At 5:00pm today, Redconnect, the company that provides my dial up internet connection, goes out of business – I guess Red doesn’t mean go after all. So in order to keep cruising on the Information Superhighway, I had to find another company to take me along for the ride, so I chose Earthlink. So, seeing as how I have less than twelve hours before I have to switch internet providers, I called Earthlink this morning to set up my new account and continue my e-volution as a web surfer.

So when I called Earthlink to accomplish this, I expected fast and efficient service – instead – I became trapped in one of the most menacing, tedious and most detrimental inventions of the modern industrial era – voice mail.

These days, almost every major corporation in the world has voice mail. The reason for this is because companies feel that by implementing a voice mail system, the number of employees are minimized and their customers will be serviced in a more efficient manner – wrong on both counts. No matter how you slice it – voice mail does nothing but waste time and piss people off. I’m sure that when voice mail was invented – its intentions were good – then again – thalidomide was invented with good intentions too.

But in all seriousness, how can making someone spend at least five to ten minutes “pressing one” and “pressing two” before having to hold for another five to ten minutes listening to horrible music while a recorded voice tells you that your call is, “very important to them” be efficient? The whole point of calling for help is to get just that – not to be lost in a maze of pre-recordings that leave someone with a touch tone phone using their dial pad for a piano and someone with a rotary phone completely helpless. How is that efficient?

I ask you – am I wrong? Before you answer that – ask yourself this. In the grillion or so times you have been subjected to voicemail – how many times have you been disconnected? How many times have you pressed so many buttons and wound up so lost that you had to start all over again? How many times have you wished for a real live human voice on the other end of the phone? And how many times have you told yourself that you hated voicemail?

I’m not saying that voice mail is a bad idea. I am simply saying that if a company must implement voice mail into its day to day operations – I just hope they still keep one or two humans around.

If you agree with me – press 1 now.