Right after you get through listening to your friend’s cell greeting it happens.

Another recording after the first recording. The recording after the recording tells you everything you have heard on the first recording — again.

The number you dialed and the generous offering of pressing ‘1’ for more options.  The recording after the recording lasts, as best I can time it, about 12 seconds.

Let’s do the math, shall we?

Envision that you are a real business person.  You’re active, serious, and driven.  Let’s say you make 50 calls a day.  That means you also make 50 calls a day that don’t get answered because no one answers the phone anymore (especially in businesses with a few people and more phones than people).

I’ve seen it firsthand.  Like at the print shop I just went to.  A call comes in.  The person waiting on me continues to provide me with the proper courteous attention while the phone rings and the other person (or people) stares at the phone like it’s going to jump into their hand.  But they don’t answer the phone and the opinions and impressions of the business by innocent bystanders like me are instantly poisoned.

The innocent bystander asks herself  “is that what they do when I call?”

But back to the math.

If you are the serious business person we are talking about,  you make at least 50 unanswered calls a day. You get 50 recordings after a recording.  (Not on my phone — I chopped it off and I’m gonna tell you how in a few seconds).

That’s 50 calls times 12 seconds which equals 600 seconds which equals 10 minutes a day of recordings after a recording. Which equals 50 minutes a week which equals 43.33 HOURS PER YEAR WHICH IS THE EQUAL TO ONE FULL WORK WEEK!

And why?

To get the same information you got on the first recording??  Who thinks up this stuff?  Why do they ALL do it?

Why are all the cell providers scotch tapped to each other with the same recordings and the same prompts and the same hold music and the same thanks for calling and the same your call is important?  Insanity has arrived in customer service.  The customer sure in the hell isn’t.

Here is how you can get an extra work week a year into your time-starving schedule:

Call ATT, Sprint, Verizon, the convenient store cell phone guy, Mobile-One, or whomever your cell phone provider is and tell them to take the recording after the recording off  your phone.  They did it for me and I’ve got an extra 43.33 hours per year of trying to tell people about America’s Customer Disaster.

More importantly when you get a call, maybe, just maybe from a prospective customer, you won’t waste their time.