Dear Editor

There has been a lot of comment about dissatisfaction with the UCT email system; however, little seems to have been said about the UCT telephone messaging system, which is also completely unsatisfactory.

My gripes include:

• The system programmer was unable to get the counting right: it always announces the wrong number of new messages.
• There are numerous unintelligible options presented, instead of the few well-used ones someone like me needs.
• The numbers chosen for various response options are completely random and illogical; there is no underlying systematic use of these numbers.
• When reviewing messages one gets in a dead end; it is not possible to save a message and then go on to listen to the next one, so you can't review all the saved messages.
• Many of the options don't work, for example a "reply to this message" option always bombs out.
• When reviewing old messages after being told there are many waiting there for review, you are told "this message is too old and has been deleted" followed by a lot of meaningless stuff. You are then offered the option of deleting a message that has already been deleted.

Who is in charge? Surely UCT deserves something better?

George Ellis
Maths, UCT