It’s official. I’m sick of voice mail.
Surely you know what voice mail is. Call pretty much any major business or office these days, and you’ll be greeted with no, not an actual receptionist, but an automated voice to direct your call.
In theory, this seems simple enough. To counteract lost or garbled messages, misdirected calls and incompetent receptionists, an automated phone system seems (in theory, remember) to be an ideal solution.
Unfortunately, you may be like me and hate leaving messages everywhere. It’s bad enough feeling self-conscious leaving a message on somebody’s home answering machine:
"Hi .... uh ... it’s ... uh, Sean. It’s ... uh ... um, Monday at 3:30 - no, 4:30....make that 4:31.. and I, uh ... just called to - um, say ... uh ... hi... Uh, bye."
Now, thanks to the dreaded voice mail, you have to go through all that at a business level! A quick look around quiet, suburban Thornhill would indicate that even the City of Vaughan and York Region Board Of Education’s offices have converted to these automated voices of doom. It’s getting impossible to even talk to a real person anymore!
As a voice-mail veteran, I have come to learn its complexities, and how to survive in this voice mail, information superhighway, Jetsons-type technology kind of world. Here, then, is a brief description of the typical voice mail system and some tips on how to live through the experience.
First, you will get the greeting message. It will sound something like "Hello and thank you for calling XYZ industries." Simple enough, right?
Wrong. Because after you receive the friendly, preÐrecorded greeting, you will no doubt get nailed with a variety of options.
"If you are calling from a touch-tone phone, press 1. If you know the extension you are trying to reach, enter it now, followed by Star, then 653, then Pound. If you want a company directory, press 3458. If you’ve forgotten why you were calling by now, then please hang up."
Any of these options would be fine to choose. The only one you should never select would be "If you do not have a touch-tone phone, then please stay on the line for customer assistance". This is not a good idea.
Why? , you may ask. Because chances are that no one there is trained in the art of customer assistance. It’s a good bet that, even after 30 minutes of holding, you’ve got a better chance of reaching accounts payable than the ficticious customer assistance.
So now you’ve got hold of the party you wish to speak to, and what happens? "Hi, it’s so-and-so at XYZ department. I’m either away from my desk or on the other line."
Translation: "Hi, it’s so-and-so at XYZ department. I’m not actually away from my desk and I’m on the other line, I just know I don’y want to speak with you."
To give you fair warning, I should tell you right now that you probably won’t hear back from that person until leaving an average of 19.7 messages.
This could be because you haven’t deposited the message properly.
What? Deposit the message properly? Thanks to voice mail’s endless supply of options, you are forced to go through a series of message deposit choices before the message has been delivered. This may include: sending the message with normal or urgent delivery, adding onto or re-recording your initial message, playing soft music in the background of your message to make it seem like you’re singing karaoke, and digitally altering your accent to make it sound like the voice of James Earl Jones.
That, in a nutshell, is why I’m so sick of voice mail. If you disagree with my theories, then leave me a message. I’ll probably never receive it.
