Wait for the Beep

Brought to you by every junior PR rep and intern who has ever made a follow-up call to see if I got the press release they sent me.

Here's what I'd like my voicemail greeting to say:

Hello. You have reached [me] at [award-winning magazine HQ].

If you're calling me back because I contacted you and therefore actually want to talk to you, please press 1 to leave a voice message -- or better yet, send me an e-mail as I requested in the message I left you. You have the address. Don't tell me you don't. I spelled it out twice.

If you're an intern calling to follow up on the press release your PR firm sent me, you might as well hang up now. The reason I have not contacted you already is that your firm did no research before sending this press release to me and clearly does not realize that it is entirely inappropriate for my publication. I know you're just doing your job making the follow-up calls, but seriously, kid, we wouldn't run that pile of pants if you paid for ad space.

However, I realize that you're obliged to try to look busy there at your tiny desk with the phone with the gunky number pad and the headset with somebody else's hair wrapped around the earpiece and somebody else's cabbage breath infusing the foam mouthpiece cover. So if you want to talk back to this message as if we're having a productive conversation, that's fine with me.

And since we're having this little chat, might I suggest that you get out of the PR business now while you still can. It's an industry based on self-serving falsehood. It is a tale full of sound and fury, told by an idiot, signifying nothing. It will eat your soul, and you'll die still owing your parents money for the college degree in mass comm that got you into this mess in the first place.

Take some friendly advice and go to trade school. Become someone respectable like an electrician or a plumber or a car mechanic. You'll make better money and be able to sleep at night with your self-respect intact.

Have a nice day.

Beep.

It does not say that, of course. It's very cordial and professional. But I'd fielded two such calls within 15 minutes of sitting down at my desk this morning, and it was enough to make me want to forward the phone to voicemail for the rest of the week.

Today around the world: February 14 Hallmark Day in the U.S., Green Monday in Cyprus, and Wine-grower's Day in Bulgaria. Any guesses as to where I'd like to be partying down today?