David Pogue of the New York Times is instigating a campaign to have the 15 second voice mail instructional message made optional or removed. To this I say, “good luck with that” and “more power to you.” However, in the article comments was provided the codes that can be used to skip the message if . It is also suggested that these be added to the recorded message to help your callers skip the “blah blah is not available right now. Please leave a detailed message after the tone. When you have finished recording, blah blah blah”. I thought this would be particularly helpful and thought I’d pass it along.
Here are the codes*:
* for Verizon
1 for Sprint
# for AT&T
# for T-Mobile
Now when you record your personal message, you should say something like, “Hi, you’ve reached [an incredibly helpful person]. Leave me a message by pressing [code to skip message] to get to the beep.”
You friends, family, and associates will surely lavish wonderful gifts and praise upon you for such a thoughtful consideration.
* I'm taking this on faith, I have not confirmed that these are true and correct.