Phone Adventures

As a pseudo-telemarketer, I have a new pet peeve: answering machine and voicemail-box messages which don't tell you who you're calling.
I left a few dozen phone messages today. Only two--yes, two--said who they were. The rest were friendly generic electronic people telling me "Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voicemail system. Please leave your message after the tone and your call will be returned."
Or there are the cute but equally useless ones: [cute little kid voice] "You've weached my Nonny and Poppop. The'll call you back. Okay, bye."
Or the people themselves who still don't bother to say who they are: "Hi, we can't come to the phone, but if you leave a message, we'll get back to you. God bless." (I get blessed a lot in my job. It's an extra perk.)
Sigh.
For all I know I spent all day leaving perky phone messages for random households all over Nevada who have never even heard of my employer, much less created a trust with them. Hmm. Maybe I should look at it as spontaneous advertising.
Oh, I think my favorite phone call this week was this one, though (names have been changed so I don't get fired):
me: Hi, may I please speak to Rachel?
female: Sorry, I think you have the wrong number.
me: Okay, thanks.
female: You mean Rachel Perkins?
me [confused voice]: Yes...
female: Yeah, she's not here right now. I'm her roommate.
me [more confused voice]: I'm sorry, did you say that I have the -wrong- number?
roommate [you're-obviously-stupid voice]: Yeah, you've reached her -roommate's- number. Can I give her a message?
me: Sorry, do you have her number, so I can just leave her a voicemail message, or reach her at a better time?
roommate: I don't know it by heart.
me [still more confused voice]: Oh...
roommate: So, do you have a message?
me: Well, this is Marybeth with Financial Planning Ministry, and I just have a quick question about her trust. Can I leave a number for her to call me?
roommate [happy-excited voice]: Oh, you're the people from that church? Aw, that's great. Yeah, I'll totally have her call you. I'm so glad you've called!
me [extremely confused voice]: Great...
--
People are weird. And I really wish they'd just take the two seconds to say who the heck they are on their answering machines.