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Answering Machines are Part of Our Busy Lives
In this day and age almost everyone has an answering machine of some sort. Whether it is an actual answering machine or a voicemail box there usually is an avenue to leave a message if someone is unavailable to speak at the moment they receive a call. With our busy lifestyles now, the answering machine is basically an essential item in every household. It has gotten to the point where if a phone call is made and no answering machine picks up, many will often call the number back thinking that the connection was not made correctly because there just has to be some sort of answering service on the other end of the line.
The answering machine has become a vital part of the business world, allowing customers to leave messages for stores, clients to leave messages for their contacts at companies, and even co-workers to leave messages for each other during the day. Without the answering machine, business would become much slower because we would have to wait to actually catch someone at an exact moment they are available to talk. With the answering machine we can leave a message with a question, and the person can respond to the call with the answer through another message.
In addition to being useful during the business day, answering machines
are very useful in personal and family lives as well. With many families
having both adults working outside of the home and kids in extracurricular
activities after school, there are many hours during the day where people
just are not at home and available to take phone calls. The answering machine
has helped to alleviate the frustration of not being able to reach someone
by being able to leave a message and expect a call in return when the person
you are trying to reach is available to talk.
People let their personalities show through their answering machine messages, and it was quite popular a few years ago to have funny messages that sounded like a person answering the phone and leaving a short pause, tricking the caller into speaking only to have the answering machine message continue on. There are still several online services that allow customers to download funny messages, and many people are creative on their own.
When it comes down to it, answering machines and voicemail are an essential part of life in the 21st century. With such busy lifestyles, we are becoming more reliant on technology to communicate with each other and the answering machine was on the forefront of this movement.
More on Answer Machines
Technology can help us and drive us to despair and sometimes manages to do both at the same time. My answer machine is an example. I like being able to screen my calls, especially if I'm busy doing something. The other boon is getting important messages when I've been out. The annoyance comes from how people use an answer machine. Faced with one, some perfectly intelligent people turn into imbeciles, leaving long, meaningless, rambling messages. Before I got my digital model, these sorts of messages would fill the cassette up in no time.
The other sort of annoying caller is the one who lets the answer machine turn on, says er, it doesn't matter or some such nonsense and then hangs up. Why are people frightened of them? Although they've been around for a long time, a lot of people seem genuinely surprised to have encountered one. It's as if they've just landed on an alien planet and had no prior knowledge of them.
Worse still, are the people that I call, only to find a jokey message on their machine. This is especially cringe worthy when a couple have made, what they think, is a cute little message together. They take their turns to speak and then crack up into uncontrollable hysterics. Some people seek to confuse, by pretending to be somebody else. What a hoot. Recently, fake celebrity answer machine messages have come on to the market. You can buy these gems and install one in your machine. They are recorded by someone imitating John Wayne or Michael Jackson, and are meant to be incredibly hilarious.
Work related calls fell off with the increased use of email, I'm glad to say. Sometimes, my boss or colleagues would call about an impending meeting and leave a message on the answer machine. They would go into great detail about something they were going to bring up in the meeting, and then go thru it all again at the actual meeting. It wasn't interesting the first time around.
There is a convenient plus side, when you've got something awkward to say, and you can call someone when you know they'll be out and leave a message on the answer machine. It's easier to deal with the machine than the actual person. You may want to get out of some social obligation and give an excuse. It serves its purpose when you don't want to get into a conversation about something.
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