" Hi. You've reached Crossroads. We're not here at the moment, but if you'd like to leave us a long-winded message detailing everything you need in life, please don't. It's annoying. Just be brief and we'll call you back as soon as we can. Bye!"
Apparently, this is the message most people should include on their answering machines, or else people like me will spend the next 1-3 minutes being very precise about why they're calling and what prep work the person needs to do before calling them back. For me, this is more productive than leaving a brief message and forcing the person to call you back multiple times because they didn't have all the information they needed the first time.
So, what do you think? Are long messages productive or a pain?
