Leave your message after the beep

by Eric Schwartz

Monday March 8, 2010 

On rare occurrences this blog will be include items that grind my gears  not involved with the world of sports.

Today is one of those occurrences.

When I woke up today and stepped outside into the beautiful 58 degree weather, I thought to myself: Nothing can grind my gears on a day like today.

For most of the day I was right. Weather has a way of positively impacting ones life. I’m not sure why but the little things just don’t seem to get to me when I can open up a window instead of turning up the heat.

But then, inevitably, it happened.

As a reporter much of my day is based upon making phone calls and talking to people. For the most part, I enjoy talking to people. It’s talking to their answering machines that I hate. Well, actually it’s waiting to talk to the answering machine that gets under my skin.

Half the people I call have replaced that old boring ‘ring” with music. Some days while I wait for an answer I get Jay-Z. Other days I get Sugarland. While they can be annoying depending on ones taste they are not what got to me today.

No, today I got one of those people who think their job is to somehow make their answering machine recorded message a funny moment.

The problem is, it never works out that way.

Today I was treated to a voicemail of a woman describing how no one in the family was available, before adding ‘well available to answer this call at least.’

She followed by telling me that the family cat was also busy and could not answer the phone.

Excuse me while I take the time to laugh at this amazingly cute moment. OK, I’m finished.

What ever happened to  the old “Hello, this is (name). We are not home so leave a name, number and we will get back to you.”
It is straight, simple and quick.

Instead we get bad attempts at jokes.

Sorry, but I have to cut this blog short. I need to call this person back to get a few answers.

I’m not sure if they are home yet, but maybe kitty is finally free to pick up.

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Filed Under Grinding My Gears

Comments

6 Responses to “Leave your message after the beep”

  1. king ed on March 8th, 2010 5:27 pm

    u know what really grinds my gears people who leave a msg on my voicemail and leave their phone number two times or more lol

  2. king ed on March 8th, 2010 5:28 pm

    and another gear grinder is when im talking on the phone and still have one more thing to say and that person hangs the phone up real quick! without me knowing and i keep talking

  3. Eric Schwartz on March 8th, 2010 6:02 pm

    You’re right King, that can be real annoying when you just talk to yourself for 10 seconds like someone else is still there.

  4. Que significan los beeps que hace la computadora on March 8th, 2010 7:31 pm

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  5. king ed on March 8th, 2010 8:35 pm

    speaka english

  6. Missi on July 17th, 2011 7:08 pm

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