EDITORIAL

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Thunk. "You've reached the voice mail of John Smith. At the tone, please push (l) for sales' (2) for accounting, etc., etc., etc."

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Technology. Since voice mail was frst introduced it has been variously described as a Godsend, a fairly helpful device, a pain in the neck, and with some adjectives that really don't belong on this page. Some people like it one day and hate it the next.

Those who object to voice mail aren't just dinosaurs, their laments are based on real life experience. And they don't like what happens for a number of reasons.

The loss of personal relationships is chief among the complaints. When they place a call and talk to a secretary, she writes a memo that goes on someone's desk. The belief is this is harder to ignore than voice mail. Also, as messages stack up inside the machine, there is less urgency to answer them than a paper memo. That's the theory, anyway.

Over time, callers get to know the secretaries and can learn valuable information about the com-

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Sales people sometimes object to the button pushing involved, figuring their time shouldn't be sp€nt as a telephone operator. Others worry that they are awkward at recording messages and endure a mild form of stage fright. During a stressful day, they are concerned that the recording will capture a false impression, not at all what they want to communicate. Secretaries report that some messages sound rude, when they know the caller well enough to know that's totally out of character. "It's just something about voice mail," they say. Sellers moan, "How can I get my business done when all I do is talk to machines?"

Is all this technophobia or have machines designed to speed up business had the opposite effect while weakening the personal relationships so important to business? We suspect the jury's still out on this one.

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