Message Notification Feature
09:50 AM: [Jack] left me voice mail through the “back door”, saying what a great time he had at the foot party last night, which woke me up an hour earlier than I’d planned to get up today. Darn, I need to turn off the message notification feature in Verizon’s voice mail system when I’m at home; especially at night.
For those wondering what this Message Notification Feature is: It’s a function offered in Verizon’s voice mail system that can call a cell phone, pager, or other telephone number, when a new voice mail message arrives. I’ve configured my voice mail account to call my cell phone when I receive a new message.
This is handy while traveling or otherwise away from the landline phone, because I learn right away that a message has just come into in my voice mail box, and so I need not call the system periodically to check for new messages manually. But when I’m here, having the cellphone ring defeats the purpose of people leaving messages through the “back door”. Back Door Messaging allows a caller to leave someone a message in their voice mail box without ringing their telephone directly. [Jack] and [Emmy] often leave me these back door messages when they have something they want to communicate, but wish not to disturb me. But with message notification turned on, the system does the disturbing for them. 
So, I think I’ll disable this feature until the next time I’m traveling or working away from the home phone, out in the yard or elsewhere.