Answering messages, greetings, and “Cell A Song”
Do you have a cell phone? How about a home phone? Do you have an answering machine system where people can leave you messages on either of these phones? Now, what greeting message have you recorded into your answering machine that others will hear before leaving you a message? Is it a short up to the point message, or is it a long ceremony that comes with the legal rights that one gives up when they leave you a message? Is it even a greeting message, or is it something so unrelated, it may confuse people as to whether they are leaving a message for you or for a congress hearing committee?
My home phone at the moment says “Sorry we’re not available right now. Please leave a message. Thank you for calling“, in a female voice which lasts about 10 seconds. It’s the default message that came with my GE Digital Telephone Answer system, and I like it. It’s small, up to the point, thanks the person for calling and goes straight to recording the message. I know a few people who have followed the now-popular trend of having a special type of customized greeting on their cell phones; songs. When you call such cell phones, you get to hear a 2 minute song that’s usually Rap, and during the whole time you can’t do anything unless you know the special button to press to take you directly to recording the message.
Many of my friends have such greetings on their cell phones, and sometimes trying to push a number during such a greeting ceremony results in a message “Sorry, that’s an invalid entry, please call again later”, which results in me hanging up and calling again to go through a two minute RAP song in its entirely. Once I’ve finished hearing the song, I hear the voice of my friend saying “Sorry I’m not here right now, leave a message and I’ll get back to you, bye.” How about leaving out the song part and saying only the actual message; won’t that be a nicer greeting?
There’s another trend out there which I’ve noticed mostly among girls, but some guys do this also; a dog barking. I call these cell phones and hear a golden retriever or some other dog barking [never a cat meowing, for some reason] for about a minute and a half. These greetings never include the voice of a human being, and thus of the person you called, and after being barked at for calling that person, you hear a beep at which time you have to leave a message. It’s cute, people, but it’s annoying too. By the time you get to leaving your message, you’ve lost your train of thought and don’t care anymore about the reason you called in the first place. How about reducing the length of these “revolutionary” types of greetings to about 20 or 30 seconds? That way, we can leave you a message within a minute and be on our way to doing other things. We’re calling to leave a message, not to share songs via this sharing platform. One could make a business out of this; giving out people their cell numbers for a price, and then asking them what song they want to hear. You pay that person, and call them to hear the song. It’s a subscription service; I call it “Cell A Song”, and you do everyone who wants a song a good service. That way, the RIAA can’t sue you either.
Making a caller listen to a 2 minutes rap song or a dog barking, however cool or cute it may be, is just not nice for your friends and others who calls you, unless most of the people who call you are on your “to-ditch” list. If we wanted to be barked at, we would go annoy the neighbor’s dog in person, and not yours over the phone.
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( November 14th, 2005 at 3:43 pm )
You have some pretty interesting friends.
All the people I know are rather dull and technologically backward when it comes to the cell phones. It seems that the default messages work fairly well for everyone.
( November 14th, 2005 at 8:41 pm )
Yeah I know what you mean, I detest long messages. If there’s a specific point to them, then fine, like if you have to say "you can also reach me at this number or this email address if it’s an emergency" or whatever. But songs really tick me off. Interesting the first time, annoying the second, downright pissy the third.
My grandpa though used to have a funny message (the first time you heard it). It was all about hiw machine doing the talking and saying that grandpa left him alone in the office and won’t you talk to the machine, make him not so lonely? lol
( November 14th, 2005 at 11:25 pm )
I remember that about a year or two ago those messages were really popular here. You had non-stop tv commercials about them and they had the weirdest messages. Now, I’m not someone who likes to record a message, and most of the time I just hang up and try again later on. But my friend had such message on her cellphone too and it was some kind of horror thing. Damn, I was almost deaf after listening to it!
( November 15th, 2005 at 10:08 am )
I admit it. I used to have song snippets as my answering machine message, but I would never do anything longer than about 10 or 12 seconds. Now I just do a simple: "I’m not here. Please leave a message." for my home and cell phone messages. My work VoIP message system is the default one that electronically reads my name.
( November 15th, 2005 at 11:04 am )
ha, here everyone will be with friends and make weird sounds, which at least is amusing. But yeah I do agree, it’s pretty annoying. Limiting those to probably 15 seconds MAX would be okay, but I have friends whose messages are over 3 minutes. Crazy =/
( November 15th, 2005 at 11:19 pm )
birdie — > The technologically backward people are also sometimes more intelligent in terms of knowing how to deal and interact with other people. I agree that the default message should work well for everyone; that’s what I’m using.
valerie — > Heh, yes, I keep hearing them all the time. I’ve reduced my calling to a few people because of being exposed to their favorite songs, and simply email or text message them. LOL; that’s so funny about the answering message on his machine. He must have a good sense of humor; it would be nice to use that message!
Sanne — > Yes, almost every young person has such a greeting now. For some reason, many people I know never, ever, check their missed calls list on their cell phones, or so they claim. They will always respond to a voice mail or a text message, though.
Otto K. — > That’s completely acceptable, because anything that’s short sounds good since we get to leave messages quickly. That’s a good message you have there, too. Having your name read electronically is cool; I wish my answering machine could do that [bad answering machine, bad..]
Lara — > Yes, I used to have a friend who would always borrow my cell phone and change the answering message to something like [don't remember the exact lines] "HE’S DEAD I TELL YA, HE’S DEAD! WHAT GOOD IS YOUR MESSAGE GONNA DO NOW?!" People would come find me or email me to see what was going on, and I stopped giving my friend my cell phone. lol. Wow, over 3 minutes of message greeting that’s composed entirely of a song, that is crazy. =\
( November 16th, 2005 at 9:34 pm )
What, you don’t like my voice mail message? You booger. You told me you did. [cries]
Press 1 when you want to leave a message, I think. I hope. I think. Hmm.
( November 16th, 2005 at 10:37 pm )
H’BDAYBOOGER — > I just heard your voice message and I love it; the most beautiful voicemail ever!
Yes, pressing any number on my voice message doesn’t lead to anywhere [I think].
Thanks again for the message!