Do people actually listen to voicemail? As a company policy, we must setup our voicemail on a daily basis, state our name, company, the date and if we're going to be away from our desk or are working odd hours.

When I work shifts, particularly late shifts, like this week, I set my voicemail the night before, just before I go home and state my hours for the following day.

Well, this morning I come in and one customer decided to phone 5, yes 5, times between 9:08 and 10:55. Apparently he then got quite irate because I wasn't answering my phone. Well duh doofus... if you had listened to my voicemail message you would have known I wasn't going to be in until 13:30 and as a result, I wasn't going to answer the damn phone a minute before. You'd also have learnt that you could have pressed 0 at any time and gone through to someone else.

Oh, and don't get me onto useless voicemail messages. This is a typical example of what I get on a day to day basis (click image for full size):

Pearls Before Swine Voicemail