1000x yes to this Matthew Yglesias point:

If you leave a message on my cell phone, I might get back to you one of these days. If you leave a message on my office voicemail, forget about it. I’m not even entirely sure I know how to check it. Definitely the whole time I was employed at The Atlantic I never once returned a voicemail. I figure that anyone who’s really eager to get in touch with me will email me. In general, I’m not a fan of talking on the phone, but listening to recorded messages of other people talking to me on the phone is absolutely the worst.

I’ll see and raise. Checking cellphone voicemail is the absolute worst. A recording that’s tinny and poor; breath against the receiver creating a gale-force blast of static obscuring the message; the fumbling of keypad commands that results in  frustration and crushing despair. Is it my fault or your fault or our providers’ fault? Immaterial at this point.

Check voicemail inside and the signal is interrupted, chopping the message into indecipherable bits. Check voicemail outside and the onslaught of street noise prevents understanding. If I see I have a voice message on my phone, I resent the caller for making me listen to it.

Dear All-My-Sources, frequent, occasional  or one-time-only: I don’t mean to disrespect you. I know, you’re just trying to help me do my job, and after all, chances are I contacted you first. But please, please, please. Life is so much better on a regimen of email/IM/text/in-person communication. We don’t need the phone. And we certainly don’t ever need voicemail.