陳豪在北京的ABC美國公司工作。他在走廊上遇到了美國同事Amy。
(Office ambience)
C：Amy, 你有時間嗎？
A：Sure. What's up?
C：我剛才收到部門經理Mae的電話留言，她說我們在留言機上的留話千篇一律，應該考慮如何改變一下。
A：I haven't checked my voice mail yet. I have been out of the office so I haven't heard her message.
C：我簡單告訴你一下吧？
A：I'm all ears!
C：她建議，我們不用說，“我不在辦公室或是正在另外一條線上”，因為你不說，別人也知道。
A：What are we supposed to say?
C：不如改為告訴對方你在哪里，比如說去開會了，三點回來，讓別人知道幾點鐘能找到你，或是能接到你的回電。
A：I always try to let people know when I am away from the office for a few days.
C：對了，Mae還建議，如果好幾天不在辦公室的話，可以在留言里說明，你什么時候有機會查留言，回電話。
A：Did she say more?
C：Mae還說，如果你不在辦公室，可以把臨時聯絡人的電話和姓名留在留言機里。
A：I've had people do that and when I called the other person, she wasn't in so I found myself in another voice mail. That's annoying.
C：沒錯，所以要事先弄清楚臨時聯絡人是否會在辦公室里。Mae還有不少建議，我一時記不起來了，你還是自己去聽聽吧。
******
當天晚些時候。陳豪和Amy又見面了。
A：Wow, Mae made some other good points about our greetings. I get tired of hearing "Your call is very important to me." I agree that we should drop that phrase, especially when it often lacks sincerity.
C：對啊，“你的電話對我很重要”根本就是廢話。還有就是“我很遺憾沒有接到你的電話 -- "I am sorry I missed your call." 有那個時間，還不如說點有用的。
A：I usually tell people that I will call them back as soon as possible. Mae says to avoid saying, "I'll call you back as soon as possible." A simple "I'll call you back" is all that is needed.
C：你覺得Mae說的有道理嗎？
A：It's clear to me that we all have fallen into a rut, by leaving a greeting that sounds as if we are reading from a script.
C：確實是有些千篇一律。那我們應該怎么做呢？
A：What we need to do is update our greeting on a regular basis so callers know that we are attentive to our message system.
C：我們還應該保證盡快回電。
A：But we don't need to take up more time than necessary.
C：好，我這就去改我的電話留言，就說 "Hello, this is Chen Hao. I will be in the office today. Please leave a message and I will call you back.”
A：Sounds good to me. |
大學英語---