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| electronics.howstuffworks.com |
One of the many perks of my job is that I get to spend a lot
of time on the phone, calling people who have no interest in talking to me.
Wait
perk is not the right word. Oh well, it’ll come to me.
Anyway,
when your job involves making cold calls, it usually means you spend most of
your time talking to receptionists and voice mails.
I’ve
got no beef with the receptionist crowd. They’re just trying to do their job:
keep hooligans like me from bothering their boss, while I do mine: kinda sorta
bother their boss.
The
voice mails are another story.
Obviously
the most annoying voice mail is the tried and true: “Hi! (needlessly long pause,
just long enough for me to introduce myself before the rest of the message
kicks in) You’ve reached so and so who works somewhere and so forth.”
It’s
2013. It’s unforgivable people in America still kind this gag funny. If we
moved past Dane Cook, can’t we leave this one behind, too?
So that
one takes the top spot, but sliding into second is a phenomenon that’s much
lesser known, but still pretty initiating.
It’s
goes a little something like this: “Hi! You’ve reached so and so, it’s Monday,
July 29, 2013, I’m in the office, but away from my desk …”
Do we
really need the date? Really?
Let me
get this straight. The first thing you do every morning when you get into the
office, before you get a cup of coffee, before you flirt with the receptionist,
before you tell your boss his tie looks smashing (lie), is record a brand new
voice mail message.
Every.
Single. Day.
I find
this astonishing. When I’m not bothering other people’s bosses, I spend a good
chunk of my time reading and writing articles on how to boost productivity.
Well,
my new number one tip is don’t record a new voice mail message every morning! If
you do this, there is no reason you should ever say the phrase: “There just
aren’t enough hours in the day.”
No,
there are plenty of hours in your day, you’d just rather fritter them away on
nonsense.
What
does you telling me the day on your voice mail accomplish? Unless you’re telling
me it's Monday and you’re on vacation. Then it makes sense. If you’re
telling me it’s Monday because you wandered over to the vending machines, then
I don’t care.
And god
forbid you miss a day or are – gasp – too busy to record a new one. What
happens then? Pretend I’m a client or key business contact and not a pest. Well,
obviously I call you, get your voice mail, assume you’re dead, fired or
kidnapped. I freak out and take my business elsewhere.
Worst
case scenario and a slight over reaction, sure, but what if? People are
panicky.
Just
stick with the basics, name, maybe job title and that’s about it. If I wanted
to know what day it was, I’d look at a calendar, the internet, listen to a
radio, check my phone or break out an astronomy chart and start mapping the
heavens.
But I wouldn’t
call you. I’m sorry. It’s just too inexact of a science.
After all, what if I got you on the
phone? Then I’d have to make awkward conversations about business topics and
pretend like I wasn’t just calling in the hopes of getting your voice mail to
find out the day.
Let’s
just agree to keep our voice mail relationship simple, yeah? It’s for the best.
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