Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
What’s the most effective way to actually connect with a business entity nowadays? Apparently the answer isn’t voice mail. Both Coca-Cola and JPMorgan have abandoned voice mail in segments of their offices. You can read more about their decisions here and here.
Two aspects of the decision surprise me:
- The apparent ardent desire among consumers to see voice mail fade away.
- Workers already had abandoned checking voice mail.
I can’t imagine how there can be one consumer who hasn’t tried a variety of ways to reach a business only to be thwarted by technology. We all, at some time, have one urgent question: How do I reach a human?
If I can have a conversation, I can:
- have an oral exchange about why I’m calling;
- be directed to the best person to help me (I’ve probably already tried the website, thank you very much);
- have a Q&A with that person to resolve the matter;
- settle the issue in the matter of minutes or at least have action steps for the business’s employee or for me.
Sometimes a call is the most efficient and satisfying way to resolve a matter.
As a society, I believe we’ve come to rely too much on arm’s-length ways to connect with each other. If I don’t hear your voice, I’m missing out on an additional way to understand the layers of meaning in your communication. Are you being sarcastic, trying for humor, weeping and wailing? Instead of talking, we resort to emoticons if we think someone might not read our tapped out message with the tone we intended. That’s not the same thing as voice inflections or the exchange of words via a conversation.
I find it distressing that, according to the articles I’ve read on this voice-mail-less approach to doing business, the messages that individuals’ hear in response to calling is that they should “call back” or “try again.” Are you kidding me? At least have the courtesy to tell me that my attempt to reach you via phone is futile. And, by the way, if I’m trying to reach you via phone, we probably already have a relationship (e.g., you have my money, JPMorgan). (Yes, I do recognize that, according to the reports, these businesses aren’t shutting down voice mail that’s “face out”–directed to the public. Yet.)
Jamie Dimon’s belief that his JPMorgan Chase employees are carrying devices in their pockets through which people can reach them is disingenuous to me. We all know we look at our screens to see whom is calling before we answer, and we choose to accept or decline that call. And, ironically, if we decline, that call rolls over into, yup, voice mail.
Which some people choose never to listen to even on their mobile devices. Including our families. Kids ignore parents’ calls regularly. My two teenage grandsons have informed me that I should never leave voice mails for them. Because they never check. Calling is okay, but texting is best. All right, I at least know the rules.
But another family member, who shall remain unidentified, functions in a dysfunctional fashion in his business connections. I needed to reach him once about something rather urgent. So I called his business cell phone. He didn’t pick up. Okay, he’s a busy guy. I left a voice mail.
Multiple hours later, I hadn’t heard back from him. I texted him. No response.
I drove to his office and found, once I arrived, that he claimed he never had received communication from me. He did add, as I stood dumbfounded by his desk, that he never listens to his voice mail. But he had promised me in his voice mail message that he would return my call. All this on a business cell phone. I later learned that others, who call him regularly, know not to bother to leave a message. Waste of time.
I get it. I really do.
We’re all overwhelmed by the various ways people can reach us: office phone and its voice mail, cell phone and its voice mail, email, text, direct messaging on Twitter and Facebook, or even just a tweet or a FB entry that everyone sees. Oh, yeah, and we still have mail and fax machines. (Well, if you’re desperate enough, you might try those two antiquated methods.)
Each of us responds to these many open channels by shutting out certain ones. We ignore any attempts at contacting us through select methods.
Unfortunately, we’ve all drawn the line in different places. No rules exist as to what is appropriate or what is universally viewed as personal space. Which is frustrating enough, but at least let’s be honest about what we’ll respond to and what we don’t even check. And if we pledge to get back to a person through a certain method, then we need to make that a priority, not an empty promise.
I recall attempting to reach a publishing executive about a document I needed signed quickly. I tried email. No response. I tried a phone call. The individual did tell me, as I listened to the message before leaving my voice mail, that I would receive a quicker response if I sent an email. Uh, well, at least I knew not to try calling again.
Finally, out of desperation, I sent an email to his boss. Yeah, I heard back within the half-hour.
Writing is a business. Have you thought through the technological divide between your personal and professional life?
Have you drawn lines about how you’ll respond to readers’ attempts to reach you?
Have you communicated those lines?
Before you try to connect with someone at a publishing house or an agent, do you stop to consider what’s appropriate, or what that person’s preferred method of communication is?
How can we foster better ways to let each other know how to make that long-distance connection?
TWEETABLES
Should business voice mail die? Click to tweet.
Have you thought through the technological divide between your personal and professional life? Click to tweet.
Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Ethereal messages ride upon air
winged by science brighter and better,
but to talk to me, put your bum in a chair,
grab a pen and write me a letter.
Good one, Andrew. A friend and I are now exchanging old-fashioned handwritten letters. I love seeing an envelope from her in my mailbox.
I love that, too, seeing a letter in a mailbox, with a handwritten address. Something about handwriting tells so much about a person, things that we can learn no other way.
Well, now we know. Thanks for the limerick, Andrew.
Wow, this reminds me of trying to get a hold of my health insurance company. Difficult. Well, my husband works at a small Bible camp and we respond to anyone who attempts to reach us by whatever method they choose to use. It takes a lot of time too, but he has to, it is his job and he does it well. I have a hard time imagining myself inundated with readers attempting to contact me, but I suppose I would prefer facebook and I would rather not be e-mailed or called if I had to cut something out.
Kristen, as you noted regarding the Bible camp, responding to those who connect with the camp is a lot of work–but it is your husband’s job. That’s part of what I don’t get. If it’s your job, exactly how do you decide to ignore a communication method your employer has provided you with, under the assumption you will respond to people through it.
Facebook is a good way to connect with readers since it has pretty firm boundaries–except for direct messaging.
Before contacting anyone, I try to find their preferred method of contact.
And I agree that a telephone call can be much more effective for many conversations – drives me crazy when a family member tries to text about issues that really require a 10 minute discussion.
Still, I dislike leaving and receiving voice mail. Some offices MUST use it – like a doctor’s office. For others it does not seem to save time, but actually delay action on things.
Sheila, I think responses are delayed when voice mails are left because the other party is CHOOSING to slow down the response time, not that it really takes more time.
Now that I got that quatrain out of my head…I do have a few rules for contact.
* If I publicize it (i.s. give email, FB and Twitter accounts in my letterhead or on my virtual business card), people have a right to contact me in those media. I therefore have to monitor, and respond if appropriate.
* If it’s a response to a public statement I made, I have to respond, or at least acknowledge. If someone read what I wrote, it’s a sign of at least a kind of respect, and I’m required by courtesy to respond in kind.
* If an incoming communication has been solicited or is seriously connected with business, I need to respond.
* If a communication is unsolicited, I can ignore it, but I must be careful…that knock at the door could be God in disguise.
* My criteria for ignoring an unsolicited communication are provenance and content. If I get an email, out of the blue, from Michael Hyatt, I’ll respond, as he’s a serious individual who would not contact me without good reason. If I have no idea who the sender is (and I do google unsolicited contacts) I’m less likely to respond unless the content is compelling. Content that is never compelling is a sales pitch…I have what I need, thanks.
* If I ever tire of responding to blog comments, I can state plainly in the header that I do not generally respond to comments…or turn off comments altogether. Not going to happen, though, because comments are my lifeblood!
* For what it’s worth, I have not had a phone in the house since last fall (Barb has her cell). And I went through April and May with no email access. The world didn’t end. People who needed to reach me found a way, and people I needed to contact…they got letters. I wonder if there are a few people still trying to remember how to open an envelope.
* And Janet, if you ever try to reach me and I don’t respond, and in desperation you call the boss…that will be Barbara, and I will be a dead man.
Those are excellent Rules of Contact, Andrew.
And I don’t think I’ll need to turn to Barbara to help me get in touch with you. If you don’t respond to my overtures, I know something serious is going on with you. That’s what you call reliability.
Personally, I’d really hate it if voicemail went away. Barbara and I met online, and our first telephone conversation (prompted by my nearly cutting off my arm…clumsy!) involved VM at its best and worst.
We had been corresponding by email, but after the orthopedic surgeon did his bit, I came home from the hospital to find the VM light blinking (I had begged the use of a computer to let Barbara know I would be slow in emailing, because I was limited to one hand for a bit).
My hand was shaking so much I nearly hit delete, but with a suitable blast of ice to the heart (and some Tourette Treasures that surprised even the dogs) I pressed the right button and heard, for the first time, the voice that has become the center of my life.
“Hi, Andrew, this is Barbara. I got your email, and I’m sorry about your arm. I thought this might be an easier way to move things along. Please give me a call; I’ll be up until eleven, Indiana time.”
Actually, I think that’s what she said. I kind of got lost in heart-flutters after “Hi.”
Not wanting to appear over-eager, I decided to wait for a bit…not look too anxious by returning the call immediately. So I waited until just before eleven…and got VM.
“Uh, Hi, Barbara…this is Andrew…but you already knew that. Well, I’m returning your call. The one you made? Yeah, well, it was nice to hear your voice, and oh…CRAP! Oh, heck, I’m sorry, you’re in Indiana and I’m in Texas and it’s eleven here and you’re one hour behind…nono, you’re ahead, so it’s twelve there, right?Oh, crap, I am SO sorry. I’m usually smarter than this. Really! Well, please give me a call. I really like your voice. You sounded like my fifth-grade teacher…no, I really liked her…uh, talk to you soon? Bye?”
I dropped the phone before I could get it into the cradle, so Barbara heard a somewhat amplified version of “Oh, CRAP!” as my final salutation.
Ten minutes later, the phone rang. Barbara had been up, and she’d screened the call, and it took ten minutes for her to stop laughing enough that the Pepsi she’d drank didn’t come out her nose.
What would romance be without voicemail?
Incoherent words from Andrew? Ahh, the power of Barbara.
Yeah, well..I made up a sign and taped it to her bedroom door (I no longer really sleep, so she needs her own room)…
Brave
Able
Resilient
Beautiful
Altruistic
Ready-to-help
Adorable
You made me laugh out loud, Andrew. 🙂 Those heart flutters do a body in every single time. 😉
And they make a large part of life truly worthwhile!
I believe in communication. Communicate the rules clearly, and I’ll follow them. Don’t say, “Leave a message” if you don’t listen to VM. Don’t give me your email address if you don’t routinely read them. If you want a letter, I need a mailing address.
I once called Toshiba’s corporate office with a complaint. The very nice receptionist offered to put me through to voice mail, assuring me that someone would call me within 24 hours. It was Maundy Thursday. I didn’t want to spend my Good Friday waiting for a call. I asked for an email address instead. “We don’t have email,” she stated. “You’re Toshiba,” I wailed, “of course you have email.” Some rules are hard to take.
I can sort of understand Toshiba’s position…most lay people have a hard time explaining technical issues, and having someone with experience ask leading questions to find out what’s really going on can get the problem solved much quicker, with satisfaction accruing to both parties. Customer service can be rough. I once tried to talk a fellow through clearing a jam in an M-60, but he was in the middle of a firefight, had no experience on the gun, and missed every other word or so. The effort was not successful, and he died.
You’ve given me a lot to think through, Janet. Some of this I’ve begun to think through. For my professional life, I have an email address. And for certain people in this aspect of my life, they’ll have my cell number. I don’t give my personal number out to people, in general. I do screen calls, because we get so many automated calls now. If I don’t know the number, I let the call go to voice mail. Then I listen and determine the next step—usually it’s delete. I appreciate voice mail because hearing a person’s voice gives me some insight about the person’s emotions, I can hear inflections and have an idea of the bigger picture before I return the call.
I guess I need to think about how I will respond to readers’ when they contact me, and set those parameters early. What do most other writers do?
When trying to contact someone professionally, I do try to determine their preferred mode of contact. Doing this seems like common sense, if I desire a response from that person.
Jeanne, I use voice mail as a way to screen unwanted calls as well (as in sales calls). If a person didn’t have the opportunity to leave a message, I’d be facing the dilemma of answering the call or just letting the person on the other end drift away–which might not be my choice, if I knew the nature of the call.
I think most authors respond to readers via Facebook and Twitter–direct messaging on both is responded to after evaluating each message.
My husband has had the same office voice mail message for 20, yes, **TWENTY** years.
(I tell people that his idea of a surprise is waiting for the toast, and his idea of a change is socks. White socks. But black for special occasions. Wooooo. Wild thang.)
Sometimes, when he travels beyond the reach of a phone, I call his machine to hear his voice.
When I’d travel to Bolivia, and I couldn’t reach him at home, I’d call work. He NEVER checks the answering machine at home, but he always checks the one at work. When I finally did get through, always a few days later? He’d say “It was so great to hear your voice”.
*
We don’t pay for a data plan on my cell phone, yet.
When I move closer to publication, we will. We’ll also spring for a Canada-US texting plan , so I can bombard…uh…I mean…”bless”… my agent with wisdom and hockey stats.
THAT, and so she can reach me when she needs to. Which I am SURE will be like, every day.
*
Funny how you mentioned readers reaching me. I checked my blog comments last night. WHOA. There were 2 very recent, very nasty comments on two different 2013 blog posts. One appeared to be the stalker of the actor I interviewed in June of that year, the comments were left on that specific blogpost. The other seemed to be from the same person, but on a different post, one about why I write what I write…telling me I have no right to pen anything about Native Americans. And telling me in great detail why I shouldn’t. WOW, just, WOW.
I messaged the actor, who has struggled with this same person for years. The comments on my blog were almost verbatim of the hundreds of comments he’s received and what he’s posted for his followers to see. He felt bad that this person had lit into me, and asked me to send the post to him so his lawyers can trace the IP address of the anonymous commenter. Because I saw the comments well after midnight, and was not thinking about forensic IP hunters, I deleted them.
I have a feeling this person will be back. As well as the commenter who said “blah blah blah I love your work, feel free to call me if your fridge needs repairing”.
Okaaaaaay. Tilts head. Suuure.
Deleted that too.
I have a “play nicely or go home” message on my blog. For the most part, that’s been all that I need. With crazies, nothing is enough, other than the blocking feature.
*
As for connecting with a pub house, I’ll defer to Mary Keeley’s wisdom, and do whatever she says. It’s so much easier doing what I’m told than digging my foot out of my mouth.
Don’t need black socks, when you have a can of Kiwi boot polish.
Jennifer, crazy blog commenters are always tricky dealing with–and send us off on emotional rabbit trails.
You might want to check with your agent before you invest in Canda-US texting. I have no idea how Mary views her clients contacting her that way, but don’t assume that’s her preference.
I would definitely check with her first. If she prefers pink flamingo displays, I can go with that too.
The upside of having a Canada-US texting plan is that almost all my writer friends live in the States. 😉
Janet, I understand communication via email and text when the recipient is going to be busy, so they can respond at their leisure. That doesn’t mean I like doing it–I simply recognize the need to use these methods. A phone call is the closest thing to face-to-face conversation (other than Skype or FaceTime, I suppose), and I like them best of all–mainly because I can glean nuance and intent better from a call than from written communication. And leaving a voicemail? I do it with people whom I know check their messages–some don’t, which I think is absolutely rude. I gather you feel the same way.
Have your voicemail call my voicemail sometime. We’ll do lunch. : )
Richard, yes, I do view those who have voice mail but ignore it as rude–and unprofessional.
And, yes, there is the voice mail tag-you’re-it that we can get caught up in. I try to suggest in my voice mail times I’m most likely to be available to receive the call back, or I suggest we use email to set up a specific time to talk. I’m always trying to be efficient, for both parties’ sakes.
Thanks for nailing a topic that’s been driving me crazy the last few years. Each person has settled on their preferred methods of communication and has shut down others. Personally, I can’t stand texting. It takes so much LONGER to have a text conversation than a phone call or email message. Typing with one finger drives me bonkers! But I have to text because it’s the only way two of my three children (and some of my friends) communicate.
Common etiquette (if it even still exists 🙂 ) hasn’t caught up. I believe we need to have most of these communication methods available and we need to check them at regular intervals, because ignoring people is rude. We need to respond at an appropriate pace and we must give others grace in response time. Please do NOT get annoyed that I didn’t respond to the text you sent five minutes ago – I’m trying to work! And please, please, please extend great gobs of grace to those who can’t keep up with the frenetic pace of technology, especially our older friends. Do them the courtesy of contacting them in the way they prefer, not the way you prefer.
Now I’m off to check my two email accounts, my Facebook messages, my Twitters “at’s,” my Pinterest messages, and do a quick check on my phone for texts & voice mails. Then I might actually have time to write 🙂
Sarah, good point that younger communicators shouldn’t force older individuals into methods that are foreign to the older person.
I recall being at a Verizon store one day when an elderly woman came in and said her children and grandchildren demanded she buy a phone that she could use to text. Her question: “What’s texting?”
Seriously? Her family was asking someone who probably has poor eyesight and arthritis in her hands to text? That’s an unkindness at best.
Oh, that’s just mean – and I’ve heard it too many times. In the long run, it comes down to respect.
I have nothing new to add to the discussion, Sarah, so I’m going to second your comment. Life is busy, and it can be overwhelming not just to keep up with new forms of communication but also to check them as frequently as we ought. Wish we could all sit down over tea and biscuits.
Well, we CAN. Come to my mesa, and if you’ll help me pull out the tables and chairs, I’ll have the tea and biscuits waiting. Constant Comment OK? We also have Early Grey, English Breakfast, and Darjeeling.
This is a tough one for me. We always want to be heard and heard now. But we aren’t always so good to want to listen. It seems we want to listen on our terms, our time, get in line. Life is busy. Maybe our settings need adjusting. 🙂
With my new cell phone, I have to purposely go to a certain location to see if I have voice mail. It doesn’t loudly inform me. I’m awful at checking it because it’s different from my last phone. I’m sure there is a way to change the settings, but … that’s one more thing I need to do! 🙂
And I’ve missed a ton of phone calls on my cell because I have to turn down the volume in many locations, to not be rude, and then I forget to turn it up again. And I end up being rude anyway. 🙂 Settings.
And if someone only has my home number, I’m sure they are wondering why they can’t contact me. We got Netflix … and when the phone would ring, the Netflix would disconnect. So, our home answering machine and phone is disconnected right now. That reveals much about our household. 🙂 More settings that probably need adjusting. 🙂
Adjusting is a constant challenge in this setting. 🙂
You’re so right, Shelli. Adjusting IS a constant challenge in this setting.
I’m trying to figure out how to reconfigure my outdoor watering system so I can stop watering my lawn but still water my plants. (I live in drought-ridden California.) Operating the control panel requires a master’s in engineering.
Oooh, tender topic. If I want to talk to my children, I text them. No email. If I want the chimney-sweeper guy to come to my house and help me get the elephant off the roof that’s trying to get in my wood stove chimney pipe, I call his number from the phone book and get – you guessed it – “leave a message.” Which he never returned. And okay, it wasn’t an elephant, it was a bird, but I had to capture it (by hand) in my wood stove and take it outside. I called that guy four times and never heard from him. Guess who I won’t be calling again? Regarding agents/editors? I find out their preferred method of contact. Regarding my readers? Most contact me via Facebook, email, and my website. I respond to every contact that comes through, and always check my junk mail file. Yes, the rules are changing. Like a moving target.
Davalynn, you seem to be living by the same rules I am. At least there are two of us!
I did forget about an author’s website as I great way for readers to contact you. But, once again, if the author doesn’t respond to the “Contact me” messages, please, everyone, don’t put that info on your website.
Very interesting, and such a part of our lives now. I’ve also had businesses not answer voice mail, frustrating. For my writing work, email is the standard method and it works very well. If it is something that needs to be discussed, then we use the phone. However, I use a cell phone only when traveling, and it does not text so that is out completely. If my kids told me I could only contact them by—-xyz—-I would laugh them out of the place. When Mom calls-or emails,-or texts-or hollers out the back door, there’s only one thing they do. Answer. Yeah, it’s a Mom thing. So sorry for your relative who was so disrespectful, Janet. That should never happen. Won’t listen to voice mails? Disconnect it and make it easy on everyone. In many ways, computers are giving us the opportunity and authorization to be rude, thoughtless, uncaring and extremely selfish in our dealings with people, whether family or not.
Wanda, yes, rules of etiquette have fallen by the wayside in our technological era. We deal with not only individuals who won’t respond, but also people who somehow break through our boundaries and contact us via technology we’ve cordoned off for personal use. It doesn’t occur to those people that their attempted communication is viewed as invasive by the recipient. For example, just because I accept your friend request on Facebook doesn’t mean I really view you as a personal friend who can contact me via direct message.
Great topic Janet that we all deal with daily. I tried to contact the company that I use to back up my computer this weekend and learned they only take calls about billing questions over the phone and all technical issues are handled through email. Really?? That was so frustrating to me because I had a technical issue that I needed to talk to a live person about. It sent the message to me that the main concern the company has it to collect my money!
I don’t think that in the business world voice mail should die. We might have to function differently in our personal lives with grown children (mine also tell me don’t leave a message, text me) but if a company has voice mail set up on their phones, their business associates should be required to listen to their messages and call people back. But I’m old school, and unfortunately, this might be yet another change that we have to get accustomed to.
Gayla, that’s a good point regarding the lack of phone tech support; the company was communicating they only wanted to talk about their getting your money. We should all think that through as we create our boundaries. What are we saying is important to us when we establish those boundaries?
My daughter and I had this discussion last week! She can’t get two people in her company to respond to her emails, even after she asked them in person at a meeting for their preferred contact method. They both said, “Oh, email is best,” but they don’t respond. I think I’ll mention to her the idea of emailing the boss. That may get some action!
My kids don’t listen to voice mail but they do at least call me back when they see a missed call. My mom (76 y/o) texts because she wants to keep in touch with her grandkids.
Carrie, I wish your daughter every success with going up the ladder to elicit a response from her coworkers. I had the added incentive of book sales and money to be made to offer the publishing executive’s boss. It was kind of magical the way it all worked out for me.
So true, so true, so true, so frustratingly true. Yet, I myself can be part of the problem. I don’t always keep my cell phone near me and the landline phone is history. My elderly parents, who live out in the boonies, worry that they won’t be able to reach me when an emergency happens, and that’s a legitimate concern. I fail to respond quickly because I have the option and I am busy or the phone is dead or I left it in the car… Yesterday I was thinking about the days of homesteading and the pre-phone culture, how quiet it would have been, how a letter would have great significance and be read and reread. Even farming, like I was raised, we watched the sun overhead to know when to take the lunch and learned to measure time by where the sun was in the sky and the length of the shadows. Yes, we had a clock we kept by the thermos, but often the breaks were few and far between. The quiet was nice. As a culture we’re going to have to address this issue. The disconnect is growing between customer and service. I, too, had a major problem and ran into phone tag situations. The pipe main to the house was majorly leaking under a huge tree. After the water company turned off the water, I had the dickens of a time getting a company to repond and then follow through. I learned to persist but even then it took a few days.
So true, Norma. To quote Romeo and Juliet: “All have failed.”
I do not carry a cell phone because service is unreliable where I live. It’s a senseless expense. We have a land line only. The looks I get when I say I don’t have a cell appear the same as if I said I only eat raw meat from animals I hunted and killed myself. It’s ridiculous. (Note: I neither hunt nor eat raw flesh.)
Not everyone lives in a city. Not everyone has access to to high speed internet, cable TV, public transportation or a business of any kind that’s open 24 hours a day. We have to go to the post office (only four miles) for our mail because they don’t deliver. The nearest grocery store is 30 miles away (our village store closed).
I check the messages on our answering machine (yes, we have an actual machine). I return every call. I respond to email and physical mail.
I don’t object to leaving messages, but not returning calls is just plain rude. I don’t know when things shifted from “Your call is important to us” to can’t be bothered, but I do know one thing: If someone wants my business, they darn well better answer the phone and promptly return messages.
Elissa, part of the frustration of voice mail is that the message still states, “Your call is important to us.” But actions do indeed speak louder than words.
Elissa, I hear you about being off the cellular network. There are lots of places in NM away from the main highways with no cell towers for many miles. Most people here wouldn’t think it odd to be cell-free. For years, I worked behind a fence where carrying a cell phone was a security infraction, so I had a TracFone locked in my car and almost never turned it on. It was rather nice not being on an electronic tether, but my Minnesota sister said it would drive her crazy not to be accessible full time. I’m outside the fence now, but I still don’t carry the phone most of the time. I do check it when I walk by, however, and I try to respond right away to messages: text, voice, or email (iPhone is great for reading this blog as soon as it appears but not for entering a comment. The box doesn’t scroll right for checking before submitting). I gladly adopt whichever is the preferred form for each person.
Voice-to-voice is the best for work when I can take notes and clarify issues instantly. I’m a people person and love that personal connection. Voice-mail is fine, but mostly for playing tag to establish personal contact. I like e-mail for professional communication if I can’t speak directly to a person. It leaves a searchable record that prevents miscommunication and lets the forgetful among us refresh our memories on details before calling someone.
My company implemented voice-mail to e-mail conversion software, and it was a riot. It couldn’t handle accents, and it got confused even with the clearest speakers. My team laughed ourselves to tears when it converted “exploratory express” to “chicken breast” and we got a baffled response from our colleague who read the translation while on travel.
Carol, thanks for letting us know that commenting to the blog via iPhone is a problem. We’ll see if we can correct that.
You make a good point that emails create an conversation thread, which is great for tracking back to recall details but also leaves a written record about commitments made, etc.
Your email conversion stories sound hilarious. “Exploratory express” doesn’t even have the same number of syllables as “chicken breast,” but I guess the equipment just came up with the closest option it could.
Janet, I had a similar problem with scrolling within the comment box, using Barbara’s SmartPhone for April and May. Even weirder was the text editor, which wanted to help me write my posts using Barbara’s vocabulary and syntax; now she’s being pained by my using ‘meet’ as a synonym for ‘appropriate’, and references to Isandlwana, Thermopylae, and the Satsuma Rebellion. (I also wrote my blog using the phone, and not being able to see more than a couple of lines – and having to edit minimally so she could have it back – was a really interesting writing exercise.)
Thanks for the feedback, Andrew.
I can see you make life difficult for Barbara. 🙂
Yeah, I figure one of these days she’s going to start writing accounting reports in iambic pentameter…and when her office nemesis comes to be a troll (a weekly event), Barb will send her packing with “Avaunt, and quit my sight! Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold, thou hast no speculation in thine eyes, which though dost glare with!” (And even The bard ended the occasional sentence with a preposition.)
Andrew, I’m all about ending sentences with prepositions when that’s the natural flow of the sentence. Way to go, Shakespeare!
Amen, sister, preach on! I have a cheap, prepaid phone and can’t figure out how to do texting. (My teenaged grandson couldn’t figure it out either, so it’s not just because I’m a techno-idiot.) I don’t trust the privacy of direct messages on Facebook so I never send personal things that way. Old fashioned phone messages are still my favorite, but my kids rarely reply to them.
Janet, your comments brought to mind all of us “older” adults talking and talking and talking, but the kids never receiving, receiving, receiving. Why, my dog is more responsive!
I text my 20- and 21-year-olds to let them know when there is something they need to look at in email or answer on voice mail. That solves the do-not-check-it problem beautifully.
TracFone with the qwerty keyboard is text-friendy, but it costs 0.3 min for each text in either direction. I never mastered the tap-number method that my daughter still uses at lightning speed. I was soooo sloooow when I tried it.
I love to text and send emails rather than talk with someone (long-winded) on the phone. However, there are times that nothing takes the place of a phone call and irons out all the details that 20 textes could not. Verbal communication has a lot to be said for it!