Daily Dose of Common Sense

You call a friend’s cell phone to leave a quick message. You hear a cheerful and brief message from your buddy. Then, you’re bogged down by inane instructions on what to do next.

“Press 5 to page this person now.” Pause. “At the tone, please leave your message.” Pause. “After you have finished recording your message, you may hang up or press 1 for more options.” Pause. Beeeeeep.

Aren’t we at the point where we know what to do when we hear the beep? Cell phones aren’t exactly new. And, even if you’re confused on what to do, most people say something in their outgoing message that gives a hint. “It’s Rich. I can’t take your call but leave a message at the beep and I’ll get back to you.”

And, has anyone ever really pressed 5?

Not all cell carriers have this standard instruction paragraph. The ones that do should get rid of it. From what we’ve read, it’s not exactly easy to remove yourself but you can go through your set-up options to try. If you succeed, your friends will thank you later.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 9:06 pm and is filed under Stupidity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.