Quit Talking Out of Your Ass on My Voice Mail
I hate telephone calls.
When the phone rings, it’s almost always bad news.
Somebody wants something from me — either my time or money. And, I don’t have much of either.
Think of it this way. When’s the last time you received an unexpected telephone call and someone wanted to give you something? Or do something for you? Go ahead, take your time. Try to come up with one instance of charity.
Fortunately, there’s a buffer from this nuisance. It’s called voice mail. I screen my calls. Every one of them. And if I don’t recognize your phone number, you can be sure as elephant shit that it’s going straight to voice mail.
For those who manage to get through to me and leave a voice mail message, I have some helpful advice. So, listen up.
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VOICE MAIL ETIQUETTE:
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(1) Speak clearly. Over-enunciate your words. Talk like you’re speaking to a 6-year-old child because that’s probably my state of mind by the time I get to voice mails at the end of a long day. Listening to my voice mails shouldn’t be impossible to understand what someone is saying.
(2) The two most critical items in your message must be YOUR NAME and YOUR PHONE NUMBER. Without these two mandatory bits of information, nothing else you say will make any sense to me and won’t matter. Your ass is getting ditched (unless I need a favor or I’m trying to borrow money from you).
(3) Clearly identify yourself early on in the message. Don’t make me try and figure out which “Bob” or “Steve” you are. And the worst thing you can possibly say is “it’s me.” Who in the hell is “me?” Don’t make me have to play guessing games.
(4) Biggest complaint of all: How fucking difficult is it to speak your phone number into a telephone? Obviously, this is far too much to ask a majority of the world’s population. I can’t tell you how many calls were completely lost — doctor appointments, business discussions, important meetings — because some ass joker can’t speak ten numbers into a fucking phone. CALL OUT THE NUMBERS CLEARLY! It’s embarrassing as hell to dial back the wrong area code because I couldn’t decipher your phone number and then wake up some coastal town fisherman in Maine at 1:15 am because you can’t slowly pronounce a few numbers.
(5) When you leave a message, put down your lunch for ten seconds. I realize multitasking is sometimes necessary. But I can’t understand what you’re talking about while you’re scarfing down that last slice of pizza. Please. Stop. Fucking. Eating.
(6) Don’t ramble on and on and tell your life story. I’ve had messages that ran like 4 or 5 minutes. What sadist would do that to another human being? If you need to leave me details, then make it snappy. Provide the cliff notes. Once, someone left me a five-minute message about all his recent troubles, only to end with a pitch for money. It wasted five minutes of my time and depressed the hell out of me. I felt worse for him than I did for myself. Don’t do that!
(7) Don’t ever call me on an NFL Sunday or while “Monday Night Football” is going on, unless the spread and total outcome are no longer in question. Anyone who calls me during those hours when the mortgage payment is on the line obviously doesn’t know me at all. And if you do call during those times, YOUR CALL WILL NOT BE RETURNED!
(8) If you phone me during an event of national importance like the State of the Union Address or a Presidential Debate, be assured — I WILL pick up the phone. Yes indeed. And I will scream into the receiver — WHY IN THE FUCK AREN’T YOU WATCHING THE DEBATE! And then rudely, slam down the phone. I’ve done that many, many times. Hopefully, there won’t ever be a death in my family during a Presidential Debate.
(9) Speak up! I will give your voice mail two chances and if I can’t figure it out by the second try, then I hit delete and you’re history (unless you owe me money). Another thing — I don’t want to hear babies or animals on the call. This becomes an automatic delete.
(10) Don’t leave me cliffhanger messages. The last thing I want to hear is something like, “Nolan, we’ve got a very serious problem,” followed by an urgent call back request. Then, the next ten times I hit redial, I can’t reach you. In the meantime, I’m worried sick that I’ve been fired, another loan request has been denied, or someone died. Don’t mindfuck me like that.
(11) If you’re affiliated with a company, be sure and make that clear that upfront. This way I can keep your call from getting confused with the bill collectors, which all get deleted instantly.
(12) And finally, when I do answer, get straight to the point. Don’t ask me how I am because you don’t really want to know and probably don’t care. Don’t waste my time with small talk. I hate small talk. Tell me who you are and what you want immediately — within the first 20 seconds. That way I know instantly whether or not to hang up, or not.
Now at the beep, you can leave me a message in the COMMENT section. Thank you for reading.
Agreed, I also think it helps to repeat your number clearly at least twice so the person receiving the message doesn’t have to listen to the entire message a second time to get some elusive digits.
Hey Nolan, it’s me. I just want and person know past that in the way so its okay and to that if Wednesday can when you want. So, yeah. How’d that going with the thing that she wanted to ask about for another time day last month it was. Hang on. Oh yeah if never dance jump hang to be the diligent ying yang.So thanks for your Mom and the underwear from the basketball game. Call me back its 53812 and you know the rest ok man its great to hear from you take her easy bud out.
What about those marketing guys who work at the call center, dont now if this happen in the states but in Mexico this fuckers dont hesitate to disturb your time they call anytime offering you shit like car insurance in case of your credit car or extended tv chanels by your cable provider i hate those bastards. Do you have any coment about them??
Slamming down the phone on someone doesn’t do you any good anymore. The other end won’t hear your rage anymore since they’ve been digitally disconnected already. Plus, you looking at $400-600 to replace your smartphone.
But maybe there is a slam-the-phone up which treats the other end of the conversation to some noise.
The absolute worst is a message that goes on and on for several minutes with the person talking slowly and boring the crap out of you and then at the very end in one second they say… “and call me back ASAP at four-three-I-A-six-I-ooo.” I really enjoy listening to the entire boring message twice to try to decypher the number.
Then there’s my mom. “It’s 4:32 p.m. on Tuesday, July 2nd, 2013 A.D. Please give me a call back at area code 510 XYZ-ABCD. Again, that’s area code 510 XYZ-ABCD. Oh, and don’t forget to dial a 1 first. It’s 4:33 p.m. now. Oh, now it’s 4:34.”
We had some *really* annoying calls about reducing our credit card rates. All complete B.S. I took to blowing a whistle into the phone. The calls stopped a few days later.
Oh, and for God’s sake never ever call me if our team is ahead to talk about how great the team is playing. If we win, call me *AFTER* the game. If we lose, don’t freakin’ call me.
I can’t.
Stroke.
Just how sure is elephant shit?
I don’t own a phone
Google Voice. It will transcribe voicemail for you, and send an email of the transcription, so you can skim the email in 10 seconds rather than listen to the 2-minute message. It’s almost as good as getting the email they should have written instead of calling in the first place!
The instruction about leaving your number is a little outdated, no? I haven’t repeated my phone number in a voicemail in years. I’m calling from my phone. I don’t block my phone. Therefore you can see my number. If I say, “Call me back at this number,” then simply hit “call back” which is a feature on just about every phone these days. If I want you to call me at a different number, then I get it. Otherwise, I feel like I am talking down to a four year old. “Call me back at FIVE FIVE FIVE, ONE TWO ONE TWO” kind of insults your intelligence if you can look at the phone and see that the call came from 555-1212. Just sayin.
NOLAN REPLIES: How do you know the number you are dialing is another cell phone? What if it’s a land line? What if the receiver does not have caller ID? Or gets a ton of phone calls and can’t figure out which one is yours? How about making it SIMPLE for the listener, rather than assuming things?
— ND
What’s a land line? 🙂
Anyhow, point taken.