Taking Back the Beep

Image by Lyn Millett via Flickr

Technology Thursday

There are many reasons to loathe cell phone companies. Verizon is who we're stuck with right now, and I pretty much dread every interaction with them. I'm contemplating switching from a Blackberry to an IPhone, but I've heard equally bad, if not worse, things about AT&T. David Pogue is a technology columnist for the New York Times and he has begun a campaign to get the cell phone companies to stop forcing us to listen to those 15-30 second automated voice mail messages. As he puts it:

Suppose you call my cell to leave me a message. First you hear my own voice: “Hi, it’s David Pogue. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you”–and THEN you hear a 15-second canned carrier message.
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These messages are outrageous for two reasons. First, they waste your time. Good heavens: it’s 2009. WE KNOW WHAT TO DO AT THE BEEP.
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Do we really need to be told to hang up when we’re finished!? Would anyone, ever, want to “send a numeric page?” Who still carries a pager, for heaven’s sake? Or what about “leave a callback number?” We can SEE the callback number right on our phones!
[...]
Second, we’re PAYING for these messages. These little 15-second waits add up–bigtime.

There have been a variety of responses to this. Many, of course, share his outrage. Couple this silly lack of flexibility (if I'm feeling charitable) or outright gouging (if I'm not) with the fact that the telcos are completely ripping people off by charging anything at all for text messaging (which Pogue has addressed in other posts). Add in their consistently poor customer service and few are inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. Some wonder whether this campaign is a good use of Pogue's bully pulpit. But I've always hated the reaction to someone becoming passionate about something that says: "Hey, people are starving in [X], how dare you care about your petty concern!" If he can use his column to force a, yes, comparatively small and trivial, change for the good in the world. Then hey, that's still net-net a better world.

It's been two weeks and it seems like he might be having some success. At least with some of the companies. Verizon (my carrier), of course, is being useless. Apparently the Verizon PR guy's initial suggestion was that people just turn off voicemail altogether if they don't want to hear those messages. Uhh... Buh-huh?? I don't use my phone much anymore for voice communication, but I think this would be a good change. I pay a flat rate, so cost isn't so much of an issue, but those little 15-second intervals do add up over time. And time is something I find to be in increasingly short supply. Corporations that waste our time should change their ways. So let's all:

Take Back the Beep!

You can see more real-time updates about this topic by searching at Twitter on the tag "#takebackthebeep".

Comments

[Katherine]

This is too funny. I am totally on board -- and I know my brother will be too once I tell him about it. He's always complaining about my long voicemail greetings.