"Hold, please...(ummm,) Eric?"

I am a really bad answering machine. Seriously, I'm terrible. I am a great secretary/PR/marketing/coffee grabber type person, but not so good at the actual task of answering phones and taking messages. When more than one line rings at a time I get a little nervous and often forget which ones are on hold for whom and sometimes even hang up on one, or all, of them. But the biggest problem, the one that my boss has kindly instructed me on a couple of different times has to do with the names of the people I talk to on the phone. More often than not, I can't understand the people on the other end and I write down the name wrong on the message memo slip and suddenly Matt Margel becomes Max Mardel. Only a couple of letters off but suddenly Matt the important business contact becomes Max the man who doesn't even exist. The other problem I have with the name game is that I usally completely forget the name of the person on the phone the minute that they tell it to me. So I end up telling my boss that Brian is on the phone (and he looks at me funny trying to place this person in his head) and then he picks up the phone and says "Oh hi, Derrick!" Yeah, I have no idea! I mean really, I can't be bothered with the little formalities of remembering who calls our office everyday to talk to someone about something. I have much more important things to do, like update this here blog!