THINGS THAT NEED TO GO AWAY RIGHT NOW, VOL. 13

• Phone Pholly I. Unnecessarily long voicemail greetings, such as:
  

  Hello, you've reached Jane Doe in the accounts payable department at ABC Company. I am currently either away from my desk or on the phone at this time. If you leave your name, number, your company's name, and the time you called, I will return your call at my earliest convenience. Thank you, and have a blessed day.

  Thank you, Jane, for telling me you are either away from your desk or on the phone. But are you sure you've covered all the possibilities? Why not specify that you might be picking your nose, or flirting with the printer repairman, or bidding on Precious Moments figurines on eBay? I don't care why you didn't answer the phone. Just let me get to the beep without having to listen to your flimsy excuses.
  
  And you don't need to instruct me to leave my name and number and whatever else. What did you think I was going to say -- "Hi, Jane, this is some guy. Call me."? Answering machines have been around for a few decades, so most everybody understands the proper content of a voicemail message by now.
  
  I might remind you that "currently" and "at this time" mean the same thing, so you don't need both. In fact, you don't need either -- you are speaking in the present tense, so "currently" is implied.
  
  You can also strike "I will return your call at my earliest convenience." This means "I'll call you back whenever the hell I feel like it," which means I might get a return call in five minutes, or two Wednesdays from now, or never. The phrase conveys no useful information and will not be missed.
  
  Finally, Jane, I'm not the kind of militant atheist who takes umbrage at being told to have a blessed day. But even if I believed in God, wouldn't the blessedness of my day be out of my control?
  
  Need an example, Jane? Here is the marvel of economy that is my voicemail message:

  Hello, you've reached Kilgore Trout in the accounts receivable department at XYZ Company. Please leave a message at the tone. Thank you.

• Phone Pholly II. This happens at least once a month:

  Operator: ABC Company, how can I direct your call?
  
  Kilgore Trout: Accounts payable department, please.
  
  Jane Doe: Accounts payable, this is Jane.
  
  KT: Hello, Jane, this is Kilgore Trout from XYZ Company.

  [Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah]

  KT: Thanks for your help, Jane. Oh, and can I get your direct phone number?
  
  JD: Well, it's the same number you just dialed.

  I admit that I'm no Gregory Peck or James Earl Jones, with a deep voice that commands instant respect. But I don't sound like a retard, either, which is what I would have to be to call someone directly and then ask for her phone number. And even if I did do something that stupid, why not take three seconds and give me the number? "303-867-5309" -- was that so hard? Is your direct number some kind of national treasure that you have to protect from the prying eyes of Al Qaeda?
  
  
• People who paint their brick houses. Why would anyone do this? Brick looks great by itself, but painted brick looks awful, and besides, isn't one of the advantages of owning a brick house that it doesn't require painting? Think of all the other things you could do with your time that would be fun and good and worth remembering when you're 90 and rotting in a nursing home. Why would you waste any more of your life on house painting than absolutely necessary?
  
  
• Apple's insistence on selling music files through its iTunes service in M4P format only. These files play just fine on Apple's own iPod, but I don't own an iPod. I've heard that iPods are quite nice, but I don't need to store 10,000 songs, and I need a very small player that I can wear comfortably on long runs lasting six hours or more. So I use an MPIO player that meets my needs. It weighs about one ounce, holds ten hours of music, and plays MP3, WAV, and WMP files -- but not M4P files. And when I try to use the iTunes music management software to convert the M4P file to MP3, it politely declines.
  
  Doubtless Apple wants to push their iPods, but do they really think I'm going to spend extra money on a player that's too heavy and has ten times more capacity than I need? I'll get my tunes for free from Kazaa, thanks.
  
  I've been converting the M4P files to MP3 via the backdoor method of burning them to a CD and then extracting them, but that's a pain in the ass. If Apple wants to promote legal music downloading -- an idea I support and would like to use -- wouldn't it make sense to make that process as simple as possible by selling tracks in a variety of formats? Maybe a service exists that does just that. I would do some research and find one if I weren't such a lazy piece of shit.
  
  Right now you are preparing to rip me for all the technical errors I've made in this post. But that's my point -- I'm just a regular asshole who wants to buy some music, and I shouldn't have to be a tech-tard to pull it off.

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/01/2004 11:41:00 PM