THIS newspaper recently installed a voice mail system to take messages for absent journalists. A computer somewhere inside The Irish Times allegedly works the system but I doubt this. I suspect that a nice little woman called Myrtle sits in a little cubicle and works the whole thing, scribbling notes and feverishly slamming plugs into sockets.
The system works as follows. One dials 899 to get through to Myrtle in her cubicle, and she says in an enchanting Irish accent, "Meridian Mail. Mail box?" At this point you are supposed to dial your own phone number, and if you neglect to, Myrtle in her cubicle puts down her knitting, and says, "Please enter your mail box number followed by square sign."
Lady of Finite Patience
If you fail to do that, she urges you, "For more information, press star." But she is a lady of finite patience. If you decline to do either of these things, she stamps her foot in the secret cubicle and warns you, "Meridian mail will disconnect in 10 seconds. To continue your session, press square sign." And if you ignore the warning tone in her voice and still do nothing - oh plucky fellow! - she says, curt as you like, "Goodbye.
"Goodbye." Cold, decisive, determined and dismissive - just like every other woman I have attempted to engage in conversation, and proof that she is a female and not a computer. However, if you attempt to humour her by tapping in your number, she will oblige you by enquiring, "Password Please enter your password followed by square sign.
If you are too stupid or stubborn to heed this advice, she urges you, "For more information, press star." If you continue to be truculent and do nothing, she will sit there in her cubicle, looking at her stopwatch, before finally warning, "Meridian mail will disconnect in 10 seconds." One can almost sense Myrtle putting down her knitting and reaching out to yank the plug connecting you to the system. "Goodbye," she repeats, as disdainfully as a vegetarian evicting a gatecrashing caterpillar from her lettuce.
However, if you continue to conciliate her by doing the ingratiating things which men usually do to keep the women in their lives in countenance and tap in your password, followed by square sign, she will then oblige you by telling you how she has been usefully spending the time on your behalf.
List of Calls
She says, no doubt checking through her notebook, how many new messages you have. If you have a lot, she will say that your mailbox is full, or nearly full, and then, down there in the bowels of The Irish Times, she licks her pencil and starts reciting the list of calls you have received. Such a task - I hardly wonder that maybe she gets a little ratty if you don't follow her instructions. Can't be easy, taking all these messages for all these drunken journalists sliding under their desks and jeering lust fully at Myrtle down the telephone.
Yet Myrtle is punctiliousness to a fault - not merely does she say that you have messages, but gives you a precise time that each one came in, and if they are internal, what extensions they came from. "Message one, from an external number, received today at 10.46 a.m." A pause while she waits for you to act - and then she helps you out with a bit of advice. "To play the message press two, to go to the next message press six. Pause. "To get more information, press star." Longish pause before she starts getting ratty again, warning you oh very snootily, "Meridian Mail will disconnect in 60 seconds."
But of course, if you do as she bids, like all women, she calms down and sets to work after you hit the two button, and plays the message which had supposedly been cajoled from the caller by a recorded message left loitering inside the telephone system by the journalist in question. I haven't the least idea how Myrtle does this. Probably she has little record with the journalist's voice on it, and when it's clear that the hack is still in bed or hasn't come back from the four hour lunch which we regard as essential to our" trade, she puts the little black record on a turntable, lowers the gramophone needle onto it and then plays the message.
Bit of a Whopper
In my case, the instruction begins, "Don't hang up. This is an answering system, but don't hang up, because The Irish Times has paid an absolute fortune for this answering system." This admittedly is a bit of a whopper, because it's not an answering system at all, just Myrtle down below with her knitting and her little bottle of gin and maybe a small volume of soft porn to while away the slacker hours. These little white lies help us through the day. Then the message continues, "And nothing makes me crosser than finding a bleep bleep bleep "where there could be a message on this here answering system which cost The Irish Times an arm and a leg." (Another fib covering up for dear old Myrtle down below.)
That couldn't be clearer, could it? Leave a message, if you please, because it makes me cross not to get one and the dear old Irish Times, God bless its decent old heart, has invested so much money on this answering system (aka Myrtle).
And what do most of you do, you shower of shaggers? You bloody well simply hang up.
Are you stupid? Do you find the process of leaving a message too taxing for wits addled by excessive solitary indulgence? Are you stunned by the sheer beauty of the voice which has addressed you and you feel the need for a cold bath so urgently that are unable to do as requested? Are you in fact Lithuanian monoglots? Are you simply dunderheads? And have you no regard for Myrtle and her feelings?
Because these messages are not merely for the journalists they are also the staff of life for Myrtle Down Below. She sits there with her little microphone and her wax disc, longing to record what you have to say and instead you hang up. But let me warn you: Myrtle's revenge is at hand. She knows your number. She'll ring you every day at 4.30 a.m. unless you leave a message. Leave a message, okay? Leave a phooqing message or prepare for a wrathful Myrtle every 4 a.m. of your miserable phooqing life.