“Please enter your password, then press pound.”
Those are the seven obnoxious words every Verizon Wireless cell phone user hears when they first try to listen to their voicemail. Please, spare me the pain – and the hassle – of listening to a voice message and just send a text message instead.
After entering my password and dialing the pound key, I finally get directed to the voice message after a few more seconds of an unnecessary computerized female voice. After I delete the message with the star key, I must wait another few seconds while Verizon hangs itself up. If I end the call too early, the phone will display a new voicemail notification until I go back into it and wait another minute for it to finish.
Because of this tiring procedure, I now hate getting voicemails. If my phone is off while somebody leaves a voicemail, it doesn’t even tell me whom it’s from when I listen.
The simplest way to get a message across is to hang up the phone after a call goes unanswered, and then send a text message. Now, the person will know they missed a call and will have the message without having to bear the robotic Verizon woman. The voice isn’t even customizable. It’s the same, annoying lady, every, single, time.
This solution only applies when calling a cell phone, obviously, because landlines can’t receive texts. Then again, who uses landlines these days anyway?
iPhone users benefit from a visual voicemail, in which they can easily select which voicemail they want to play while bypassing any maddening automated voice. Visual voicemail for Verizon costs $2.99 per month, and I am sadly on the verge of paying that silly fee.
Without visual voicemail, the process of listening to a voice message is long and excruciating for us Verizon users, and this problem can be easily avoided with a text message.
If you are one of those lucky enough to have my number, don’t even think about leaving me a voicemail, unless you want me to call you constantly in the middle of the night and flood your voicemail with long, pointless messages.
