Did you ever have one of those moments – perhaps while standing in line at the Sub… Did you ever have one of those moments – perhaps while standing in line at the Sub Connection or while stuck in traffic at the Squirrel Hill tunnel – that minutes of your life were just slipping away? At these times, we usually accept the fact with a resigned “whatever,” readjust our backpacks or shift into park, and prepare ourselves for the long wait ahead. After all, lines have existed since the beginning of the universe and they can’t really be avoided.

What really messes with my mind, however, is how technological innovations, meant to facilitate daily life, are so poorly designed – and so time consuming. I’m talking about voicemail.

I’m no stranger to stupid, believe me, but voicemail just takes the cake. There are some things in the world that are impossible to screw up, and I wouldn’t have figured that a voice message system would be one of them. Home telephone answering machines have been around for decades and adequately fulfill their purpose with a single sentence: “Hi, I’m not here right now, so leave a message.”

Sometime since then, the “societies advance with time” theory went horribly wrong.

With voicemail, I’m greeted by a five minute introduction – “The. Person. You. Have. Dialed