no. 17: save verizon callers' time

Every time you leave a message for a Verizon mobile phone customer, their personal greeting is followed by an audio track letting you know to wait for the beep, but if you want more options, press 0, and to leave an alphanumeric page, press 1. Verizon has about 50mm customers (source: nytimes); assuming half of them get a message a day, with each person leaving a message having to sit through this 10-second recording, we're looking at about 65 thousand wasted hours a day. All this, I'm sure, for two options that get less than .05% acceptance rate. That's a lot of anytime minutes.
So, Verizon (and I'm assuming other cell companies as well): I understand this is 65k billable hours for you, but I imagine the bulk of it is during the free portions of the day. Perhaps it would be better to stop using it...