I hate voicemail. It is probably because a high proportion of my voicemail is stuff I was supposed to do but forgot or meetings that I’m late for or it’s a recruiter that wants me to call them back and decides that right then is a good time to take five minutes to say not much of anything in particular.
So when I bought my Blackjack, I just didn’t set up voicemail and it has been over a month now. People were suspect though because the Cingular message they are given is cryptic and makes it seem like my phone got cut off or something.
Then I found SimulScribe. (probably via CoolHunting though I can’t be sure)
You set up their voicemail number instead of Cingular’s (here’s [partial] instructions for the Blackjack — the rest come in an email after you sign up) and here’s the best part:
They do text-to-speech on your message and email it to you. Ah.. that is so much better. Thank you SimulScribe. I chose the pay no recurring fee and just a quarter for each message.
Above is Emily’s test message to me. She really said “You are a geek face”, but that is totally close enough.
that’s awesome… but I can’t seem to find a plan that doesn’t have a per-message fee (0.25 per message is fine, but not sure I would want to pay $9.95 a month for this)
Much to my delight, my office in Sydney does not have voicemail! If I’m not at my desk, it gets kicked back to reception, and they take a verbal message. It’s fantastic not having that anxiety-inducing red light blinking at you, most likely indicating there is someone pissed off at you; I tended to check my vms once a week, with much dread.
So yes, I relate to hating voicemail.