Get Me out of Voice-Mail Hell!

After President Rutherford B. Hayes had the first telephone installed in the White House in 1878, the first words he is said to have uttered into the new contraption were "Please speak more slowly." Today, more than a century later, we're still trying to master voice technology.

Phones, cell-phones, and pagers assail us from around the globe. A recent study by Pitney Bowes Inc. Found that corporate workers on average handle 52 phone calls, 22 voice mails, 4 pages, and 3 cell-phone calls per day. (Indeed, I've received two messages simultaneously, through triple-level voice mail, while leaving a message for someone else - an acute case of telephone tag ad infinitum.) People's feelings of being "overwhelmed," the Pitney Bowes report finds, "correlate directly with having to constantly . . . Keep up with the volume of messaging."

Mark Twain, an early adopter of the telephone, probably said it best: "If Bell had invented a muffler or a gag, he would have done a real service. Here we have been hollering 'Shut up' at our neighbors for centuries, and now you fellows come along and seek to complicate matters."

We're still waiting for the invention of a telephone "gag." In the meantime, there are some new devices on the market, as well as tricks you can use to regain control of your phone and the countless messages you receive. Read on to find out how to give and get good voice mail, how to stay connected when you're going mobile, and, above all, how to make the phone your ally instead of your enemy.

Call Screening for Road Warriors

Call screening gives you some power over your desktop phone by allowing you to choose whether to take an incoming call or to let voice mail handle it. But what do you do when you're on the road? The ideal solution would be call screening for your cell-phone - so you'll be sure to pick up when Alan Greenspan calls.

Enter SoloPoint's M-200 Mobile Phone Companion ($249.95). This small wedge-shaped device attaches to your office desk phone and automatically directs incoming calls to your cell-phone. It does require two phone lines, but the benefits can be great if you're often out of the office and you have to juggle scads of voice-mail messages.

The Mobile Phone Companion improves on traditional call-forwarding services by letting you screen calls remotely. And if you decline to take a call, the Companion automatically routes the messages back to your office phone.

Coordinates: M-200 Mobile Phone Companion, SoloPoint, 888-765-6225, www.Solopoint.Com

Multitasker's Rx

Face it: the telephone is not designed to let you talk and take notes simultaneously. Spend the day with the handset jammed between your chin and shoulder so you can scribble while taking calls, and by 5 p.m. You'll be heading to the chiropractor. But there is a solution: A headset equipped with a built-in microphone offers relief to those whose work demands long hours on the phone.

Some of the most reliable phone headsets come from Plantronics. The company's latest model, the DuoSet Convertible Headset ($76 to $144, depending on whether you opt for noise-suppression units on the mike), provides all the features you'll need. It can be worn either with a headband or over the ear, and it can be fitted for either ear. The basic model plugs into the headset jack on many office phones. (If your phone doesn't have such a jack, you'll have to pay another $120 to $150 for an adapter.)

One major drawback of headsets like the DuoSet, though, is that they tether you to your phone. If you frequently get out of your chair and move around, take a look at Plantronics's CT901 ($225), a cordless headset that operates like a standard 900 MHz cordless phone, letting you roam up to a full 100 feet from your desk. The headset delivers clear audio, free of interference and static.

Unfortunately, you pay a price for all of this mobility: The cordless headset comes with a large, rechargeable battery and a dialing pack that clips onto your belt. The dialing pack is about the size of a standard cordless home phone, and it can get in your way when you're sitting.

Coordinates: DuoSet Convertible Headset and CT901, both from Plantronics, 800-544-4660, www.Plantronics.Com