"Thank You for Calling Big Honkin Corporation. I'm So Effin' Happy You Called that I Could Just Scream...

This call may be monitored or recorded for Bad Things to hold against me in my annual review. How may I help you?"

How does that sound to you? With a few alterations to protect the identity of my employer (and allow me to keep my job), this is the length of the new greeting I'm now required to use at work. You've probably heard similar greetings if you have any reason to call a sufficiently large company. I don't know about you, but hearing this lengthy run of drivel doesn't leave me feeling warm and fuzzy about the company I'm calling.

I knew this was coming because I'd had reason to call the Even Larger Corporation that owns the Very Large Corporation that I work for, and heard this sort of greeting when I called them. I figured it was only a matter of time before we shared the joy as well, and I was right.

So why do we have such a ridiculously long greeting? Well, the "monitored or recorded" part is supposed to be a legal requirement, even though there's supposed to be a pre-recorded message saying the same thing that callers hear before they get to us, so it sounds like duplication to me. My guess is that there was a committee talking about what to put in the greeting, and everybody felt they had to add something to show they were participating in the process. And I'd also guess that not one of them read it out loud even once.

Does anyone really think such a greeting sounds friendly or natural? And if not, why require it?

This is just the tip of a particularly goofy iceberg. More on that another time...