Wait for the beep

Thanks for the birthday wishes. Not that anyone suggested it, but the absence of my dad's name on the page from the baby book does not mean that my father is in question or unknown...as far as I'm aware. Seriously, though, I'm sure it was an oversight.

Since the scarf I'm knitting is so basic, there's nothing to write about in regard to it. Right now it's just a matter of continuing what I've been doing until the project is done.

So for blogging fodder I turn to my couple hours spent on campaign volunteer work today. No, I'm not going to dredge up politics. Rather, I want to reflect on the answering machine and the answering machine message.

I did not reach most of the people I called, so I heard a lot of answering machine and voice mail introductions. If I want to feel or sound old, I can recall a time when most people didn't have answering machines. Remember how it used to not be a big deal if you couldn't get in touch with everyone right this very second or leave a message for them?

As answering machines became more commonplace, you could buy a pre-recorded tape with "funny" messages. Crazy Calls, anyone? For about three years I did a radio station's music research via telephone, so I got to hear plenty of attempts at creative answering machine messages. Why pay $14.95 (plus $3 for postage and handling!) for a tape when you could cue up a CD player or videotape to provide some personality to your message?

If the ones I heard today are indicative of the state of the answering machine/voice mail message, creativity is at a very low point. Without fail most people tell you what number you've just called and then go through the usual spiel explaining what to do. I suppose it's helpful to know what number you've dialed, but it seems kind of unnecessary to me.

At least the number is potentially useful, but these days is there any need to tell people to leave their name, number, and brief message after the beep? Will callers be befuddled as to their course of action when the message ends? Granted, I'm not blameless as my work voice mail says who I am and asks for the caller to leave the pertinent information, but it's short and to the point.

My home voice mail message does not exist, though. It's merely a beep. The rare times I get calls, people seem to know what to do without my instructions. No one's ever mentioned my lack of a message. Of course, I can't take credit for this pure minimalist approach. When I switched to Vonage in 2004, I didn't know how to create a message and never became concerned about learning. (If my voice mail messages weren't e-mailed to me, I wouldn't know how to check them.) If I ever bother to figure it out, I suspect I'll tell people what to do after the tone. Funny how that is.