A reader comment on The Guardian article, entitled This column will change your life: the truth about inefficiency, said: "I never answer my phone at work. Why would I? It's just going to be more work. My voice mail is full ... and now people can't leave a message even if they want to."
It reminded me of a guilty secret from the 1990s.
For about a year or two, when my work landline first had a built-in answer-phone, I just stopped answering my telephone. Suddenly I couldn't see the point of picking up. Why would I when there was a more seamless alternative? I just put the ringer on silent and went about my business. It seemed an efficient approach. Oh, the work I got through.
I had a hunch that no one would ring to miraculously solve a pressing advertising department issue. No one was calling to make my life easier. In fact, you could guarantee a caller was only going to cause me problems that would lead to more work. Wasn't I busy enough churning out retail catalogues by the forest-load? Letting all calls go to message seemed a way to differentiate the important issues from the frivolous.
In the process I discovered that 80 per cent of people go away if you ignore them (or else the issue that was vexing them resolves itself in the interim). Of course, I also discovered that a proportion of the other 20 per cent of people complain to your boss if you never return their calls. A memo to these people would read: "Pulling rank in this manner is not the best way to gain the cooperation of underlings. You may win the battle by getting me to speak to you but you are unlikely to win the war now your tattle-telling nature has been exposed."
My abuse of voicemail no doubt frustrated anyone trying to get hold of me. Now, about 20 years on, many of us have become tired of it and opposition continues to grow. The tide has certainly turned against voicemail messages. "Hatred of voicemail is nothing new, but it seems to be building," said The Guardian article.
