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"In Hell all the messages you ever left on answering
machines will be played back to you."
-Judy Horacek -
Just last week, I had the opportunity to call Howard Nusbaum, the CEO of the American
Resort Development Association (ARDA), and on the second ring I received this message: "Hi, this is Howard..."
I was so stunned that he had to repeat again: 'this is Howard'. For the first time in months, I had actually got
through to a real person, not a message-taking entity titled The Voice Mail.
Way back in the 'Good old Days' you could tell your status when you called someone. You would dial their phone
number and something like this would follow:
Ring.. Ring.. Ring
"This is Howard Nusbaum's number; may I ask who is calling?"
"This is Jerry Sikes, I would like to speak to Howard please!"
"One moment, I will see if he is in..."
Now, if Howard wanted to avoid me the secretary would come back on the line and say something like...
"Mr. Nusbaum is not in at the moment, may I take a message for him?"
And your status for the day was established. Nowadays, you can tell how far your status had diminished because
you now get this message:
"Mr. Nusbaum is not in at the moment, would you like his voice mail."
Except for the beginning where Howard answered his own phone, the above was a figment of my imagination. (This
was to keep me off of Mary Lou's list).
In my recent copy of FORTUNE SMALL BUSINESS, I enjoyed the Expedia.com ad with the tag line 'Behind
every good business trip is a good out-of-the-office voice mail greeting...' Here are two:
The Boss
"Hello. This is (fill in your name and title), I'm away from my solid mahogany desk,
but somehow you've managed to get past my Secretary and two assistants and into my
voice mail - your tenacity and resourcefulness are truly impressive. So if you're calling
about a job, you're hired. See you Monday. Otherwise leave a detailed message."
The Comedian
" Thanks for calling, but I'm out of town on business. That reminds me,
How many executives does it take to change a light bulb?... Wait for it...
None! They have their assistant do it. I love that one. Leave a message."
A couple of other ones I found on the Internet...
"This is not an answering machine - this is a telepathic thought-recording
device. After the tone, think about your name, your reason for calling, and
a number where I can reach you, and I'll think about returning your call."
and...
"You're growing tired. Your eyelids are getting heavy. You feel very
sleepy now. You are gradually losing your willpower and your
ability to resist suggestions. When you hear the tone you will feel
helplessly compelled to leave your name, number, and a message."
We are all very busy, or at least want others to think that we are. That's the reason we don't just answer our
phones when they ring. The second reason is that we don't want to get caught up in a long nonproductive call. We
want to talk on the phone when it's advantageous to us, not the other party. At all cost we don't want to get caught
up in a game of phone tag.
Not too long ago, I received a message from an associate to call him. The message went something like this.
"This is Ted, Give me a call at 480-990-3234"
At the first opportunity I returned the call and got this message...
"This is Ted, I am out of the office and cannot take your call;
Please leave a message at the beep or if this is an emergency
You can reach me on my cell at 602-777-4321"
I did not know whether it was an emergency or not, so I called his cell...
"This is 602-777-4321, if you would like to leave a message please press 1."
I pressed 1, and left the following message.
"This is Jerry, if your call was an emergency you can meet me at
The ARDA Conference in Las Vegas on Monday March 27th live and in person.
Otherwise e-mail me and we can play a new form of tag."
Last week I became involved in a new game called Yield. This game was developed to avoid the Tag
game and goes something like this: Mr. Xxxxx has his secretary or one of his administrative assistants call me
at my office. My gal answers the call with:
"This is Mr. Sikes' office, may I assist you?"
"Mr. Sikes please…"
"This is Jerry Sikes, may I assist you?"
"Would you hold for Mr. Xxxxx please! Click: followed by some soft calming music."
After about five minutes I hang up… About 15 minutes later, my phone rings again and my gal answers with:
"This is Mr. Sikes' office, may I assist you?"
"Mr. Sikes please…"
"Is this Mr. Xxxxx's office?"
"Yes!"
"Put Mr. Xxxxx on the Phone and I will put Mr. Sikes on…"
Then it became a test of who would Yield first…
FINAL THOUGHT
I think that I have the ANSWER. We have telephones (or cells) solely for the purpose of calling someone else at
our convenience. We are not really all that interested in receiving calls, especially if they come in at inconvenient
times. We have an answering machine, voice mail or secretary to insure that any incoming calls are at our convenience.
We also have Caller ID so that if the phones rings, we can tell who is calling and only pick up if it's at our
convenience. When we do use our phones to call someone else, we never consider if our calls are at a convenient
time for 'whomever' to receive our calls.
To a certain extent, the telephone has become such a hassle that many of us have gone to a new method of communicating
with our network. Many thought that E-Mail was the ANSWER. We could send e-mail at our convenience and 'whoever'
could open our communication at their own convenience. The problem was that when we send an e-mail out into cyberspace
we don't actually know that our 'whomever' actually received it and that was an inconvenience. Now many of us have
clicked that button on our 'system' that invites those 'whomever's' system to automatically indicate that our e-mail
was received and we find some comfort in that. Sometimes with this new system, a game of tag begins when we receive
another kind of automatic response… The dreaded 'Out of Office AutoReply' and it advises you to call them on the
telephone (or cell). Now that's not the ANSWER we were looking for.
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