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Voicemail

Dear human race,
Listen to your voicemails!  Okay?!

Seriously, people.  It's really not that difficult of a concept to comprehend.  When someone calls you and leaves a message, please listen to that message before calling them back.  97% of the time the call back will be thereby rendered superfluous.  They have left that message in order to convey information.  Please gather that information before calling them back.

Technology makes us lazy, they say.  If you're looking for convincing evidence, look no further than our unwillingness to spend 30 seconds of our lives listening to the audible message intended to convey important information.  Voicemail is basically magical.  You can actually press buttons on your phone and, if that person isn't available to speak to you, you can speak to a "mail box" on the other end.  When that person has the requisite amount of time, he/she can somehow listen to the sound of your voice on their phone.  It's simply amazing, but do we capitalize on this technology/magic?  No.  We don't.  We're stupid.

I get it.  Sometimes your call back preempts the voicemail even arriving.  Sometimes the voicemail is three seconds long and is clearly just requesting a call back (in terms of heinousness, leaving three-second voicemails ranks just below not listening to voicemails).  You are forgiven in those instances. However, if I leave a voicemail, I'm usually attempting to forego having an actual conversation with you or I am trying to allow you to be prepared when you call back to provide me with information you might not have immediately at hand.  When you call back and make me repeat every word I just said on the voicemail, I feel like you've wasted a little piece of my life.  When you call back without having collected the necessary information I let you know via voicemail that I needed, I feel like you've wasted a little piece of both of our lives.  Thanks, jerk!

I want to have hope in the human race, but it's difficult.  Mankind continues to reinforce my belief in total depravity.  This isn't a good look for us, fellow humans.  We have the technology to communicate quickly and efficiently, but we squander it with no better excuse than sheer laziness. There's no psychoanalyzing this one.  We're just lazy.

In summary, 1) humans suck, 2) we're very lazy, and 3) listen to your voicemails!

Sincerely,
Someone who talks on the phone all day and really doesn't have the time/energy to repeat everything he just said on your voicemail

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