At work I discovered a pet peeve while answering the phones. I don't know if this is irritating to other people, but it seems absolutely asinine to me when you call someone and there is an endless montage of ringing that never leads to an answering machine. I think that these people personally don't want individuals to call them because they exasperate them by taunting them to hang up the phone, which I end up doing anyway.
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The second type is when people either have annoying voice messages or ones that are too long. I like T.I.but personally, I would not like to hear him blasting in my ear when I call to ask you about a portfolio. On top of that, do you really have to play the entire song before I can finally leave a message? I didn't not call you to be musically entertained and by the time the song stops, I don't even want to talk to you anymore. Think about it: if you were trying to reach out to someone and every time you attempted it, they blasted you with B.O. or acted as though they didn't want to be helped? That's what these annoying voice messages are like to me. I'm being slightly facetious, but seriously, I'm already annoyed that you didn't answer the phone because I obviously needed to talk to you about something, and now you just annoyed me even further. Fail.
There is a third type of answering machine protocol that isn't as annoying, but still manages to be irritating. When people have weird or long messages. My brother once had a voice message that said "Hello?....Hello? Well obviously I'm not here so leave a message." It was so stupid, and I would fall for the trap every time and start talking because I thought he was actually there. I have another friend who has a super long message in English and then one in Italian. I guess that she either had Italian family members or worked with Italian clients, so she had some sort of excuse. I like the voicemail inboxes that just state the name, or better yet, barely leave a greeting. Be conscious of your fellow man and save them some time. You'll also save yourself some time, which you could use to further educate your music tastes.
