My Voicemail, My Greeting

 
Since 2001, I've had my wireless phone service parked at AT&T. Forget that they've changed their company name from AT&T to Cingular and back like an old game of Pong. They offered me a deal that was hard to pass up, and for the most part, I haven't spent too much time regretting it.

A week ago, I made another business decision that seemed to make sense. Given that Apple is poised to roll out the new iPhone 4 at any hour, the price of the iPhone 3G fell through the floor, so I snatched one up at a mere $99.

For the past nine years, my outbound message on my trusty Nokia remained virtually unchanged. It's basic, to the point, and not the least bit irritating (in my humble opinion). Once I set up my iPhone, however, I immediately noticed one nuance: At least on AT&T's network, there is a subtle voicemail change, six seconds of robotic instructions that grate on my nerves and which I am unable to remove. The menu options deep inside the tangled mess of voicemail instructions have been altered slightly so that the incantation is permanently affixed to my greeting.

So much for wise business decisions.

Now that practically everyone either has a cell phone or frequently calls someone who does, you likely know exactly what I am referring to. Specifically, this is my voicemail greeting before and after AT&T got done with it:

Me: You've reached Rob Petitt's voicemail. At the tone, leave your name and message, and I'll get back to you. Have a great day!

Robot: At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, you may hang up or press '1' for more options.

This sounds like two people arguing over the phone, the robot through its silicon wisdom offering correction to my woefully inadequate thus inept instructions. By 2010, even a baboon knows what to do when encountering an unattended phone line and that, once it has left its message, it is time to hang up. I guess AT&T thinks they're spiffy by allowing the caller to press '1' for more options.

The sequence of instructions, on about the third level deep, led me to option #7, eliminating cut-through paging. Curiously, this option exists on the Nokia but is absent on the iPhone. Aside from this, the sets of instructions are virtually exact. Am I the only one who finds this odd?

No.

Last week, I sought help from my trusty friend, the internet. I crammed a few terms into a search engine, clicked the equivalent of "frappe", and was met with dozens of posts that appeared to have been written either by me or by some like-minded soul. It turns out there are a lot of folks who are riled up about the robo-lady and AT&T's insistence that we force-feed her to our callers. One particularly level-headed blogger assured that there was a rather straightforward remedy for her, and that I begin by contacting AT&T customer service. I did so, quite politely I might add, and opened up a trouble ticket. The ticket was sent off to the voicemail department for their technicians to review. As of this moment, my complaint has met with sympathetic ears, but not a satisfactory resolution as the internet posts have assured me will happen. I will follow up here if and when the case moves forward.

If you are as easily set aflame as I, and if your hackles are similarly up after reading about my encounter with Goliath, I would urge you to contact your wireless carrier and seek to banish the robo-lady, or at least return the choice to us paying customers. After all, we have purchased this so it is our voicemail, and it surely should be our greeting as well.