Voicemail Ettiquette vs. Voicemail Faux pas

What I'm Listening To: Wavin' Flag-K'naan

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. 

(istockphoto.com)

  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.  

Living: the House or the Car?

What I'm Listening To: Pretty Wings-Maxwell

One indicator to definitely alert me that it is summertime is music. Particularly music that disturbs the peace. Driving around my city and suddenly hearing (and feeling) the bass in other people's cars just makes me want to run them off the road. If it's that loud outside, who knows how it sounds to them. I think that people like this should be marked too impaired to drive (because obviously they will be if they continue to torture their eardrums at this rate--seriously, where ARE the police when you need them?). I'm all for music, and it's cool to have it blaring even slightly outside your car or to hear it a little bit when the windows are down. But to hear the bass all the way down the street is just obnoxious. (I feel like I need to preface this next point: it's statistically speaking not stereotypically speaking, although it may seem as such) Also, most of the people with the base blaring out of their cars are in tricked out vehicles with the rims all huge and large stereo systems, no license plates, blacked out windows, dents in the side, plastic over their broken windows, or things like mirrors haphazardly hanging off the car (all right, not all at the same time, but you get it). Some of these people have ostentatious Escalades or other huge cars that obviously cost a lot of money. Yet if you were to go to some of their houses, it would be a duplex or they would be renting, but with a nice car.

Wouldn't you rather have a nice house than a nice car? It would probably be nice to own your own home and invite people over and not be embarrassed about the way you live. Because in the end, a nice house says more than a nice car, any day. If your car is all tricked out and you live in a dump, that really says something about where you place your priorities.

I think that many Americans have a tendency to look better than they are. What I mean by this is that people spend beyond their means all the time in an effort to prove to other people that they are well off. For me, I'd rather not go bankrupt than trying to prove something to society. All the time, people put something on layaway or charge their credit card repeatedly and then end up going into debt trying to keep up with the Joneses and then become dissatisfied.

On another scarier note, my brother got his driver's license today (on the second try) and my sister has been freakishly happy all week to get her temps. I'm going to need life insurance really soon.