“Seth can’t take your call right now . . .”

I have a few pet peeves about personal business habits that I’ve joked about in the past (see How do you sign your emails and Where was that you went to school, for example). Here’s another one that’s been bugging me lately: outgoing voicemail messages

With apologies to my many, many friends who do this, it really bugs me when people have their assistant leave their outgoing voicemail message. I get it – you’re busy; you’re very important; you have an assistant; you don’t really have time in your schedule to deal with things like setting up your voicemail. But really? Do you honestly not have the 30 seconds it takes to set up your own personalized outgoing message? Or is it that you just can’t figure out how to do it . . . ?

And while I’m on the topic of voicemail, how about not setting your outgoing message to the automated “John Smith” . . . “can not take your call right now. I’m the guy who always gets tricked by this (often multiple times by the same person), thinks you’ve picked up your phone and starts a conversation with your voicemail before the systems completes the message and I realize I’m just talking into the air. It does not make me feel very smart . . . although I still feel smart enough to set up my own voicemail <g>

EOR