What's with the lady that tells you when and how to leave a voicemail?

When did we all lose the knowledge of how to leave a message after a beep?

The first home answering machine I was at my parents house some time in the 80's, and from that very day I knew what to do after the beep, leave a message. 

Along come cell phones, and of course the ability to leave voice messages after the beep. This process worked great for 10+ years, but somewhere along the line the cellular carriers thought we needed additional help, so in the past two years the added a person telling all us morons what to do after the beep. 

My message now says, "hey this is jeff leave a message and I will call you back!" 

Then SHE comes in and says, "If you would like to leave a message you can do so after the beep and if you would like to hear further options you can do so by pressing something when you are done.

Thank you mam, for making that take and extra 10 seconds.

Now, I know some people are saying, hey you can just press 1 and skip that, and you're right if you are calling a specific carrier. But each carrier has chosen a different button to press and some of them use #, which I love looking for on my motorola Q, # does not really exist. You can press 1 or something else. of course our friendly helper lady in some cases will tell you which button but only at the end of her message, right before the beep.

If I was a more cynical person, and that was a joke, I would think this was just to add more time to the persons call time. Thus raking in massive profits for the cellular companies as they add up and extra 10secs, if your lucky, to every single voice mail in the country. I receive about 4 vms a day, and I don't use my phone half as much as some people. If you don't think this adds up and is a complete scam you are crazy.

I can see it now some VP. saying in a meeting lets just add in a bunch of information before the beep and definitely tell people what to do after the beep. Then we can start offering calling plans with hundreds of minutes and not lose any money.

For god sake, Please, don't ask the helpful people at the store where you got your phone how to get rid of their precious VM helper lady. These people have been properly, or improperly, trained not to provide you with an answer. Don't get me started on cellular stores.

bad drivers Part II

People that take wide turns, the ones swerve into the second lane of lane of traffic. It's bad enough you've bought a giant SUV the you're incapable of driving correctly, but even worse when done in a compact car. 

People, you almost never need to swerve into additional lanes of traffic to make your left and right turns, unless you are actually driving a semi.

people who don't vote

ok I get it. I didn't want to vote either for a long time., I mean your options do suck. Unless of course you start to look outside the two party system. Now I don't mean the communist or nazi party. Seriously people all of you that are tired of everything that sucks, including polititions. please take a look at www.lp.org . The libertarian party. Don't take my word for it take the test. I will not try to sell it. but if take the test you may find you have a reason to vote, and you can have that special tuesday morning off of work. is that not worth it?

THere site explains it better than me, bu they are for the government staying out of your life except for the basics the governmetn owes you. keep us safe use our tax money wisely.

They are predominately forhte fair Tax and you can check that out at www.fairtax.org

People who spam blogs

YOU suck!. what is the deal? your response to my netflix vs. blockbuster is a stock pick.
WTF? this is not cool.

I know, i may look desperate for comments or interaction, but spam sucks!

The list

maybe people that know me know that I have a list. Well a list of companies that I think really stink. So far I have described two here on my blog. In addition to those I would like to point out block buster. Good luck Blockbuster, www.netflix.com is going to take you down. who wants to drive to Blockbuster? not me.

Atlanta Advertising agency

hey if you need a great agency.....

Mandatory Driving lessons in GA, PLEASE

Oh, how we need mandatory driving lessons here in Georgia. Especially Atlanta. Everybody knows the traffic here is horrible, but some of it is our own faults.
GO PEOPLE! Traffic, the stress, annoying ignorant drivers move it!

Who cares what road rage is, What's causing it? Stupid uneducated drivers. If we had mandatory drivers education and better testing there would be less cars on the road and lot less poor driving. That would help as well, right?

There are a couple of specific rules people appear not to know, so I thought I would post them here in hopes I can help educate the masses.

1. You ARE allowed to turn right on red after stopping
2. You are even allowed to turn left on red from a one way to another one way after stopping
3. You do not have to stop at a flashing yellow light, just slow down a little.
4. This is not a law, but generally you should be speeding up when merging onto a highway not riding your breaks!
5. If you are in the left lane and people are passing you on your right get out of the left lane!
6. If you are afraid to drive stop doing it!

These are the major offenses by drivers I see everyday.
Anyway I hope this helps. And the next time you are sitting at a red light but don't turn when no one is coming and you hear a honk. Don't shake your head.
Go!

Don't Buy Shell Gass

and I mean the service for your home their billing system sucks. It took a year after I was done using them to get my bill straightened out.

shellgas Originally uploaded by Angry Jeff.

UPS smooshed the unsmooshable

The following picture shows a pakaged I received via UPS. It clearly says do not crush, and it is crushed right on the lable do not crush. IS THIS A JOKE!?!

smooshedUPS Originally uploaded by Angry Jeff.

Don't rent a U-haul

You may have to spend a little more but go with Ryder or someone else.
My personal experience:
While driving to Atlanta from Maryland my U-haul engine stopped while driving down the highway. No engine very little steering we coasted off the highway, LUCKILY!
Me, a friend, and all of my possessions somewhere in north Carolina with nothing in site.
So we start walking, having to leave everything on the side of the road to find help. A truck driver pulled over a mile down the road and I was not so sure about getting in. I guess we figured there were two of us. I had a camera along for the trip so I quickly snapped a shot of the back of the truck. Figured they would find that on my body later. Anyway the truck driver turned out not to be a killer and drove us to the next exit where there was a gas station. Thanks random trucker guy!!
So you might think we were home free, but This is is where the true disappointment actually lets say hate for u-haul started. Using a pay phone we began the calls. Hung up on during transfers several times. Each time we called we explained we were in the middle of nowhere and needed help fast. Each time they transferred us and disconnected us. We kept telling them that they were disconnecting us but they did not listen. Finally I called my father and asked him to start calling from home.
This worked as he was not dealing with coins in a pay phone in the middle of nowhere. So he finally gets someone to list and they are sending a tow truck.

so now we wait until almost dark on the side of the road with everything I own. OK is was not that much, besides my car, it was all stuff left over from college. But is was all I had.

So they come pick us up and we are driven to there closest U-haul location.
And then they ask myself and my friend, Did I mention she is a she? If we the two of us wanted to move everything from the old truck to the new one at nine at night.
Are you kidding me? They would give me a $100 if we did it or they would do it. I could not believe it. I told them to get started.

After they moved everything we ended up in a hotel for the night.

Oh the truck, that broke, had no oil in it. The engine seized up.

Just writing this is getting me ticked off again so anyway. Let me know if you have had any wonderful u-haul experiences.

This is my first blog so here goes nothin.