You know what your name is. I realize that. Your friends recognize your voice when you call them. However, when you are an employee, or former employee, and you call some HR lady (an Evil one at at that) with a question and you get her voicemail, don’t say:
HithisisSharonJehosephatandmyphonenumberis5554983234 in one breath and then proceed to talk painstakingly slow about how you don’t know how much vacation you have left. (Hint, me neither! Don’t you keep track of these things?)
I get annoyed when I have to listen to a voicemail 3 times in order to try to figure out what either your name or your phone number is. If I can’t figure it out, I can’t call you back. If I can’t call you back, I can’t tell you that HR doesn’t track vacation, but you should and your manager should.
So, really, it’s generally pointless for me to return your call anyway.
But my point is, because I’ve never talked to you before I don’t have context to place your call in to help me figure out who you are. When you leave your name and phone number on voicemail speak s-l-o-w-l-y and clearly.
Really, it will make my life easier and you’re more likely to get called back.
Ah, Evil One shares such wisdom we can all learn from. Leave short clear messages with your name and phone both at the start and the end and a one or two sentence sandwiched in between. Do this with HR people, Evil and otherwise. Do it with your customers. Do it with people you buy from. Do it with everyone. If you’re calling friends, leave out the phone number. Why? Because people (not just Evil HR ones) get ticked off when they have to listen to voicemails three times to get the message. And some of them (probably your customers) won’t bother. They’ll just find someone who knows how to speak slowly and clearly.