Technology is mumble mumble mumble

I recently set up a Google voice account because... well, it's free, I can screen my calls, I don't have to give out my home phone number to people at work, it doesn't require me to turn my two decades old answering machine on, and it just seemed like a good idea.

Overall it has worked out pretty well. The call quality is usually pretty good and aside from the really poorly thought-out Google voice interface, it's easy to use.

One of the things it offers is a transcription of voice mail. This is the first transcription I got:

"Hey Theresa, it's Ashraf, it's about 140. Gimme a call me when you have a chance wanted to ask you if We send revenue assurance and activation notice for L T E Not sure if they're included in the email distribution. I have someone suggesting that they are getting emails but I don't have any requirements on thinking maybe that was something about it later on. I'll send you an email so maybe you don't have to call me back and just like that alright. Talk to you later. Bye."

This is so close to what Ashraf actually said, I was really impressed. It got acronyms and some uncommon words (revenue assurance). Aside from a few odd punctuation choices, it's almost perfect.

However, Ashraf speaks pretty clearly without a discernible accent. The next call I got was from a developer who doesn't speak English as a first language and tends to speak very quietly.

Hi. This is a good morning, this is called Georgie end of this team. I just want to call you regarding the The made which I could try getting paid modification. The second decisions. Please. Call me when you get this and such. Bye.

(There's no Georgie working on the project.) I couldn't figure out what this was about, but after listening to the message I wasn't any better informed, so I'm giving Google a pass on this one.

So I was still pretty impressed. Then I got this call from Rvan:

The Thank you. Bye truest friend Al papers and and and you make out of the just calling. We have a Unit 3 E to talk about. Carlie, and just wanna make sure stuff alright with the call comments. Never mind with this price. Rich, email me, but otherwise we're doing okay bye bye.

(There's no Carlie or Al working on the project either.) This sounds very mysterious, with Unit 3 E and all, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't in the actual source.

So, yeah, Google voice. Apparently it only works really well for one person.

Otherwise I'm doing okay bye bye.