Why I Don't Check Voice Mail

It happened for the second time in a week. Last week a friend was shocked when I told her that I check my voice mail every two to three weeks. This week, I was admonished by another friend for missing a voice mail that was left for me. It wasn't really important but it was supposed to be hilarious. One of those if you didn't hear it the first time, it wasn't funny anymore messages. I apologized to Willie, one of my closest friends. I did feel like a dufus telling him that I haven't yet checked my voice mail from last week. It felt like I was telling him "listen here you unimportant bugger, I don't think your message is important enough for me to check!" I did miss a classic joke that he left on it, an inside joke which we have shared throughout the years in different forms. Classic because the elements of the joke include, director M. Night Shayamalan, an old lady, and a ghost. But that is a story for another day. Today is dedicated to my case for the eradication of voice mail.

For the last year or so, I have allowed my personal voice mail to accumulate unencumbered for at least a couple of weeks at a time. Every time I check my voice mail, it is not unusual to hear the voice mail lady say something like "You have 17 new messages". I then proceed to go through the messages, deleting messages from my friends with whom I have already spoken to since the message first landed in my voice mail. It is amazing how fast I can clear my messages.

"Message received, November 1st, from phone number 917-555-4578...BEEP...deleted. I spoke to Lizzy last night, I am sure if there was something important, I would have heard it from her yesterday. Next message. And so it goes, all 17 of them gone in under a minute.

Seriously, do most people actually leave any message worth listening to? "Hi Jeev, this is Trina, just give me call when you get this message." Look, I saw your name on my Missed Call list, and I have already called you, much faster than I would have if I had waited until I could listen to my voice mail before returning your call. If there is an urgent message, text it! Trust me, everyone gets SMS text messages instantly. Most of the time, if you have Sprint.

The present state of voice mail is antiquated. It has no place in our fast-paced society. In fact, I use a voice mail service called Google Voice,which has a brilliant feature that uses voice recognition to send a transcript of any message left on my voice mail to my gmail account instantaneously. The only downside to using Google Voice is that you'll get transcripts like the following:

"Yosemite to doing. I'm at 9 o'clock over here so I'll be around for the maybe an hour or so and then I'm gonna go to sweet of. Talk to you soon. Bye."

This was an actual transcript of a message my sister left me. Yes, it looks ridiculous, but I got the gist of the message; she'll be around to take my call an hour after 9pm her time. Message received.

So, I continue to let my voice mail accumulate. Periodically, I'll get annoyed inquires as to messages left on my voice mail, but I could always feign a lost voice mail easier than I can make an excuse for a missed birthday or anniversary.

However, use this technique at your own risk. If your husband or wife takes you to task for forgetting to pick up Little Jimmy from daycare, don't even think about using this as an excuse for that missed voice mail.