The Evolution of Voice Mail Greetings

When I got my first cell phone, a pre-paid brick-sized mobile, I immediately hopped on the bandwagon and made a "cool" voice mail greeting like all my other high school friends. Yes, music played in the background. Was it "Here's to the Night" by Eve 6 or "Little Black Backpack" by Stroke 9? I can't remember, but I did follow the voice mail trend at the time which inevitably began the evolution of Mb's ridiculous voice mail greetings.

As a freshman in college, sneaky under aged drinking was not just a hobby. It was a rite of passage. And, oh, was it glorified! My weekly-developed disposable cameras would feature renegade shots of dorm room drinking. What's that fruity concoction in my cup? Oh, just some kind of juice mixed with Malibu rum of course! My voicemail greeting on my upgraded Verizon cell phone appropriately matched my debaucherous behavior at the time. Had you called me then, you would have heard an overly chipper voice reciting some corny poem that ended with the line, "drink up and have the time of your life."

Shaking my head.

And then I changed my voice mail greeting using a male friend's voice saying I was "unable answer the phone right now." Super Dad did not like that one.

And remember when Strong Bad cartoon were the jam? And I'm not talking about jelly. Undergrads were collectively obsessed with this pointless yet cripplingly funny animation, myself included. So my voice mail greeting was updated to reflect that trend of the time. Had you called me then, you would have heard Marzipan singing one of his infamous answering machine jingles. I believe the one I chose went something like,

"Hey this is Marzipan. Leave me a message and I'll get right back you, hey!" (repeat 2x)

It's almost disgusting how cool I thought I was.

Once I started applying for internships and jobs, I normalized. A little bit. I recorded a standard voicemail greeting with my full name and "I can't get to the phone right now, but please leave a message and I'll get back to you." Naturally, I obsessed over its clarity and professional sound, pressing #1 multiple times to re-record until it was perfect.

But fearing that I still sounded young when applying for a big girl job before graduation, the recorded greeting got the axe. A standard robotic greeting with [insert my voice saying my name here] took it's place.

And now, settled in my job and playing grown-up, I've gotten so uncreative (slash, secretive) that it's just easier to let the robot recite all 10 digits of my phone number before the calling party can leave their message.

I thought about this when I called an old friend from high school yesterday, who still recites a self-written rap on her voicemail greeting. Townies. Sigh. I love it.