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Saturday, December 4, 2010

Do me a favor, do NOT leave a message after the beep...

I have a serious love/hate relationship with my phone.  I enjoy the convenience of having one and yet hate getting calls.  Strange, I know.  

I'm not really a phone person.  I enjoy talking to people, I'm very social, but kind of on my terms.  What do I mean?  Okay, for starters, there's the 9:00 rule:  Do not call me BEFORE 9 a.m. and do not call me AFTER 9 p.m.  That just works for me.  If you are calling me before 9 a.m., I'm not answering the phone.

Next, if you call and get my machine and leave a message, don't recite a novel.  Tell me that you called and leave your number...as a matter of fact, I even SAY THAT on my message, "Leave your name and number after the beep, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible".  If you leave a 45 minute message, now you've annoyed me and I'm not calling back any time soon.  The only reason to leave a really long message is if someone has died or there is some sort of comparable emergency.  Leaving your life story on the machine, isn't endearing me to wanting to call you back.

Next, if you leave a message, don't call back every 15 minutes and then HANG UP before the message comes on because you know what?  I have caller i.d. and I know that you've called 47 times.  Seriously, I have an uncle doing this right now.  We don't really speak, when he calls he is obnoxious and offensive and I don't enjoy talking to him but he will harass the heck out of me and the answering machine until I break and talk to him.  Then I'm mad and not at all happy and have a major attitude about it.  Our relationship should not be a surprise to him, and yet once a year he'll do this until I want to smash the phone in to a million little pieces!

Oh, how I long for the days of the smoke signal...

7 comments:

Lin said...

I hate people who call me all the time on my cell. I use that strictly for my kids and husband to reach me ONLY. Sometimes, if I ask you to call me on that, please don't call me all the time on that thing.

I don't get people who are chatting on that thing ALL the time. Who are they talking to and why??

jellybelly said...

I hate listening to voice messages. I just delete them since my phone lists all the numbers of calls received :)

MammaKerr said...

ROFPMSL
Great post! You are spot on!! I also hate:
- People who leave long messages, but forget to actually leave their name and number!! :o
- People who withhold their number but don't leave a message! (NB: I don't answer withheld calls, so if you don't leave a message we'll never talk!!)
- People who ring your home phone and leave a message and then IMMEDIATELY do the same with the mobile number!?!
- Call Centres that just leave background noise on my machine!
- Machines that call and say "Press any key to continue" without saying who/ what/ where/ why/ how!! Er... no thanks! I'll pass!

Ruth said...

I hear ya! There's this kid my daughter knows (he seems to think he's her boyfriend, not true) that calls here ALL THE TIME and drives us nuts! A few days ago he called 25 times! I talked to his dad once and the guy was like, well he's developmentally disabled and can't help it. Excuse me?? My kids are DD too but at least they have MANNERS!

My pet peeve is recorded calls, I have one that literally calls me every day at 8:20 in the morning. You'd think they'd give up after a while. And stupid live people, I've had people leave messages on my machine where they introduce themselves and then say something like "if you are not Ruth please hang up now". How can I hang up if you're leaving a message on the machine??

My daughter and I used to have cellphones, they got shut off when our income got interrupted a few months ago. DD keeps asking me when we're getting them back but quite frankly I don't miss them too much, I rarely ever used mine and when we got hers the bill went way up from her calling people she met online. Nothing international but the out of state calls were driving me nuts. She's not giving our number out any more but it was a real pain, the bill went from $50 a month to $400 at one point!

Kimmy said...

Stace. OMG. That is me as well.

I am a full time IT Recruiter for several large Chicago corporations. I live on the phone. During the day, I sometimes have the blackberry on one ear, and the work phone on the other. I like to answer the phone during the work day, so I don't have to "listen to voicemail".

The problem is my "non work" friends. They prefer the phone. I can't do it on my off time.

If they want to get to me, everyone knows my emails, my IM. I am always signed into Yahoo. Even if you see me invisible, I am there.

If I could remove my voice box, I would. I could do really well on type, text, web!

Totally get it!

mariel said...

you are a trip, girl! I am calling you tonight at 9:15!! I am hoping to get the machine cause I have SO MUCH to say!!! Heehee ;)

Lola said...

I hate when my exhb leaves a message because he just says to call him. Why can't he briefly say what it's about? Then I can decide if I want to call him back or not. lol!