All people who don’t articulate their phone numbers on voice mails will incur my severest wrath. Those who will be first up against the wall include:
The seduction practice. This caller plans to have relations with his or her spouse that evening, so the phone number becomes a training ground for low, breathy tones. “It was great meeting you last week. If you’d like to follow up, just give me a call at (breath breath breath oooh baby I want it I want it) and try me during the morning because that’s the best time to ravage--I mean, reach me.”
The Two-for-Zeroes. Some people repeat their phone number twice and still screw it up. “I can be reached at (mumble mumble mumble). Wait, let me say that one more time, but this time in Roman numerals played backwards. That’ll be fun! Ha ha ha ha! Whoops, wait a minute, I’m very stupid, I accidentally put my tongue into a pencil sharpener.”
The literary readings. The worst is when they mumble the number at the end of a very long call so you can’t retrieve the number unless you listen to their incompetence all over again. “I definitely think there’s an opportunity for us to work together. And by the way, I just read this fabulous book called Moby Dick, and I’d like to do a dramatic reading of it for you....blah blah blah blah blah....’Chapter 57. And then we lowered Queequeg into a coffin.’ Cool, huh? Okay, I can be reached at (mumble mumble mumble).”
First up against the wall. And many more to follow.
Posted by Greg at 01:05 PM. Filed under:
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i like the people who
t a l k
r e a l l y
s l o o o o o o o w l y
and then they get to their phone number andtheyrattleitoffsofastyouhavetolistentoit30timestocomprehend.
Dude! Spoiler alert!! Queequeg DIES? I was totally on chapter 54!
moby dick humor ?
i think this site is getting too smart for me.
hell, mad magazine is generally too smart for me.
your machine lets people get all the way to chapter 57? wow. mine cuts them off around chapter 19. i HATE that. (it only starts getting good in chapter 20!)
Quick trivia question: what’s the first thing that happens right after Ahab kills the whale?
Not to rain on this Moby Dick parade, but 3 is your friend--skip long swaths of message in a single keypress.
I must admit, I didn’t get much past “Call me Ishmael.” Maybe elementary school was a little young for that beast.
That’s it, Melville’s going on the reading list.
On Octel systems, pressing 1 will back up 10 seconds. Pressing 1 twice will restart message. Pressing 3 will advance 10 seconds. Pressing 3 twice will send you to the end of the message. Pressing 6 will increase the playback speed (generally by digitally removing silence) and Pressing 4 will slow the playback speed.
I really like it when they leave a, “very important message,” and no ‘phone number at all.
Gotta say, number 3 bothers me the most.
But I usually don’t return phone calls anyway.
Thanks. There’s now a bunch of confused staff at an Internet cafe in Greece who think the blonde girl in the corner is mad because she can’t stop giggling in front of the computer.
your timing could not be better with this since I spent half of my morning attempting to reach a complaining customer who mumbled the second to last digit of her telephone number, forcing me to try every single 0-9, and leaving messages on half a dozen answering machines.
On the flip side, there’s my boss (I’ve been his assistant for two and a half years) who begins each of his long rambling messages to me by stating his full name and all three of his telephone numbers.
my dad will leave his name, number, time of call, date of call, and callback number. I’m surprised he doesn’t state the number that he himself called. I love him for it. And I do think there’s a special ring in hell for those who just can’t get through it properly and you can’t tell what number they left, like ‘I’m at 386-5, no, 356-, oops, that’s my work phone, yeah, it’s 5, and then the rest is 564, 546, um, 564, 64, 6, 6, no, 46, 4. 1. Call me immediately.’
I must not spend enough time calling people. I feel like I’m missing out.
Can I be a member of the firing squad? I promise to be professional and passionate about the job....
I am a secretary, therefore I understand the importance of leaving numbers slowly and clearly. House rules are that if I can’t get it in three tries you’re SOL. One day Mr. Wonderful called me for some information. He needed the VIN number for our car. I pulled out the registration and began carefully, in my best secretary’s voice, to give him the number. After a few numbers he said, “Shit, forget it. This will take all day.” Mr. Wonderful doesn’t appreciate my skills. Or at least not THAT one.
Hi. Just found your blog and love your sense of humor.
Anyhow, it goes the other way too. I hate waiting to LEAVE a message and listening to, “You’ve reached the idiot owners of this phone-answering system. We would like you to leave your name (pause to let that sink in), number (pause), time you called (paaaaaause), and a brief message.
After the tone.
We wil get back to you as soon as possible.
(sound of breathing)
Thank you.
And have a nice, a very nice, oh please won’t you have a nice day?
Good bye.
And thanks for calling.”
Now, THAT’S annoying.
First, I think you should have put a number up so we could all practice our own versions. Second, you should have posted little mp3 files of examples. (Or phoned it in, a la Audioblogging.) That would have been cool.
Ok, so examples and then a phone number to practice on. Got anyone you really hate?