This was the message on my voice mail before I had switched to a carrier that made it easy to turn it off (that wasn't the reason I switched, that was a nice surprise):
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Hi, this is Evan.
I will never ever ever ever listen to the voice mail you’re about to leave, because voice mail is a pain in the butt.
So if you actually want to reach me, you can either send me an SMS, send me e-mail, or try my home number.
Feel free to leave a voice message if you want, but remember, I will never ever listen to it. Have a nice day!
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I don't actually give them the email or home number details on the assumption that if they don't have those already, they are probably someone who's call I'm that stressed about receiving.
Generally I got positive feedback once people did get in contact with me.
I did have a similar one on message bank on the home number, which also mentioned that I keep turning message bank off, and the phone company kept turning it back on again.
@blisterpeanuts: Unfortunately, Google Voice isn't available in the Antipodes.
@post_break: Don't know that I would characterise it as passive aggressive. It isn't meant to be, certainly not to the caller. As I said, most people who heard it found it amusing more than annoying. One even asked if they could steal the idea.
My friend has a passive aggressive voice mail message like this. So every time I get his voice mail I leave a long message which I know he has to listen to.
I honestly can't believe how much I've written in this comment about such an insignificant annoyance from a few years. Consider it self-therapy that I accidentally left on HN.
I previously had a phone on Vodafone in the UK, and infuriatingly their voicemail system would not allow you to delete a message until you had listened to it for either 3 or 5 seconds, I can't remember.
Most of my messages were either spam calls I knew would have left a voicemail from when I rejected them, or my dad who has finally learned that I'm just as likely to call him back from seeing him in my missed calls list and therefore he no longer needs to leave a "Hey, it's me calling, feel free to call back or not" every single time. (It took several years of begging him to not leave a message unless he either a.) had a piece of information he wanted to give me in that message or b.) there was a time sensitivity beyond normal conversation.)
So for each message you wanted to delete, you had to listen to the robotic voice say "Caller, oh, eight, hundred, [pause], seven, etc etc etc, called, today, at, twelve, fifty, seven, PM, [pause]" then the message would start, you wait what you think is the right amount of time before pressing 3 to delete, and if you get it a fraction of a second too early, not only does it not delete it, but it tells you (in those slow, monotic, robot, words) "I'm sorry, but you cannot delete this message until you have listened to at least three seconds." AND THEN IT WOULD START AGAIN FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO WHAT FUCKING NUMBER HAD CALLED AT WHAT TIME.
Man, that's like therapy, writing that out. My mobile number was quite publicly available, included in press releases that were googleble, etc. so I got a fair few spammy voicemails. Thankfully, eventually either I discovered or their system added, the ability (bug) that if you press 3 (the delete button) almost immediately after the end of the robotic words "message deleted", you could time it so the system knew you had already deleted the last message, but hadn't reset the clock for how long you had to listen to the next message for, so once you knew the rhythm you could delete them in about 5 seconds each without being stuck listening.
---
Hi, this is Evan.
I will never ever ever ever listen to the voice mail you’re about to leave, because voice mail is a pain in the butt.
So if you actually want to reach me, you can either send me an SMS, send me e-mail, or try my home number.
Feel free to leave a voice message if you want, but remember, I will never ever listen to it. Have a nice day!
---
I don't actually give them the email or home number details on the assumption that if they don't have those already, they are probably someone who's call I'm that stressed about receiving.
Generally I got positive feedback once people did get in contact with me.
I did have a similar one on message bank on the home number, which also mentioned that I keep turning message bank off, and the phone company kept turning it back on again.