Today\u2019s\u00a0Mad, Sad, Glad.\u00a0by Wendii Lord hit dead-on for all three links.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d like to add my amen in particular to her note on voicemail: it\u2019s still useful.<\/p>\n
If you call me, get voicemail and don\u2019t <\/em>leave a message then I’ll probably assume you don\u2019t need a call back. In fact, I\u2019m not going to bother matching your number to a name if you don\u2019t leave a message.<\/p>\n Sometimes I\u2019ll call someone and get their voicemail only to realize I really could figure things out on my own. I hang up and find my own way.<\/p>\n I\u2019m surprised when they call back and ask, \u201cHey, I missed a call from this number?\u201d I\u2019m sure they\u2019re trying to be helpful. It seems kinda needy: you really have time to return calls when you have no idea whether or not they were a wrong number?<\/p>\n If it wasn\u2019t important enough for me to leave a message then you definitely don\u2019t need to bother yourself calling back.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What\u2019s really bothersome about the assumption\/observation that people don\u2019t leave messages anymore is that it points to a less forgiving communication model: talk now OR NEVER.<\/p>\n I\u2019m no fan of phone tag. I don\u2019t want to have whole conversations over voicemail. On the other hand, I\u2019m no fan of letting my phone win every contest for my attention.<\/p>\n If I\u2019m interviewing someone, if I\u2019m meeting with an employee, or if I feel that not taking a call is a better use of my time then I should be able to let the call go to voicemail.<\/p>\n Because I live in a world where voicemail exists I am free to miss calls \u2014 even when I hear the phone and am physically capable of answering.<\/p>\n For gee whiz, let me tell you how I decide whether or not to answer the phone.<\/p>\n I have a different ringtone (and different vibration pattern) for production incident calls<\/strong>. Since having the site go down affects hundreds of people every minute I want to immediately respond to these calls. Even if I\u2019m in a\u00a0one-on-one with my boss I\u2019ll excuse myself and get this taken care of.<\/p>\n If it\u2019s not production calling, then the person I\u2019m with beats the person on the phone. I may step out of a large informational meeting when my phone rings, but generally I prioritize planned communications over ad-hoc ones.<\/p>\n Finally, my wife and I have a system we\u2019ve used for years that balances both of our needs: she is free to call at any time; I\u2019m free to ignore her call for any reason.<\/p>\n Really, any reason<\/em>.<\/p>\n But, if my wife calls twice in a row then it\u2019s an emergency and she knows that I\u2019ll drop everything to answer. This system has worked very well.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s tempting to use on-demand communication to replace messages and post-its, it\u2019s just not practical. The more frivolous calls I get the more I\u2019m inclined to send you to voicemail.<\/p>\n As a matter of fact, before you call me pretend you\u2019re going to get my voicemail. Prepare a quick message. If you get me instead then the call will go better anyway thanks to\u00a0your preparation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today\u2019s\u00a0Mad, Sad, Glad.\u00a0by Wendii Lord hit dead-on for all three links. Voicemail: Still Kickin’ I\u2019d like to add my amen in particular to her note on voicemail: it\u2019s still useful. If you call me, get voicemail and don\u2019t leave a message then I’ll probably assume you don\u2019t need a call back. In fact, I\u2019m not… Continue reading Pretend It’s All Voicemail<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61,31,131],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-executive","tag-communication","tag-professionalism","tag-voicemail","wow fadeInUp","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421,"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions\/421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Asynchronous On Demand<\/h2>\n
Phone Call Triage<\/h2>\n
Production Outages Win<\/h3>\n
Scheduled Communications Win<\/h3>\n
My Wife Has a Veto<\/h3>\n
Slow Down Jackrabbit<\/h2>\n