Top 7 Phone Irritations

Are these phone behaviors as irritating to others as they are to me?

1. The Auctioneer Speedup. Somebody is leaving you a voicemail message, and no matter how fast they might be talking already, they do an "auctioneer speedup" when they leave their callback number, and you have to listen repeatedly to the message to get the whole phone number. How about speaking really, really slowly when leaving your phone number? Or at least repeat it.

2. The Generic Message. You're driving in your car, or are otherwise trying to multi-task without your reading glasses, and you dial somebody's number and then get a generic, machine-voice message that only mentions the number and not the person's name. Now you're not sure if you have reached the correct person, or have reached one of your other irritating friends with a generic message. What's so hard about taking 30 seconds to put a personalized message on your phone, so that others will know with 100% certainty that they have reached the correct number?

3. The Expected Callback from a Hangup. Somebody calls and hangs up without leaving a message. Then the next time you talk to them, they ask why you didn't call back. Calling and hanging up without leaving a message is called a "hangup," not a "phone call with a message." How are we supposed to know it wasn't a mistake?

4. The Callback Before Listening to the Message. You call somebody and leave a detailed message with all of the relevant information. They see that you called, and call you back before listening to the message. In many cases, a callback is not even required, because you have already left all of the relevant information in the message. At the very least, you now have to repeat the same information that was left on the message.

5. The Unexpected, Unwanted Handoff. You are talking to somebody on their cellphone, and they suddenly hand off the phone to somebody else, possibly somebody you are not that interested in talking to.

6. The Un-businesslike Answer. Somebody answers the phone with a greeting of "Hello," instead of identifying themselves by name, or identifying the company. Besides being un-businesslike, it now requires unnecessary conversation establishing that the caller has reached the correct person.

7. Reverse Order Talking. You answer the phone, and the caller is already talking before you have even had a chance to identify yourself or open with a greeting.

Comments welcome, I'm sure this list can be increased to 10.