Two Ghosts

Recently, CorpWorld has implemented a voice mail system that is further proof that money and brains are no defense against a corporate tendency to build crap.

It’s feature rich, part of an expensive phone upgrade – and (I’m sure) was part of an elaborate focus group study.

Still, it manages to foul up the two most common tasks in voice mail.

1. Listen to new voice mail
2. Delete the voice mail you just listened to

All other tasks are secondary to these two items. All paths leading to these tasks should be shortened as much as possible.

Here is the path to task 1:

1. Sit at desk.
2. Notice flashing indicator on phone.
3. Press Messages
4. Enter your extension and password followed by the pound key

Right there – I have to type my extension AND my password. As extensions in CorpWord are typically long – this adds effort and opportunity to screw up before you even have to authenticate. While this may be a security/remote access feature – my extension is listed ON my phone, so removing the ability to automatically and unerringly enter the originating extension is simply a (poor and wasteful) design choice.

Then there’s the phone menu:

Welcome to voice mail for extension [my extension] -To retrieve your voice mail messages, press 1 -To send a voice message, press 4 -To manage your personal options, press 5 -To access the company private directory, press 6 -To change mail folders, press 8 -To return to the previous message, press the star key -For an operator, press zero

I’m an infrequent user (virtually nobody calls me) so I have to wait until I hear the end of the second sentence before I hit “1”

You have 1 new voice mail message. You have no saved voice mail messages.

To listen to new voice mail messages, press 1
To listen to saved voice mail messages, press 2
To listen to today’s voice mail messages only, press 3
To return to the previous message, press star

Okay. I have one new message and I’ve hit a menu item that says “retrieve your voice mail messages” A low use user like myself would like to be hearing my new message by now – but the person who is buried in messages might want the other options. Fair enough.

But reciting the option to listen to saved messages, when the system has just said there are no such messages wastes everybody’s time, no?

If I hit 1, I’m expecting my message to start playing.

Instead I get:

First message
Received
eleven
oh
four
AM
today
from
one
five
five
five
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven

And then the message finally starts playing. That’s an awful lot of dead air time before I find out if (as is often the case) this is a wrong number or misdirected call.

The system is integrated with the corporate email system, so you get an email about the message that looks like this:

Subject: VoiceMail from 0 [Company building] [unknown phone number] - 86 seconds

Body:
Directory Info
[city] [state]
Call Log
11:04:27: Initializing
11:04:27: Offering
11:04:27: [unknown system abbreviation #1]: [unknown phone number]
11:04:27: [unknown system abbreviation #2]: [unknown 5 digit number]
11:04:27: Call answered
11:04:28: [unknown 5 digit number] - [Company] Switchboard CST
11:04:28: Business Hours [hour] AM - [hour] PM
11:04:30: Switchboard Processing
11:04:30: Set Remote Name
11:04:30: [acronym] QueueName - Switchboard
11:04:30: [acronym] NoUsersAction
11:04:30: [acronym] NoUsersXferNumber
11:04:30: [acronym] UserLoggedIn - Switchboard
11:04:30: Transfer to [Company] Customer Telephone Center
11:04:34: Offering
11:04:34: Entered [unknown workgroup] Telephone Center
11:04:34: [unknown acronym] - Wait [user]
11:04:34: [unknown acronym] - Wait [user]
11:04:34: [unknown acronym] - Wait [user]
11:05:03: [unknown acronym] interaction assigned to [unknown username]
11:05:03: [unknown acronym] - Alerting: [unknown username]
11:05:03: Offering
11:05:03: Sent to user [unknown username]
11:05:03: Alerting
11:05:03: Sent to station [unknown extension]
11:05:10: Connected
11:05:10: [unknown acronym] interaction connected to [unknown username]
11:05:10: [unknown acronym] - Assigned: [unknown username]
11:05:34: Internal Transfer: [my extension]
11:05:34: Offering
11:05:34: Sent to user [my username]
11:05:34: User Alert: [my username]
11:05:34: Alerting
11:05:34: Sent to station [my extension]
11:05:54: Offering
11:05:56: Voice Mail
11:07:29: Disconnected [Remote Disconnect]
11:07:29: Caller has recorded and sent a voicemail message
Recording Length
86 seconds
[ID:[unknown ten-digit number]#[unknown phone number]

I wish to God I was making that up, but that's the actual email text, (minus necessary redactions, naturally). Assuming the caller is unknown to the system - there are three valid pieces of information in there.

1. I have a voice mail message from [unknown number]
2. It was recorded at 11:04 AM today
3. It is 86 seconds long

The expanded detail of this message would include:

4. This was an external call (or This was an internal call from [username])

The system processing notations and 37 other timestamps add precisely zero to the user's understanding of the message and can be summarized as time-wasting-bull$h!t

But back to voice mail:
Like most VM systems, this one supports keyed commands at any time in the recording.
The veteran would know to just hit 1 repeatedly until the message begins its interminably long intro (“First message…received…”).

But heaven help the poor sot who hits the 1 key too many times. Once you begin playback on the message, 1 is (naturally) a live command.

You hear

Voice mail message saved

-then nothing.

Repeating the command for the current level reveals no commands to hear saved messages.
Hitting star to go up a level repeats the prior tree only now it says you have no new messages and no saved messages.

While there may be some cryptic command to jump from new message playback to saved message playback of a just-saved message, it does not appear in the message tree and this user opted to hang up and dial back in.

As expected I was then treated to

You have no new voice mail messages. You have 1 saved voice mail message.

To listen to new voice mail messages, press 1
To listen to saved voice mail messages, press 2
To listen to today’s voice mail messages only, press 3
To return to the previous message, press star

So now the saved message is out of system limbo and is formally saved and available. Great. Also, the system spends time asking me if I want to listen to new messages when I have none.

There are so many levels of dumb going on here it's easy to miss the fact that in high-use systems with lots of users the difference between a menu saying "one new message" and "one new voice mail message" can add up to hundreds of man hours a year.

*******************

Anyway. The message from an unknown number turns out to actually be for me - and turns out to be a colleague of mine from my old job. They're putting together a reunion of sorts for one of the group who is relocating to the U.K. for three years.

Seriously cool. They are good people and it would be great to meet up with them.

I'm out at lunch thinking about how odd it will be to connect with these folks after all this time. I wonder if they'll be going to London?

-and then somebody sits down at my table.

It's H

To say that I'm surprised would be an understatement. Last I heard, H was working a new job in some other city.

They say hello and are genuinely friendly about it. Not having a good reason to do otherwise, I respond in kind. H is on the west coast now, sold their house, pulling contract work for a big name company. They just happen to be in town visiting friends. They'd been in the corner doing remote work using the store's WiFi and I'd completely missed them.

If I'd seen them first - I'd have left.

Which brings me to the whole purpose of this post, I guess. H is a person that just confounds me. My initial impressions proved wrong - my second impressions more so, and now I'm beginning to come to the realization that with people - there simply is no final word.

If you'd have asked me my opinion of H five minutes prior to meeting them that day - I'd have been negative. They were unprofessional on numerous occasions - to a degree where I actually went to management. I am glad they do not work with me for many reasons.

Five minutes later, you'd find me chatting them up and saying encouraging things about them being able to sell their house and get out alive in this market. To call this hypocrisy or reflexive make-nice is beside the point. If H has moved on and is doing well, I'm really happy for them.

But I've thought that before, too. I thought they'd found their niche at CorpWorld - before their very-public immolation. I'd even attributed sinister motives to their recruiting me for my present job - as if life was as simple and linear as TV drama.

I don't get H. They have been at least two different people since I've known them and one of them is very likeable. Generous, even. The version that popped up at my table today did something I would never have done. Walk up to a former co-worker and say howdy? I don't do that even if there isn't an awkward backstory in our collective past. The social partitions of work and home are more or less impermeable.

I do not hang out with co-workers.

I do not seek out contact with co-workers. That voicemail? They called me. I would never have done the same. Not for lack of affection, just because I view those contacts as well....done. Until they call me.

With H, its quite a bit stranger than that.

I actively tried to get this person fired once. I was a bad character witness against them when they got canned from this job. I would expect both of these facts are known to them, yet they walk up and say hi. I seem to recall getting a pinged by them on a social networking site awhile ago.

Were situations reversed, I would never do those things.

I would have flagged that person as "hostile," and written them out of my life. I had essentially done this with H - although circumstances did most of the work for me. They left, I stayed.

The occasional, accidental interaction convinces me that H's impression of me is mistaken, or that they have a very different outlook on these things. Or perhaps they thought they had no option to avoid me and made the best of it.

I do hope they are doing well. That it lasts this time.

But mostly, I wish I'd seen them first.