Two posts from two very different writers on two simple ways to make the world a better, happier, more humane place for us all.
“Life is too short to deal with a horrible user interface,” John Scalzi writes.
And so, he says, he has changed his voice mail message to the following:
Hi, this is John Scalzi. I will never ever ever ever listen to the voice mail you’re about to leave, because voice mail is a pain in the ass. So if you actually want to reach me, you can either send me a text at this number, or send me e-mail at “john [at] scalzi [dot] com.” Feel free to leave a voice message if you want, but remember, I will never ever listen to it. Have a nice day!
Amen.
And a hearty amen, too, to Alan Jacobs’ call for a year without meetings:
Extraverts love meetings — any possible excuse for a meeting, they’ll seize on it. They might hear others complain about meetings, but the complaints never sink in: extraverts can’t seem to imagine that the people who say they hate meetings really mean it. “Maybe they hate other meetings, but I know they’ll enjoy mine, because I make them fun! Besides, we’ll get so much done!” (Let me pause here to acknowledge that the meeting-caller is only one brand of extravert: some of the most pronouncedly outgoing people I know hate meetings as much as I do.)
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