Monday, September 17, 2007

putting the "ass" in embarrassed

Here's why I dislike "just leaving a message," particularly for businesses:

1. I have no way of knowing if they got the message or if they really do intend to return my call. I suspect I'm not as important as they've lead me to believe.

2. If I do not receive a return call, how long am I supposed to wait before calling again?

3. I prefer to speak with a human.

4. When put on the spot, I sometimes space on my phone number (when I know I'll need to give it, I often have it written down ahead of time.)

***

I've been trying to schedule a L&D tour at my local hospital for two (three?) weeks now, but no one is answering the phone. I didn't want to leave a message for the reasons listed above, but finally, today, I decided that due to TIME RUNNING OUT, I'd better just suck it up and leave the message and hope for the best. After being reassured how important I was, I was given a long list of details to include in the message (and though I can remember them now, here, quite clearly, I began to panic a little at the thought of remembering them all once the exceptionally long recording gave me the opportunity.)

I heard the beep.

I said my full name.

And choked on my phone number, felt like an asshole, and hung up without leaving the rest of my message.

I'm pretty sure it went like this, "Hi, my name is Twirl. My phone number is.... wow, I can't remember my phone number." Click.

So now I have NOT scheduled my tour, I have NOT left a (returnable) message, and I feel like much too big an ass to call back anytime soon. I get it that it's not the end of the world or the biggest deal ever, but why couldn't someone just answer the phone?

3 comments:

Irish Girl said...

Gimme the number. I'll call ;-)

(that's hilarious!)

Sarah said...

i have to apologize, but i'm LOVING this post! sorry it's at your expense, it's just that i can so totally see myself doing the same thing. i think i might call back and leave a fake name, then pretend to be the fake person on the tour. then get caught when they try to make sure i'm pre-registered for delivery!

do they have an online sign-up?? i was able to do mine by fax...

Anonymous said...

Really really funny. One for the baby book.

My partner hates to leave messages for close to the same reason. Thus, she makes me handle all of the telephonic communication. It gets a little idiotic when she's barking questions at me and I feel like a simultaneous interpreter whilst leaving a semi-coherent message, but it works.

When we traveled to Italy (pre-kiddo, of course), we discovered that she can understand spoken Italian fairly well, and I can speak well enough to reserve a hotel room. The catch was that I'm a poor listener (too busy trying to figure out what I'm about to attempt to say) and she's unwilling to say something incorrectly. Thus, we were like that two-headed Sesame Street character. Now imagine us trying to make phone calls. From the middle of a busy intersection/roundabout in Florence. About why our rental car place was closed during a time it was supposed to be open. It took us three call-backs to get ANYwhere. I bet the rental car people were laughing their asses off, since we hadn't bothered to ask them if they spoke English, which I bet they did.