Q. Close friends have made a ‘Sound of Music’ type
recording for their home answerphone. Their four small children take turns to trill out lines like ‘No! Our parents aren’t at home’ and ‘Please leave a mess-ess-age!’ The 45-second performance is charming the first and possibly only time you hear it, but not the subsequent times. How can we tactfully convey to our friends that, while we too think their children adorable, we are busy people and cannot waste this amount of time when we need to leave messages for them. More to the point, we also worry that the husband — who works freelance — may lose potential clients who are irritated by the wait.
P. and L.G., Penrith A. Did you know that if you press the hash button on your own telephone when an answerphone message starts, you can skip the message and cut straight to the quick for message leaving? Your friend may wrongly assume that everyone knows this tip. Why not bring up the subject of answerphones and say enviously, ‘I wish we could have such a charming message on our answerphone but we can’t afford the risk of self-important people not knowing that you can cut to the quick by pressing the hash button.’ Then smile blandly while he questions you further.
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