hummingwolf | (no subject)

Bad enough that the phone rang last night while I was busy getting some much-needed sleep.

Worse, when I checked the answering machine this morning, I found the person had listened to the entire machine message, which is very obviously the message of an answering machine and not a live human, and then felt compelled to leave this incredibly informative response: "Hello?"

Worst of all, though, is that the "Hello?" was spoken in a voice that sounds exactly like me. Not the voice I hear when I speak aloud, no; this was the voice I hear when I leave silly messages on my own voice mail and play them back later to make sure the system's working, or the voice I hear after I've left a message on some bureaucratic voice mail and then checked and rechecked to make sure that what I said actually made something resembling sense. The voice that annoys you when you hear it because you keep thinking you can't possibly sound like that, can you? Yeah, that voice.

If I'm leaving myself messages from alternate dimensions, the least I could do is say something more interesting than "Hello?" And I should know enough to call the cell phone rather than the landline which would usually be busy with my online activities, don't you think? Then again, maybe in some alternate dimension, I have high-speed internet access by now.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

heh heh.

"The voice that annoys you when you hear it because you keep thinking you can't possibly sound like that, can you?"

Yes, I know that voice :-)

Yep, we pretty much all know that voice. "But I sound so much better in my head!"

Yeah. I want to *think* that I sound intelligent, compassionate and articulate. But I usually sound like some combination of Geek, Nasally, Transplanted Yankee with Odd, Southern Appalachian Twang.

:-)

Hee! I don't usually sound that interesting, but since I tend to absorb the accents of the people I've been listening to, my accent can get a bit weird at times.

If it's a message from your future self, you could at least give yourself tomorrow's winning lottery numbers.

Seriously! I'm pretty sure I would tell myself something useful if I were calling from the future, which is why I figured it had to be an alternate universe instead of this one.

I get those too!

What's worse than people leaving "Hello?" on an answering machine is the people who hear me pick up the phone and say hello, yet "Hello?" (followed by complete silence) is still the only thing they can think of. Hey, they're the one calling me--the least they can do is tell me why! Sometimes I have the urge to respond to their "Hello?" with a discourse on telephone etiquette, but I'd really rather not do that if they turn out to be someone I actually wanted to talk to.

Oftimes the reason people get these sort of things is that you are being contacted by an automated dialing system. The systems are supposed to be able to detect answering machines, but they sometimes don't.

Basically the job of these dialers is to get a phone ringing and transfer a (presumably) live operator just at the moment of pickup.

When I briefly worked at a telemarketing firm giving away special add-on cards for credit card customers, I would occasionally get a dead silence on the line.

Ah, that explains that. But people apparently do need to be trained how to respond when some live person does pick up the phone, because on the whole, telemarketers are sounding more and more clueless these days. A system like the one you describe would tend to leave folks confused.

It sucked back then, too. I left in less than a month for a better job.

I can't stand listening to recordings of my voice - it's too different from the thing I hear in my head.

I know! All the bones & things in your skull give the sound such rich resonance, it's disappointing to hear what it sounds like to everyone else.

The first time I heard a recording of my voice, I thought it was my sister. And I couldn't figure out how these people, who didn't even know her, had a recording of her voice in Colorado when she was in Washington.

Silly.

Hee! I never had a sister, but I wonder sometimes if I sound like my mother. I don't really remember her voice well anymore.

For the longest time (probably up into her twenties) when my sister answered the phone whoever was on the other end would always ask "Is your mommy home?". Hee. Made her crazy.
Now everyone says we all three sound alike.

"Is your mommy home?"

Oh, that would be incredibly annoying to a teenager. It'd make me crazy(er) too!