New Cell Phone Etiquette Rule – Don’t Leave Voice Messages

Well - you can leave a voicemail, but only if it is a life or death situation. Otherwise you should hang up (before the machine answers so you don't leave an empty message...which is even more annoying) and send the person a text.

My mom is a pretty big offender here - she will call and leave a long message and at the end say "I will text you all this" and then she hangs up. Moments later I'll get a text that is sometimes an exact copy of the voice message.

Don't do that. Hang up the phone and start writing. They will get the text quicker, saving them time, and they can answer when it is convenient for them since they were obviously too busy to answer your call in the first place. Plus - who wants to actually talk to another person nowadays?

Via New York Times