So far this week, I have found myself in the voice mail trap twice and have successfully circumvented it once. Both of the times where I found myself caught in the voice mail trap were very similar situations as described. I received a message where the call said something similar to “Hello, this is John, I need you to call me back when you are available.” No information that I could immediately respond to was passed, forcing me to call back to learn what exactly what was needed. And, unfortunately, in each situation I went immediately to the original caller’s voice mail, creating the circle I hoped to avoid this week.
Eventually, I did have a conversation with each caller however it was a very inefficient use of everyone’s time because the need was simple enough to leave over a voice mail.
The third call, which I initiated, was a different story. I had a very specific question that did not require any discussion for my co-worker. When I called her, she was unavailable, so I left the question in her voice mail. When she returned my call, this time I was unavailable. However, the communication process was allowed to flow because she was able to leave the answer to my question in her message.
I would prefer all three calls had gone this way; unfortunately, I cannot control how others use voice mail. Still, I did experience enough success in my hypothesis that I will continue this practice and look for more avenues to use workplace communication technology more effectively and efficiently. Please watch for next week’s post on email in the workplace.
