Interesting voicemail message

January 15, 2012 7:20 AM

Is this voicemail message a reference to something?

Called someone at work recently and heard this voicemail, spoken by a British male voice: "The person you are trying to reach has been powered down, or is temporarily offline." Is this a pop culture reference or just a clever message?

posted by cozenedindigo to Society & Culture (5 answers total)

Well, that sounds quite similar to the kind of automatic messages I get when I try to call people on their mobile phone and they don't have voice mail and their phone is turned off...
posted by ddaavviidd at 8:08 AM on January 15, 2012

I always thought that "powered down" was the British equivalent of "turned off"?
posted by dfriedman at 8:12 AM on January 15, 2012

I always thought that "powered down" was the British equivalent of "turned off"?

Turned off is much more common, powered down sounds American to me.

The voicemail, to me, sounds like someone trying to come up with an interesting message.
posted by ellieBOA at 8:22 AM on January 15, 2012

It is neither.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:23 AM on January 15, 2012 [1 favorite]

Unless it's someone very obliquely referring to the Grandaddy song "I'm on Standby", I just think their cell is off and they have no voicemail.
posted by scruss at 9:19 AM on January 15, 2012