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Comment by SirMaster | Hacker News Reader

Don't accept them until they start talking.

IDK, my iPhone will show me the live transcription of the callers message without me answering it. And then if I want to speak to them, I can answer the call in the middle of the message being left and talk to them.

Sounds cool, but this concept isn't at all new. Anyone who used answering machines did exactly this. You would listen to the message being left in real-time and pick up if you actually wanted to talk to them.

If people can't be bothered to leave a message, then that's their problem.

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>If people can't be bothered to leave a message, then that's their problem.

That's easy to say when you're not looking for a new job. Or don't run a business.

Or something like utility compam6, law enforcement, HOA somebody calling.

> Don't accept them until they start talking.

Not professional, not an option for some calls.

> If people can't be bothered to leave a message, then that's their problem.

It's actually my problem if I miss an important call. A message is great, sure, but I still missed the call.

My phone shows a live transcription of the message being left.

If I see that it's an important call, then I can pick up and answer right there mid-voicemail.

That's what I was referring to. They start talking when they leave the voicemail.

This is how we did it for a long time with home answering machines too. Except instead of reading a live transcription, you listened to their live recording, and could interrupt it and answer if you wanted to talk to them. It's not a new idea.

That relies on people leaving a message, which not everybody does.

And not everybody has a phone that'll do this live message transcribing.

And no, everybody who decides to not leave a message isn't "not worth your time" or something.

Then look up the missed number and call them back if you think it might be legitimate?

> Not professional, not an option for some calls.

Callers can't (well, shouldn't) expect to be able to reach you immediately by calling you. There's a lot of valid reasons to not answer your phone. You might be driving, you might be in the bathroom, you might be getting lunch in a noisy place, you might be in the middle of a different important conversation, etc.

At which point the caller needs to realize that the "professional" thing to do is leave a message if they want to be called back. (Or try calling again later.) Because there's enough junk calls that expecting people to call back every missed call that didn't leave a message is just unreasonable.

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