Leave a message at the beep...

In my line of work I leave and receive a lot of voice mails. I personally hate the voice mail culture that we as a society have developed. Apparently it was a much smarter group of humans when the day came for actual postal mail to be sent and received and I'll tell you why. Today, this people, our contemporaries have felt it necessary in every voice mail situation to unquestioningly leave specific and detailed information on how to do said task, even going to the extent of telling them that there will be an unfamiliar tone at the end of the instructions signaling the start of their part of the transaction. In the days of what we now call snail mail, no such ridiculousness was required. There was no list of processes to get at the words inside that folded and sealed piece of paper. You know why? Because it was obvious. They just got it. And yet somehow we survived. Somehow human communication continued to progress. All that has changed though. Today I have to sit and listen to please leave your name, number and the time you called in a short message after the beep and I will get back to you. Has no one ever in the history of mankind considered how condescending these instructions are? Imagine having to hear each time you make some toast that you need to put in one and only one slice of bread in each of the slots and pull down the lever, wait, and lift it back up at the desired point of crunchiness. I mean what person on this planet currently does not understand the concept of voice mail to the extent that EVERY SINGLE outgoing message needs this kind of tedious direction. Is there anyone out there wondering what to do when someone says their name and there is a sudden beep! Are they out there thinking "What the heck was that?" Response "What was what?" "I don't know I was calling Fred, I heard him pick up the phone and then there was a beep like sound and no instructions whatsoever as to what I should do now. Any idea?" "Ummmm, RUN! GET OUT OF THERE NOW!!!" Think of the amount of collective time and energy that is wasted on just listening to and dealing with the completely unnecessary voice mail instructions so insanely common today. What amount of greenhouse gases, fossil fuels and chlorofluorocarbons would be held back from their destructive sources if we as a people could just trust that somehow, someway we could make it through the day without someone telling us that our message must be "short" or that you need to leave a name during the call. Sure there will be some people who without such instruction will not quite pull it off. But are we really at a point in our growth as a people that we have to coddle the stupid? If some mind-blowingly regressive mouth-breather needs to learn multiple times that putting his tongue on frozen metal in the winter time is not a good source of refreshment, LET HIM! Good news is, he won't be talking on the phone so much anymore, or least not that well. Yes, I'm aware that with my plan some calls won't get returned. Most likely some confusion will exist. But people will eventually learn, overcome and especially adapt. Seriously, imagine the growth as a society that will come forth. We went from guys riding horses with quill penned notions, to frivolously sending words electronically across the earth in mere seconds, and all that without so much as a put your name and address on the envelope or any kind of beep. We may never know what's next technologically because we have all been dumbed down to the degree that no one will ever prosper, in anything. Am I being ridiculous? I don't think so. Today marks the birth of of Alexander Graham Bell (thanks Google!) and I can't say as I ever knew the man. But if I did, I would imagine him as someone who would not be able to deal with the guy who has a long outgoing message riddled with overly detailed, highly redundant instruction. I'm pretty sure Alexander and I would agree on a great deal. For example should Alex and I ever call each other, we'd leave messages, sure. But he wouldn't be hitting me the the "Hey Finn, its Al call me back." Nope, Big A would be smarter than that. He'd either leave a message telling me what I need to know without need of a call back or he would think expediently and say, I'll just let him notice the missed call and call me back rather than bog him down with a voice mail telling him to do something he had already planned to do but had to wait because there was a voice mail to listen to. That AGB! Smart dude! And I love him for it. Do you know why? Because someone that invents that kind of wonderfully convenient mode of communication would never DREAM of telling me what I need to do in the voice mail every single, stinking time I call him. No he would invent a process to keep that from happening. Problem is somebody already invented common sense, just sadly in short supply.

--finn