voice mail is for people who are not me

[jlh]

I've gotten to the point where I pretty much hate the telephone. I only talk to a few people on it regularly, all people who are not local. I used to talk on the phone all the time. And the oddest thing is, most of the people I talk to on the phone are male friends! (This is particularly true now that Mother has gone deaf, so we communicate via email.)

I also hate voice mail—hate it to the extent that I stopped checking it at some point and so Cingular or AT&T or whatever just turned the thing off, and I can't say as I care that much. If you want me, send me a text or an email, please. Anyway, apparently I'm not the only one hating on voice mail—there's a whole piece about it at the NYTimes, which I saw via Jezebel, and the blogger there hates voice mail, too.

At least my anxieties are trendy. I have to agree with that one guy who talks about how there are so many ways to reach anyone—I'd rather just cut off one of them.

Comments

[shakespearechic.livejournal.com]

To me voice mail is useful in the sense of I don't want to talk to people on the phone either - so they can just tell me what it is they are calling about in the message and I can decide my next course of action!! This applies to work too...

[mistress-mab.livejournal.com]

LOL I am not alone!

I haven't had voice mail in 2 years. I hate, hate, hate talking on the phone. Because of the phone I have, I have to have the most expensive data plan that Cingular offers. They thought I was crazy when I said, "take off the voice mail." My cell phone is basically just portable email for me.

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

I also hate the phone. I ignore voicemails--sometimes. It's weird. I can't talk to my mom on the phone anymore either and my dislike definitely started after she died.

[mr-cutiepants.livejournal.com]

HEAR HEAR!

I hate voicemail too. {high fives you}. jeremiah can tell you that I used to have a VM message that just said, "hey, don't leave a VM. I never check my VM. Text me instead. or email. Unless it's an emergency, in which case you should call 911." or something along those lines.

What I want is a service that translates your VM to a text blurb... so I can just READ the idiotic meanderings of people instead of having to sit through them for the full 10 minutes or whatever!

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

I'm required to check voice mail at work. Ugh. We have the equivalent of voice mail on our combined phone/answering machine. But I hate it too. Sometimes I think email was invented specifically for me :D

[evil-erato.livejournal.com]

You know of my hatred of talking on the phone, so I'll merely not frantically from my perch on the couch. :)

[sisterpandora.livejournal.com]

I'm not fond of listening to voicemail so I got something called SpinVox that converts the voice message into a text so I can just read it instead. The translation rate isn't always spot on, but it's correct enough that I've kept it.

[lillijulianne.livejournal.com]

i'm all hating of these things right now, but i don't know if it's just a preference or part of depression. i used to love talking on the phone. it is interesting that so many people feel oppressed bu the technology, though...

[jenncho.livejournal.com]

My former best friend and I stopped talking a year and a half ago. For the last six months of our friendship we barely saw each other and instead texted or talked on the phone. I hated it and became disgusted with my phone. After we stopped talking I ended up getting rid of my phone. It was the most liberating thing I was able to do for myself at the time. I went without a phone for almost 9 months until people started getting pissed that they could never get in contact with me and so I had to get a new one.

If I got rid of the thing tomorrow I wouldn't exactly shed a tear. It's $80 a month I could put towards something less annoying.

[shewalksonroses.livejournal.com]

I hate hate hate the telephone. I think it's a combination of my hearing loss and my performance anxiety - I have problems hearing people on the other end and aside from a select few people, I can't call someone without scripting the phone call ahead of time. It SUCKS considering that my friends and family are so wide-spread - especially now that I'm in the UK - and I always feel a bit ashamed and uncool that I don't call people to catch up. :-/

I hate voicemail, too, mostly because the little icon or beep or whatever NEVER GOES AWAY until you check the damn thing, and I just have better things to do with my time. :P My mobile is basically just a tiny internet computer, with chat (text) facilities.

(Also? I want to be Ianto in this icon.)