Rude outgoing messages

[marlovino]

At work, when my supervisor calls me or I call him we sometimes answer the phone like this:

Hello, Topless Maid Service!

Whenever we do it to our friends on our cell phones (I love caller ID) it always causes them to lose their train of thought.

[HawaiianShirts]

I have to add to this one. I'm slightly off the topic. Please forgive me.

When I was growing up, our number ended in 0700. There was another number in town (with the same first three numbers) that ended in 0070. Easy to confuse. But we got a wrong number about every day. They always had a Spanish accent, and sometimes they didn't even speak English. Most of the time, the caller was asking for a Fernando, and sometimes they just didn't get the concept of a wrong number. I had fun with a few of them.

Me: Hello?
Male Caller: Is Fernando there?
Me: Hang on. (set phone down, leave, return five minutes later)
Me: Still there?
Caller: Yeah.
Me: Who did you want?
Caller: Fernando.
Me: Hang on. (repeat above with ten minutes)
Me: Still there?
Caller: Yeah.
Me: Still need Fernando?
Caller: Yeah. Where is he? He's there?
Me: Hang on. (repeat above with fifteen minutes)
Me: Still there?
Caller: Where's Fernando, man?
Me: Wrong number. (click)

Me: Hello?
Male Caller: I need Fernando.
Me: Oh, sorry, man. He was in a car accident and had to go to the hospital.
Caller: What?!
Me: Yeah, I guess it was pretty serious. They said he'll probably be in the coma for a few weeks.
Caller: Coma!?
Me: Yeah. They're not even sure he'll make it. He had to have a brain transplant, and both his legs were amputated.
Caller: But... He... I... You...
Me: He's going to be out of it for a while. What do you want if he doesn't make it? I claim his TV! (click)

Me: Hello?
Female Caller: Is Fernando there?
Me: Yeah. He is here, but he's... busy.
Caller: What do you mean?
Me: He came home with some blonde chick. Now they're in the bedroom, and he said not to bother him for a while.
Caller: WHAT?!
Me: I think she's his girlfriend or something.
Caller: No she's not! I am!
Me: Whoops! (click)

[Kogarashi]

My 8th grade English teacher would answer the classroom telephone (which only received calls from the office) with things like, "Bloomingdales" or "McDonalds" or the like. Of course, this is the same teacher who would give everyone a nickname because it was just too much fun.

I, too, have had to deal with people not listening to the "Hello, this is Kogarashi's cell phone" outgoing message and would ask for some guy with a Hispanic name over and over again. Problem was, half the time it was collection companies (who I would often call back just to explain the situation after them leaving a good 10+ messages on my phone).

The funniest wrong number I got when I first got my cell phone was from an older gentleman. He called me one evening and asked for some girl, and I told him he had the wrong number and to check again. He apologized, and hung up.

Five minutes later, the phone rang again. Same guy. When I told him it was still a wrong number, he said something to the effect of and apologized. Again. We both got a laugh out of it.

Now my husband has a cell phone (finally! we don't have a landline), and he's getting wrong number calls for some girl. And I, meanwhile, get people accidentally calling me (we just switched my cell phone's number from a Utah area code to an east coast one) and yammering for a good minute in Spanish before I can cut in with a startled "What!?" (I don't speak a lick of Spanish).

[powerboy]

I do not have voice mail anymore, no one ever left a message. I don't answer my cell at work, and my friends knowes that, but it doesn't stop them.

Now back to the topic, I once got a phone call, from someone saying that they were going to kill me, for sleeping with his girl . But it was cool, because it turned out to be one of my ex-teachers that called.

[booger]

When I was in college, my roomie and I both worked for the school cafeteria. So whenever anyone needed someone else to fill in for their shift, they would go down the list and leave messages to everyone on it. Often, they wouldn't even use our names, resulting in 2 equally annoying messages on our voicemail. Finally, we decided to play music to take up the entirety of our answering machine message. 2 minutes of "MMMBop" later, and most people hung up before leaving a message. It was rather awesome. We'd change the message every few weeks to other annoying songs.

[counterjockey]

My manager would answer the internal phones with various silly responses, including "City morgue, you stab 'em, we slab 'em" Now I wonder where he got that from.

I worked at a call center where we'd handled employment inquiries by phone for a number of corporate clients, for jobs that required degrees and/or experience all the way down to warm, more or less sober body hopefully w/ strong back and two hands and no active arrest warrants. One day, calling back an applicant so I could schedule them for an interview, I got their voicemail:

"WHO the F**K are you? WHAT the F**K D'you want? WHY should I call your ASS back? Leave a message."

Two things. One, this was a recording of some kind. At the time I thought it sounded like Dave Chappelle, but I wasn't sure. At any rate, she must have thought it was funny, and worth spending the money on to have it put on her phone. Two, this was the number she gave a prospective employer. As her primary contact.

I left my standard "call us back at --" message and moved along to the next call, figuring that she'd have plenty of opportunity later to F**K that one up.

I enjoyed getting calls on the internal line too. Being near Chi-town, a favorite of mine and of others was "Daley for Mayor, Vote Early, Vote Often!"

"Giordano's Delivery, if you have to ask you can't afford us!" (Giordano's was a local pizza place w/ hella good and hella hella expensive deep dish IMHO)

"Joe's Crab Shack, whatthehell ya want?"

"Tractor Supply!" (Hell, I was feeling homesick.)

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

I've only used this one once and only because I was being bothered by a church group who wouldn't accept "You have the wrong number" as a valid answer. I used it after the 5th time they called in a single day and i saw their number on the caller id

Bob's abortion clinic, you rape 'em we scrape 'em, No fetus can beat us.

They were protesting a goth/vampire gathering in the park, and the organizer's number was one off of mine. The funny thing, other than the angst and gloom they were doing some good. They atually got the local blood bank to come out for donations. Made a record haul and they actually had to ship off some of the excess to other blood banks. And this church saw them as EVIL

My other one I used to use all the time on my answering machine was

Hi. You have reached the psychatric hotline. If you are obsessive compulsive, press and hold 1 but do not hold it for longer than 0.68 seconds. If you are in a co-dependant relationship, have your partner press 2 for you now. If you are suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder, press 3, 4, 5, and 6 now. If you are suffering from paranoid delusions, you may hang up now. We know who and where you are and the Men in Black are already on their way.

Mongo

[friendofjimmyk]

My other one I used to use all the time on my answering machine was

Hi. You have reached the psychatric hotline. If you are obsessive compulsive, press and hold 1 but do not hold it for longer than 0.68 seconds. If you are in a co-dependant relationship, have your partner press 2 for you now. If you are suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder, press 3, 4, 5, and 6 now. If you are suffering from paranoid delusions, you may hang up now. We know who and where you are and the Men in Black are already on their way.

Mongo

Oh Mongo, I just may steal that! That's priceless!

[Becks]

Actually, some people find MY current outgoing message on my cell phone rude. I say some, because most people who know me find it funny.
The current one sounds something like this: "Hi, this is Jester. If you're hearing this, it means that either I am working, sleeping, in a movie theater, or just flat out don't want to talk to you. Leave a message, and if I actually want to talk to you, I'll call you back when I get the chance."

Mine goes something like this, "Hi, you've reached Becky's phone. If you're getting this message, it means I'm either at work or asleep. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

Why? Because my phone doesn't work in most of the building I work in, and I turn my phone off when I'm asleep.

My old roommate and I really liked Tenacious D, so on our answering machine we put down, "Hello, you've reached the two kings. We're off in Idaho to help with the potato famine, so leave a message." Confused the hell out of Dad.

That's funny AND I get the reference.

[Seanette]

Both landline and cell have rather boring messages, mostly because neither of us has felt like changing them (and there is the job-hunting factor). Home is "You have reached [DH] and Seanette [last name] at ###-###-####. Please leave a message after the beep". My cell is "Hi, this is Seanette. I'm driving, at work, or in some other situation where I can't answer the phone, so please leave a message and I'll call you back as soon as possible. Thank you and have a great day".

I'm currently temping at a freight company. Yesterday, I was sitting with one of the old hands, and she'd called a package recipient to update him on his shipment. She reported that the message (which I could not hear) was along the lines of "Why are you calling my f****** phone? This is my personal f****** phone." and similarly colorfully phrased sentiments. Colleague and I agreed that only a major jerk would use that as his message.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

If I'm in the break room (aka the lounge) and the phone rings up there, I will sometimes answer it funny.

One time I answered "Hello, Blank-Blank Lounge" (Blank-Blank being replaced with the name of a strip club in town).

I've also answered "Joe's Pool Hall, 8-Ball speaking" (got that one from somewhere, maybe here. Another time I did a Cheech & Chong and went "Heyyyy, this is Dave, whaddaya need man?"

[Mighty Girl]

I have a rude outgoing message on our machine- but they had it coming.

It basically says- we don't accept sales calls, we don't do surveys, we already have our preferred charities, already born again and we know who/what we're voting for. If this message concerns anything else, leave a message.

I've gotten at least 15 survey calls in the past week and I was getting hostile. I know they have a job to do, but I have things to do to, and I have an unlisted number for a reason.

[1756GR2]

My cell greeting isn't rude, but it annoys the living daylights out of friends and family who have to wait through the whole thing. My company puts our cell numbers on our business cards and they keep using my personal cell number despite my efforts to have them change the cards. I don't want to deal with customers on my off-hours, so anyone whose number isn't in my contacts book gets sent to my voicemail and gets, "Hi, this is **** at ***** Wireless. I'm sorry I can't take your call right now, but you can leave a message at the tone and I'll call you back. If your call needs immediate attention, contact our store at ***-***-****. You can reach Customer Care at ***-***-**** or by dialing *** on your (company name) cell phone." All said rather slowly so they can understand what I'm saying and get the phone numbers without having to call back three times.

My brother once left a long message - snoring.

[JuniorMintz]

Can I please use this moment to be a stick in the mud and say that I HAAAAAAAATE when people have joke messages on their cell phone? Well, not all of them, but some. Stuff like "Hello?.... HELLO?... Can you hear me?...... ... Guess I'm not in right now, leave a message at the beep!"

(Or something to that effect.)

I have to make anywhere from 12 to 50 calls a day, and when I get a message like that and start talking to what I think is a real person only to find out someone is yanking my chain, I get pissed. Especially since our office is small and everyone around me can hear what's going on, at least my end of it.

It may be funny to your friends and family, but not to the person who is trying to leave you a serious message at the only contact number that you would give us.

*sigh*

</bitchfest>

[Jester]

I have been known for humorous messages (gee...shock, right?), but one of the ones that stands out to me even after all those years was just over the top, and was actually a team effort.

At the time, I was living with two other roommates, one with an Irish name, and one with a name of indeterminate origin to the average caller. For the sake of privacy, and to tell the story, I shall change their last names to "O'Rourke" and "Arton," which are close enough to give you the idea of the outgoing message in question. To wit:

"Hello there. You have reached the law offices of Jesterberg, Artonman, and O'Rourkestein. We aren't in right now, as we busy trying to find a less embarrassing name for the penal code. But leave a message, and we'll get back to you."

Luckily none of us were jobhunting at the time.