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I've tried everything to get peeps to leave a message on my answer machine:
"If you are a burglar, then I'm at home cleaning my weapons tonight and I can't come to the phone. Otherwise, I'm probably not at home, so it's perfectly safe to leave a message."
"You're growing tired. Your eyelids are getting heavy. You feel very sleepy now. You are gradually losing your willpower and your ability to resist suggestions. When you hear the tone, you will feel helplessly compelled to leave your name, number, and a message."
"You have reached the CPX-2000 Voice Blackmail System. Your voice patterns are now being digitally encoded and stored for later use. Once this is done, our computers will be able to use the sound of your voice for literally thousands of illegal and immoral purposes, so please remember to speak."
Hence, I don't care whether a message is littered with ums and ahs. Too many people wait until they hear the beep and then hang up because "they don't like talking to machines".Though, they'll rant at their television sets soon enough.
Unless you need to sound particularly articulate when you speak, say for professional reasons, I wouldn't worry about the odd idiosyncrasy creeping in. But, this is my laid back view, others might disagree. I'd rather feel confident in myself and the content of what I say, than hinder my communication over such a minor thing. As you were unaware of it before, I expect it was just the pressure of leaving a recording that made it so prevalent. You probably sounded like the average person does when they leave an unexpected recording. If you speak with passion, humour and honesty, then people will remember you for that, rather than how many times you 'umm' or hesitate.
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