Using English at Work：13 Checking Mail,Email,and Voicemail(6)（在线收听）

We used to have what we called "answering machines," which had cassette tapes to record messages, but most companies today are computerized and they use something that we call "voicemail."

At my house, however, we still have one of the old answering machines, not voicemail.

I call the voicemail system and enter in my PIN.

"PIN" is an acronym, where each letter is the first letter of another word.

Here "PIN" means "Personal Identification Number."

A PIN is usually a set of secret numbers - four to six -that are used as a password for getting information or for getting money.

When you take cash out of an ATM or bank machine, you usually have to enter your PIN.

You might also have a PIN for registering for a class at college.

The PIN I'm talking about here is for listening to my voicemail messages.

When using voicemail, you can often use your PIN to bypass the outgoing message.

"To bypass something" means to skip something or to go around something that you don't want to see or hear.

For example, many websites have introductory screens, sometimes with video and music; you can usually bypass this introduction - these screens - by clicking on "skip introduction" or "skip this."

"To skip" is the same as to go to the next step without looking or seeing the current screen.

When I call the voicemail system, it usually plays my "outgoing message," the message people hear when they call me.

But by entering my PIN I bypass that outgoing message, because I don't need to hear it.

After listening to two new messages, I save one and I delete the other.

"To save" means to keep something for use in the future, it's the opposite of delete or throw away.

We usually save important emails from our friends, we save photos that were taken when we were with our friends, in this case, I'm saving a voicemail message so that it stays in the voicemail system and I'm able to listen to it later.