think of a good zinger on the spot.

Later, the best I could come up with was, “I guess you’re just jealous my voice is deeper than yours.” :smiley: (Lame, I know. :rolleyes: )

But, I was by myself when I came up with it, so… I guess that doesn’t count.

I guess it’s waaaay too late to e-mail him with a good retort.

But if you can suggest any, I’ll gladly e-mail the bugger with a few anyway. :smiley:

Whatever reply you send, of course, should be a voicemail rather than an email.

Sounds like your own message is too vague to tip the caller off. If he keeps calling, it’s your fault not his and you are hurting him, he is not hurting you.
I’m in a business where I have to reply to lots of women who leave me a phone number on the office message machine.
But they have coy messages that don’t say who they are, so I’m never sure I reached the right person. I have no idea why anyone would do that.

You “You know, you’re right about that. By the way, this conversation was 3 minutes so that’ll be $11.97.”

Okay. That’s the one I’m going with. :smiley:

Woohoo!

To avoid giving out extra information to telemarketers and/or estranged relatives.

Yeah, as a general precaution, my voicemail is usually the bare bones “Hi, thanks for calling, please leave a message.”

My mum’s used to be a recording by my Dad and that actually worked quite well to stop a guy who continually called her.

Exactly - I’ve got the bare minimum on my voice mail and it doesn’t personally identify me. I’ve had it that way for quite some time; I used to have, “You’ve reached 123-4567, please leave a message,” but I decided to switch to a more general message, more like, “I can’t take your call right now, but please leave a message - thanks.”

Whenever I am not needing to appear professional for any reason (job hunting, apartment hunting, etc) I try to have a funny outgoing message. When I am needing to appear more professional it is the basic “You have reached 555-1212. Please leave a message with your name, number and the time you called and I will return your call as soon as possible. Thanks!”