You know what I hate about answering machine messages? They go on and on, wasting your time. I mean, all they really need to say is, “We aren’t in, leave a message.” That’s why I’ve decided to keep mine simple and short. I pledge to you, my caller, that you will never have to suffer through another long answering machine message when you call me…
what people are talking about
Nunniabiness B on Magic Eye neomama on Cheeseburger Soup Shelley on Cheeseburger Soup Dyahn Darvey on Salisbury Steak from Paula… irene trammel on Magic Eye Julianne on Cheeseburger Soup Vanna on How long do you shower? Michelle Colpus on Your children Tanya on Cheeseburger Soup Heather on Cheeseburger Soup Donna Dillard on Cheeseburger Soup Donna Dillard on Cheeseburger Soup Sharon on Cheeseburger Soup JoJo on Cheeseburger Soup Ellen on Cheeseburger Soup
Us Girls..Our Views 
Joy, I thought I’d give you a call to let you know I am going to give what we talked about another chance. I will see what comments I need to intercept, if any! Wish me luck! Oh, I love your greeting! *(*
At work, I was instructed to leave the following:
“Hello, this is __ ___ of ___’s ___ ___ ___ ___ group. I am unable to come to the phone right now, but if you leave your name, number, and a brief message after the beep, I will get back to you as soon as possible. If you need immediate assistance, please dial zero for the operator. Thank you and have a nice day.”
At some point I changed it to: “You have reached __ __ of ___. Please leave a message. Thanks and have a great day.”
I mean, obviously I’m unable to answer the phone right now, obviously if you leave your phone number (duh, after the beep) I will call back, etc.
AMEN sister, AMEN! 🙂
Now if we can just train people on the other end of the line to SHUT UP!!!!
I have some people in my family who figure that the answering machine is there to unload upon. I have an adjustable record time – I can set it from anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes, to record the incoming message. I used to have it at 2 min, and those folks? When they’d call, would use up the entire two minutes…using the speaker phone, so both can get their voice heard…. Talking about nothing!!!
I’ve reset it to 30 seconds, and now they call back two or three times, when all they have to do is say, “Hi, it’s _______. Call me back, I’ve got news!” or even, “Call me back, remind me about _____.” Easy.
I’ve gotten to the point where, when I hear their voices, I just erase the message and don’t listen.
For years, my mom refused to leave a voice mail. I never understood why. Just say, “call me back,” and I always will. It’s better than trying 500 times to catch me live. Now she will leave the following message, no more, no less: Hello, this is your mother, give me a call soon as you get a chance, bye.”
You know what I hate more than that? When recordings call you, the school will call and leave a recording. I’ll sometimes get half the original recording and end up having to call the school to find out the first part of the message!
Now you have me paranoid…I’m checking my message and fixing if it’s too long!!
That’s funny SKL. My mom used to be the same way and she’d call over and over. I would ask her why she just didn’t leave a message and she’d say “I thought you might be sleeping.” WHY DID SHE KEEP CALLING THEN??? Trying to wake me up or what??? She would claim I had caller ID and I’d see it and call her back. I told her I didn’t call anyone back without a message to do so. Just because someone calls, they might just feel like chatting at that time and didn’t want a call back. It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks.
My message is “You know what to do!”. That’s it. I also hate the long drawn out messages some people leave on my machine. I usually delete them before I even listen to them and just call the person back. The message I leave on other people’s machines (if I even leave one. They know I called they have caller ID) is “Call me”.