But not everyone appreciates the tunes. Listening to a recording of a Beatles song, one caller hung up and said, "I prefer Bach," says Ned M. Seaton '90.
But the purpose of an answering machine--no matter how amusing--is still to take messages. Good messages tend to elicit responses from callers, even those who have dialed the wrong number, say students. "It's a good feeling" when one of the messages says "nice message but wrong number," Yakir Siegal's '89 says.
"People despise answering machines most of the time," says Randall Fecher '89, but a funny message will at least catch callers' attention. "I would hang up on answering machines unless it's a funny message," he adds. "If it's really funny I'll stay on."
If you have a really good message, you'll get `I just called to hear your message,' "Fecher says.
Funny recordings challenge people to leave a funny message, Siegal says. "You have to live up to that when you leave a message."
And for some people, the difference between the person called and the answering machine doesn't seem to matter. Once, a friend called from California and left a 20-minute message, Kra says. "He rambled about the weather, classes, what he was wearing, what he was eating, what he was doing," she says, adding that not until the very end of the message did he tell her when he was coming to visit, the real reason he called.
Other messages can be downright annoying. One popular ploy to puzzle callers is recording a message saying "hello, hello? I can't hear you?" as though the speaker is actually on the other side of the phone.
One Currier resident recorded a variation on that theme. His message started off innocently enough asking callers to leave a message at the beep. But Siegal used the pushbutton tone on his hallmate's phone to record a fake beep.
As callers began to speak, the recording interrupted with "what did you say your name was?" and another beep. Then the message requested the caller to "speak up and maybe a little louder," and again added a fake beep. It ended with "If you're not going to speak up you can just go"--another fake beep--"yourself," Siegal says.
But the message didn't last long, Siegal says. "People said it was too obnoxious. Like my mom."