Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Not Much Of A Prize


Is it wrong to change my voicemail greeting to sound like a game show?  


Or perhaps an infomercial?  I think that might be better.


All this nonsense came to me not long ago as I was checking my voicemail at work.  Some time ago (Perhaps in one of my office moves), the phone system here decided to delete my recorded greeting, which consisted of my name.  The system is all laid out like that...you can either put together a full custom greeting, or let the computer say that you're not available and simply spout your name, as such: "The party you have called...Jeremy..is not available."  It sounds really professional, and the sound editing is something you'd expect to hear in a Bad James Nguyen MovieIf you don't record your name into the system, the computer voice just lists off your extension, rather than cutting to the clip of you speaking your name.  

I'm on the fence.  I'm never sure if I should re-record my name into the greeting or just leave it with my phone number.  On one hand, you don't have the multi-voiced Frankenstein's Monster of a voicemail greeting going on, but at the same time, people can't be entirely sure they have the right number, and I'm very important or something.  The problem is that the voicemail system really really wants me to record my name.  It wants this so badly, it reminds me of this fact every time I go to check my voicemail.  I have to listen to it berate me for a full 20 seconds about how I don't have a recorded name and lists the instructions for how to go about recording it before I can proceed to listening to my messages.  It's times like this that I get creative.  

I could easily just record my name into the system and have done with it (until the next time it decides to erase me...wait...is that a sign that I was about to get fired at one point?), or I could have a little fun.  I could record my voice in some funny way, like using my game show announcer voice, or my infomercial voiceover voice, or my movie trailer guy voice (that one's not very good, but it usually gets the point across...usually because it starts with "In a world...").  I could also just scream loudly into the phone, or belch, or one of those old-person type "How do I record on this thing?...BEEEEEP."  All of these options are a little more clever than just saying my name...but they're also all the kind of thing that would get me yelled at at work.  Decisions, decisions...

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