Dear Mike,
Forgive me for
having taken so long to respond to your woeful request for an answering machine
rant. Forgive me even further, because I can’t comply with your request.
Actually I can, but I’m not going to, because I’ve got bigger fish to fry.
You really
seem worked up over this whole recorded message thing. I do remember that
awkward break-in period for users back in the mid Seventies maybe, where newbies
to the late-breaking technology followed to the letter the stern instructions
of the manufacturers, who warned that our messages must not divulge that the
reason we weren’t answering our phones was because we weren’t home, and so the
caller was free to break in and steal our Magnavox with the newly-installed
Pong game. No, the words to be employed were, “Hi, we can’t come to the phone
right now…”
The lame
implication was that we might conceivably be sitting on the crapper with a
loaded assault rifle resting across our knees, waiting for someone to
misinterpret the message. I imagined teams of unlucky tele-burglars making
random calls, in the hopes of hearing that message before hopping into their panel
vans. Then off they’d scramble to the listed address, to be mowed down by a Rambo
with a case of the runs.
Those days
are long gone, unless you have one pathetic group on your “family and friends” list.
Or, sadder still, those family and friends are in yet another awkward phase of
their lives, having succumbed to the enticements of childrearing. They’re now proud
parents of a kid that can almost speak English and is so darn cute trying that
it would be a shame not to put his squeaky voice on their machine taking an ice
age to burble out the fractured message you so hate hearing. Doesn’t it just
make you want to coo like a damn pigeon? My brother says he knows of one such
family, and he hates calling them for fear they may not be home.
If you
still do have phone acquaintances who insist on being cutesy with their
messages, disown them. Nobody does that anymore. We all learned that lesson the
second time we heard the one where the message-maker pretends he’s there, and
then reveals himself to be a recording. Har-dee-har. And here’s the recording
of a five-minute dial tone, asshole.
What you’re
being spared is the real abomination, which is that you can never actually get
a human on the phone when calling a business anymore. What you get is a
computer voice programmed to sound like it wants to help you out, but is in
fact designed to sap you of resolve with an infinite list of useless options…
“Press 1 if
you are completely happy with our service. Press 2 if you’d like to take a
survey about how completely happy you are with our service. Press 3 if you want
to add services that will triple your monthly bill. Press 4 if you’ve forgotten
why you called in the first place…”
So you
figure, what the hell, let’s just hit any number and get the ball rolling. But
that solves nothing, because it sends you into yet another hierarchical list of
questions taking you further from the source of your problem. So then you start
yelling into your phone, and because voice recognition technology has come so
far, the conversation starts to sound like a couple in a failing relationship
(not far from the truth, in fact), where the one who wants to stay in the
relationship is acting infuriatingly reasonable. Let’s begin with the
reasonable one:
“Let me see if I can help you today.
Try to tell me what your problem is.”
“I’ve got no internet service.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t get that.
Please try to tell me what it is you’re calling about.”
“My internet doesn’t work.”
“I’m sorry. I still don’t
understand. Would you like to speak to someone in billing?”
“No.”
“Okay. How might I help you?”
“Talk to a human being.”
I’m sorry. I didn’t get that.”
“Internet broken you bastards are
crooks I want to TERMINATE SERVICE!”
“Let me see if I understand. You’re
calling about a problem with your internet service. Is that right?”
“Damn right.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t get that. What seems
to be your problem today.”
“I hate you!”
“Okay, let me connect you with someone
who might be able to help…”
(long pause)
“Welcome to customer support. We are
experiencing unusual wait times due to high call volume. The average wait
time is twenty minutes. Did you know you can have most of your questions answered
online at our website?”
And you
think you have problems, Michael? For the record, here is what our machine
says: “Hi, this is Paul. Deb and I aren’t in right now so leave a message and
we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.”
I say this
quickly, and I enunciate clearly. It’s over like that. I think it’s nice to
leave our names, because that way people know they’ve called the right number. Strangely
enough, I still get messages from people asking for Tony, or Dr. Papsmere, so
go figure.
My message
is quick and polite, which is my way of saying, “I might be monitoring this
call because I’m not driving in dense fog right now (you’ll get the reference
later), but I might not be home, so break in if you feel lucky, douchebag. In any event, please do start by talking to the answering machine.”
My older
sister uses the programmed robot voice option, because she’s, well she's a little kooky, and clearly has paranoid leanings. Come on, say hi! What are you, in the witness protection program? Oh never mind. I have
another sister. I’ll call her instead.
One thing I
don’t understand is the message, “If you’d like to leave a call-back number,
press 5 now.” What the hell is that about? Does that absolve me of the
responsibility of having to talk? Isn’t that what I was planning to do when I
dialed your number in the first place? Should I leave my number shrouded in
mystery? I might be a pal wanting to shoot the breeze, or I may be the IRS. You
decide.
One of
these days I’ll have to hit 5, just to see what happens. I have to say, when I
get a call on my cell phone and don’t get to it in time, and I don’t recognize
the caller (which is to say the phone doesn’t), I’m highly disinclined to call
back if the caller doesn’t bother to leave a message. I guess it just wasn’t
important enough to say why he wanted to waste my time. So I won’t waste mine either.
While I’m
on the topic of talking on the phone, here is my observation of what I consider
one of the strangest of human behaviors, and I’ve noticed it more than once.
Say I’m a passenger in a car, and the driver’s cell phone goes off. It then
seems as if no amount of clear and present danger will stop the driver from
answering the phone that very second. Said driver could be driving at high
speed in crowded traffic at night in dense fog (get it now?), and they’ll go
digging through whatever pocket is emitting the sound of that ridiculous
ringtone (ringtones are a whole other topic).
Yet once
that driver is happily ensconced at home with nothing better to do, and the
landline (that’s what you call your home phone now, if you have one) rings, he
or she will sit there for the interminable four rings (the default setting for
answering machines before they pick up), then the message (which as we know,
you despise) and then find out who’s calling, at which point it’s a race to
pick up before the caller hangs up. It’s just weird, man.
So there
you go. I can’t say as I’ve satisfied you, but I’ve satisfied myself, and
that’s the important thing. Next time we go after messaging.
