People frequently complain that I don’t answer my phone, and that I don’t respond to voicemail once I get it. There’s a reason for this, and it’s quite simple: I consider the telephone a device that I use for my convenience, and not for anyone else’s.
As such, if I don’t feel like answering my phone, I usually don’t. There are a few people whom I’ll always take calls from, mostly because I know that they’re not the sort to bug me for free tech support or ask superfluous questions. I’ve been doing this for years. Most people have learned that I don’t respond by telephone, so they email, text or IM instead.
However, up until today, my voicemail greeting didn’t reflect this. (It was the generic “This is Marc, leave a message.”) I’ve replaced it with the following:
“Hi, this is Marc. I don’t really listen to or respond to my messages. If you want to leave me one, go ahead. But don’t expect me to get back to you for a couple days.”
July 1, 2007 at 4:07 am
Heh. Mine is something along the lines of… You’ve reached Jen’s cell. She doesn’t generally answer her phone, but she will return messages. So leave one.