I find the telephone engaged tone massively frustrating. The other person will be on the phone for a time proportional to the urgency of your message. Why don't the phone companies say "engaged", then tell you a joke instead. And that "duh duh duh (ascending tone) sorry, the number you've dialled has not been recognised" is even worse. Again, simple message then a bit of humour.
-- paraffin power, Oct 24 2004

Instead, people should record an "engaged" message to be played when someone tries to reach them while they're using the line. This way it would be a personalized joke.
-- Pericles, Oct 24 2004


isn't what you're looking for an 'answer machine', where they can leave you a message and they can call you back.
sorry [paraffin], but I don't want to waste my time listening to corporate humour.
-- neilp, Oct 25 2004


Why do I get a an option for a ____, just to click on it and get nothing? Idea is now ugly, space clogged?
-- blissmiss, Oct 25 2004


Think it's a bug in the new image stuff being tried at the mo [blissmiss]. For a successful demo, see the "GargantuFan" idea...
-- DocBrown, Oct 25 2004


All I want from automatic answering equipment is the bare facts. I don't want a message every five seconds that my call is important to them. I don't want opera over MIDI with a dance beat (yes, I have experienced this). I definitely don't want to hear the first three words of the same crap joke every time I try to contact someone.
-- david_scothern, Oct 25 2004


So not a phone with a "suck on this" feature?
-- theircompetitor, Oct 25 2004


[ds] - I think technology is at a point where it could be randomly generated. Anyway, the point was to do away with the beep-beep-beep and simply say 'engaged'. Being on-hold was never mentioned.
-- paraffin power, Oct 26 2004



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