Who is This?

I forget who first mentioned Google Voice to me, but as soon as I heard about it, I liked the idea. It lets you have a phone number that you know will never change, regardless of which carrier you use, what country you're in, or just about any details of your physical presence. You can then have any phone you want ring when you receive calls, so it gives you all sorts of flexibility. It's entirely possible to have people call you and have it make a work phone ring, and then three hours later, have that very same phone number ring totally different number at home. Basically, it gives you more options, so I'm a fan.

Well, for the most part.

I don't usually mess with the call forwarding aspects of it, but I do like having a web interface for all of my voice mail and text messages. This is particularly useful when I'm at work, since I turn my phone notifications off when I'm there. I can switch over to a different tab to check in on messages when I know I have some free time, instead of being interrupted in the middle of some thought-intensive piece of work. Or if my phone is low on battery, I have a back up means of checking on all of that. The one downside I have noticed is that it's a purely text-based system, so I can't send pictures from the web interface. Remember this fact, it will be important later on.

Unfortunately, the human aspect of all of this is ultimately where things fall apart. See, when I first got the new number, I sent out an email to a bunch of people telling them that I was going to be using the new number. The old number would still reach me, and would continue to reach me (I wasn't actually getting rid of my phone, after all), but I would basically have a second number. Some people changed the contact info they had for me to the new number, but other folks rightfully interpreted this to mean that they could keep my existing number on hand.

The problem with that last plan is that although their messages would reach me just fine, as soon as I tried to reply, they'd receive a message from the new, unknown-to-them phone number. That first month or so, I had to explain who I was on more than one occasion, though I was able to work it out with most people eventually. Remember that fact that I mentioned might be important earlier? This is where it rears its ugly head. Any message I send with media in it (e.g., pictures) pretty much has to come from my old number. I haven't seen a way to send these messages with my new phone number attached to them. So, even the people who were "good" and switched their contact info for me will get confused on occasion.

Luckily, I don't send media very often (what can I say, I'm a boring person), but still. I have had to explain to various people that they need to keep two phone numbers on hand for me, and each time, they just look at me funny. This is not a common plan of action, so it's an uncommon discussion to have. I've had people look at me like I'm crazy. I've also had to send the, "oh sorry, it's Sam. I have two numbers: XXX-XXXX and YYY-YYYY" message on more than one occasion to try to clear up confusion. Trust me, conversations that include the phrase, "who is this, again?" are all sorts of fun.

So all in all, my genius plan with a new number is not as genius as I would have liked. Also, for the nerdy among you, I'm reminded of a fairly famous computer science quote that is way too appropriate here, "any problem in computer science can be solved by another layer of indirection" (as is the corollary, "except for the problem of too many levels of indirection"). I may have to stop sending picture messages altogether, just to keep the funny looks to a minimum.