School telephone answering machine – Maroochydore High School Queensland
This is hilarious – no wonder some people were offended! This is the message that the Maroochydore High School Queensland , staff voted unanimously to record on their school telephone answering machine . This is the actual answering machine message for the school. This came about because they implemented a policy requiring students and parents to be responsible for their children’s absences and missing homework. The school and teachers are being sued by parents who want their children’s failing grades changed to passing grades – even though those children were absent 15-30 times during the semester and did not complete enough school work to pass their classes, and put this on the answerphone.
The outgoing message:
Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your school. In order to assist you in connecting to the right staff member, please listen to all the options before making a selection:
To lie about why your child is absent – Press 1
To make excuses for why your child did not do his work – Press 2
To complain about what we do – Press 3
To swear at staff members – Press 4
To ask why you didn’t get information that was already enclosed in your
newsletter and several flyers mailed to you – Press 5
If you want us to raise your child – Press 6
If you want to reach out and touch, slap or hit someone – Press 7
To request another teacher, for the third time this year – Press 8
To complain about bus transportation – Press 9
To complain about school lunches – Press 0
If you realize this is the real world and your child must be accountable
and responsible for his/her own behaviour, class work, homework and that
it’s not the teachers’ fault for your child’s lack of effort: Hang up and
have a nice day!
If you want this in another language, move to a country that speaks it.
PS: And, from Tim – I am wondering why 346 people a day, as we speak (in Australia) are reading this. Taking the top 1% (that must own their own business, yet maybe not getting the website traffic they could be; through www.timinternet.com/uk) have not realised the sales the Internet brings in. The customers searching for what I want them to read, and you are one of them! Contact me to find out what I can do for your business. Surfin’ strategies making big waves for Aussies too!
Tags: answering machine, High School, Maroochydore, Queensland, School, telephone
September 5th, 2009 at 3:57 am
This is, fortunately, not true.
It was circulated about 8 years ago under the name of a school in California, and has now been re-branded. Its not even an Australian accent. Try scopes.com for more information, bozo.
September 8th, 2009 at 8:27 am
Kat, no need to be calling anyone bozo.
By the way, you need to check your accuracy. I’m confident you meant “snopes.com”, not “scopes.com” (although I’m sure some of those instruments could help us all discern what is fact and what is fiction).
September 12th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
i love it, the best thing ever. Hoorray!
September 14th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
i think that is a great achievement to get this award continuously for 6 years… in the period when all call center services getting worst…
September 15th, 2009 at 7:01 am
This was great. I did go to the school website and the school exists. Didn’t have any luck callling the school.
October 7th, 2009 at 8:41 am
this is hilarious!
October 13th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Obviously a hoax. Why?
1. The initial ringtone is not an Australian one. When you call a number in Australia you hear a two-toned ring in your earpiece. The tone that is heard is an American tone.
2. They refer to school lunches. School lunches is not an Australian term. If a child does buy food at school, they buy it from the Tuckshop. They have school lunches in the UK.
3. They refer to “interest in Public Education”. This term is not used in Australia, It is used in the UK.
4. The speaker does not identify the school at the top of the call.
5. These issues referred to are not big issues in Australia.
6. Weakest of all, the accent is not Australian.
7. Wikipedia, if you can believe it, says the message is a hoax.
October 17th, 2009 at 11:31 am
far whats the number ? LOL
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Snopes.com does indeed report this as a hoax/fabrication, linking it back to another school entirely in it’s original version.
Your blog post, and a number of others that crop up on the first page of Google, all seem to treat the content of the .wmv file as gospel truth (“this is…staff voted unanimously” etc). I agree that it’s funny, especially knowing several teachers, but I think it’s irresponsible to repeat verbatim something as truth without any investigation.
If you do repeat unsubstantiated rumour as fact, you run the risk of committing libel, a form of defamation. Defamation laws vary from country to country, but in many cases repeating a libellous statement, or ‘publishing’ it in the twentieth century language of defamation case law, involves the same liability for the publisher (or re-publisher) as the person who originally made the false statement. Not bothering to check the statement for veracity (as in claiming that someone else told you it was true, and you trusted them) isn’t normally a good defence.
I don’t actually suggest this particular item would meet the necessary criteria for libel, (though I’m not a lawyer and have no idea of the applicable libel laws in Queensland, NSW Australia where the school is, apparently, situated) since you haven’t identified any individuals. But maybe it’s enough to identify a group of individuals, as in ‘the staff of Maroochydore High School’ to give them all the right to bring an action for defamation.
Why don’t you edit your post to note that it may not be true, but that you think it is funny enough to repeat. Alternatively how about you investigate the truth of the matter if you want to continue to report it as fact. Maybe Snopes.com is wrong, but they appear to have actually looked into the matter, whereas based on the content of this post at least, you do not.
March 20th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
lol a number of the observations visitors enter crack me up, quite often i think about whether they honestly read the writing and items before leaving your 2 cents or whether or not they only just read over the title of the blog post and jot down the first idea that one thinks of. at any rate, it is actually enjoyable to browse intelligent commentary occasionally compared to the same, outdated post vomit that i almost always observe on the web i’m off to have fun with a smattering of rounds of facebook poker regards
April 14th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
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August 11th, 2010 at 7:46 am
Good Points!
To lie about why your child is absent – Press 1
To make excuses for why your child did not do his work – Press 2
To complain about what we do – Press 3
To swear at staff members – Press 4
August 31st, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Interesting….and should really be implemented at all schools. The school that tried to make the kids obey the rules was overturned due to “Parents” not caring, or not paying attention. No wonder the “U.S.” is turning into the slums it is.
Parents do not take their responsibility seriously, and the kids run amok.
Expelling does no go good. They will all run and get on welfare.
September 14th, 2010 at 7:02 am
thought provoking post! I believe that helps me well. Answers a few questions for me. Thanks!
November 19th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
O very nice,i am an enterpreneur of a consultancy buisiness having more than 1000000 customers in usa and overseas also,i had a big problem of handling my customer’s phone calls,i will add a bit
Some corporations and business owners don’t have the time to provide quality customer service and communication services to their customers and clients; therefore they outsource this department to a telephone answering service. Most of these services are set up like a call centre and have operators who will provide inbound or outbound phone calls. If the company has a large clientele and cannot keep up with the demand, they can use these services in order to protect the integrity of their business. Since most businesses are judged by the quality of their customer service, it is a good idea to use these types of services.
April 20th, 2011 at 2:08 pm
This really sounds funny but I find it interesting. I have no experience having this kind of telephone machine in school where I go. So, I’m excited to experience it myself. Thanks for sharing ,more power!
August 30th, 2011 at 3:44 pm
I really like your blog, keep it up!