Another day, another icon, and the utility of silence.

[vakkotaur]

A new telephone icon was another of the set of five.

Jumping ahead from the era of such telephones to the era of answering machines, the answering machine which used to have an outgoing message about the phone number rather than a name now has no message at all. I haven't spent much time looking for the manual or trying to figure out how to record a new outgoing message. So when someone calls and gets the machine, they get... silence and, I assume, a beep. The result that few seem to leave messages, which is interesting.

By now everybody knows what a single beep means: you've reached a machine, start talking if it's important. I suspect most callers are telemarketers or some variant (alleged pollsters, for example) and thus it's not important. Or their auto-dialer system find silence and doesn't bring anyone to the line. I suspect that as when I pick up and say nothing, I get nothing. If I do speak, then I might get a person I don't want to talk to. I'm not sure just how badly I want to record a new outgoing message now.

Comments

[yakko.livejournal.com]

I thought you had Vonage, which includes voicemail. Do you still use an answering machine to screen calls? That's one drawback of voicemail: having to tend to it whenever someone leaves one and you were there, but didn't answer because the Caller ID suggested that to you.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

We do have Vonage, but we also have a standard phone line for DSL and local calls. The answering machine is on that line.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

If there is no outgoing message, I don't usually leave a message in case i've gotten the wrong number!