Voicemail Driveby

cowtown · 02-24-2005, 03:24 PM

Does anyone use this technique? Is it used on you?

Senior management wants to ask you to do something, get your feedback, etc. But instead of calling directly, they call into your voicemail mailbox and leave a message.

They know full well that you're sitting at your desk, they just aren't all that interested in having a conversation. It's just the way they do things. Everyone's used to it.

At my place of work the voicemail driveby generally comes from older people. Maybe they aren't comfortable with newer forms of one-way communication like email.

I'm going to try this out. For one week, I'm going to deliver all my messages via voicemail. It'll be my own little sociological experiment.

Zeke · 02-24-2005, 06:05 PM

Voice mail is faster than typing. VM is faster than having any conversation with usual salutations and BS. The VM'er needs to keep records, though.

oldE · 02-25-2005, 04:32 AM

Also, with VM, you don't have to wonder if the guy is at his desk/near a phone/busy with somebody else. I loved it, partly for the reasons Milt mentioned. Avoid time wasters. Put in the information the receipient needs in order to act upon your message. Don't you dare VM someone to say "Give me a call". Let them know what you need, so they can actually have the information when they do respond.
My boss, co-workers & I were spread out over a couple of hundred miles, sometimes in with clients, sometimes between locations. You soon found out who were trustworthy with the system and who needed a copy of the message sent to his boss.

Les

Oh Haha · 02-25-2005, 04:37 AM

I use this technique quite frequently. Like oldE said, it gives the responder time to get whatever info I want and get back to me. Less BS that way I have found.

id10t · 02-25-2005, 05:14 AM

We do a lot of intstant messaging back and forth... sad, considering we're all within 50 feet of eachother...

legion · 02-25-2005, 05:36 AM

No one at my company does this. We use e-mail in this manner though. Must be a culteral thing.

(Besides, it's generally accepted around here that people will have their laptops with them, but they might not be near a phone.)

bryanthompson · bryanthompson's Garage

I hated voicemail more than anything when I was working with other people. I just didn't like walking in, sitting down at my desk and the first thing to be this annoying chick voice, "You have 4 new messages." Arrrrgh!! It just drove me nuts.

cowtown · 02-25-2005, 07:08 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by legion
Must be a culteral thing.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I've worked in Marketing and IT for some really big companies (Intel, BofA, US Bank) and this just wasn't SOP. When the s**t hit the fan, everyone wanted a big stack of backup papers to whip out of their briefcases.

Now I'm with a smaller place that operates within the old-boys network. I guess your word is your bond around here.

I'm actually faster at typing a complete message out than thinking through coherent sentences, jotting them down for records, dialing up a voicemail box, then leaving a message.

Overpaid Slacker · 02-25-2005, 07:15 AM

I'd transcribe the salient points of the voicemail into a Word folder... if the Shyt hits the fan, you've got a contemporaneous record of what was said; they don't: You "win."

If you want to annoy the people vming you, transcribe their vms into emails and send them to them "just to clarify" the contents of their msg. If you're a poor typist, this is probably not such a good idea...

JP

legion · 02-25-2005, 07:58 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by cowtown
Does anyone use this technique? Is it used on you?

"No. No, man. s**t, no, man. I believe you'd get your a** kicked doin' something like that, man."