KMFF
Yes, you can turn the answering machine off.

Jeff B.
Telephones that include answering machines always have the ability to "enable" or "disable" the answering machine portion of the phone, as well as the number of rings before pick-up. Usually there is an On-Off button. If not, it is usually an Menu item selection.

Dusty
With most answer machines, you have 3 options. When you set it up, you can record your own message (or just use the default one) that will play after you set the ring count for it to record or you can set it up to just play a message with out going into the record mode, or you can defeat the purpose of having it in the first place by just turning off the record function. The first 2 are generally selectable, so you can be in the normal record mode when you want to be and then change to the message only mode when you want to. The phone portion should have a caller id log feature that will tell you who called when you weren't taking messages.