I cannot stand a 7 minute voice mail greeting. I do not need to know your business hours, your email, your fax number, your response time to return a call, your co-workers name and phone number, your next of kin or your blood type...

Most voice mails will let you hit 1 to bypass that crap to get to the beep. There's a few carriers out there that do not allow this option. Why isn't pressing 1 a standard option in the phone world??

Not always 1. Some companies use either 0, #, * and some have no way to get around the sometimes long wait.

I always go for 0. If that fails, I listen to the menu.

0 usually works.

-Rob