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Ah yes, the phone. The reject of today's society. What really sparked me to write this little blurb is an e-mail I just got that highlights the recovery steps to take in various scenarios. It's a pretty simple table that's split into 2 columns: What goes wrong and What to do. One of the very first entries is what to do if your BlackBerry service is interrupted: use the phone.
But wait! I hear some of you cry. A BlackBerry is also a phone! To you, I congratulate you on missing the point. In this day and age, the phone is obsolete. I'm not referring to the blackberry, I'm referring to the 12 buttons, banana-shaped earpiece, 2 pound monstrosities. While the phone's function will never go out of style, today it's pretty much impossible to buy a phone that's just a phone. No, you need e-mail functionality, you need to be online 24/7 to respond to clients, you need to be able to read twitter, facebook, rss updates, watch videos, listen to music and text all in one handy, and above all, mobile device. Why? It's all lumped into "being productive" "being available" "not wasting time".
You look around the corporate setting and you see desk phones everywhere on people's desks. What am I talking about then! Look closer, and you'll notice everyone has a headset. It's not "ergonomic" to twist your neck to your shoulder -- and obviously you need both hands to continue typing out that e-mail or texting your friends. Using a regular phone? You must be mad! You can't multitask with that. Undivided attention. This is something that's definitely missing now, from every aspect of life. Talking to someone on the phone? You can bet they're flipping through a magazine, writing an e-mail or driving somewhere. IMing? Why do you think there's several seconds of pause before every reply, nobody reads that slow. No, just like you, they're also IMing with multiple people. "Oops, wrong chat" sound familiar? Hell, it's even apparent in face-to-face conversations. I could never imagine how good I'd get at focusing on everything except the person I'm talking to. "Hm?" "Wait.. what?" Of course it gets a lot easier to do that on the phone -- you can always blame reception. Ah yes, technology is everywhere, it's just too likely that something will screw up.
Technology failures have me worried. Think about how ingrained technology is in every aspect of our lives. GMail goes down for an hour and a ridiculous number of people proclaim how terrible it is and should never be used. A whole hour without e-contact? No, can't outsource our e-mail system to that, let's continue pumping millions into our in-house solution just to have the peace of mind that the system won't go down. And by that I mean only go down when we intend it to, because god knows it's impossible to keep a system up 24/7 for any reasonable length of time. Hell, GMail's track record is better than ours over the past years. All this for what? To get back to the client as soon as possible to keep them paying us money. It's a business.
And what an interesting business model it is. Providing the illusion of value rather than value -- brilliant! As long as it seems like we're working hard (How can you not be? You're doing a million things at once!), client's paying the big bucks and everyone goes home happy, if a little tired. Why is so much value placed on vacations and (if you're lucky) weekends? Doing nothing. Ahh that even feels relaxing to type. Just sitting and not checking your blackberry, that's relaxing.
Daymn. Can we all just chill for a minute?
+ Show Spoiler +I have no idea why I wrote this, just felt like it.. p.s. i'm at work haha
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Baa?21245 Posts
I bet you didn't just sit down and write that, you were texting/phoning/e-mailing while writing this, weren't you? 
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Snet
United States3573 Posts
Looks like some random essay for school.
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On July 08 2009 00:25 Snet wrote:
Looks like some random essay for school. He wrote he was at work (and probably a bad day at that), so to blow off some steam he probably looked around his surroundings and wrote a "you know what's B.S.?" rant. Happens all the time.
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Katowice25012 Posts
And whats the deal with airplane food?
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Canada7170 Posts
This is why I don't have facebook. I've met people my age that "don't like calling people". Does it make me old that I'm starting to hate technology? Don't get me wrong, the technology is great. I'm just not a fan of how "plugged in" everybody is these days.
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facebook definitely sucks
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CA10835 Posts
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On July 08 2009 03:19 LosingID8 wrote:
dildophone imo
would u like to have the phone set on vibrate by default for you sir?
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On July 08 2009 01:52 mikeymoo wrote:
This is why I don't have facebook. I've met people my age that "don't like calling people". Does it make me old that I'm starting to hate technology? Don't get me wrong, the technology is great. I'm just not a fan of how "plugged in" everybody is these days.
I hate cell-phones because they make people flaky and indecisive. Something about being able to change plans at the last second makes people actually want to do it. I have no problem with people who prefer sending an IM or an email though. It doesn't tie up the land line that way, and my phone calls are only about 30 seconds long anyway.
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I like desk phones! I don't suppose it has anything to do with me installing phone systems for a living does it?
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headsets are very comfortable imo. But for me they function just as a way to hold the horn without me having to do it. When I talk to someone .. computer related of course, I can mouse and type around. Sometimes it is handy. Often times, not needed though.
And yeah, I don't like the 24/7 connection style either. I fit more in the loner theme 
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On July 08 2009 00:25 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:I bet you didn't just sit down and write that, you were texting/phoning/e-mailing while writing this, weren't you?
Right, I was on a conference call. Clever you!
FWIW, the main topic of discussion was something 'terrible' happening later this week, and how it's got everyone up in arms. Sadly enough, I'm certain that not even a month from now, it'll be forgotten in favor of the next big problem.I feel another mini-rant coming on about making too much of every little damn thing, so I'll stop here. ^_^
I think soon it'll quiten down enough for me to go home <3
oh yeah, forgot: Thanks for understanding takahashi
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On July 08 2009 04:19 Chef wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2009 01:52 mikeymoo wrote:
This is why I don't have facebook. I've met people my age that "don't like calling people". Does it make me old that I'm starting to hate technology? Don't get me wrong, the technology is great. I'm just not a fan of how "plugged in" everybody is these days. I hate cell-phones because they make people flaky and indecisive. Something about being able to change plans at the last second makes people actually want to do it. I have no problem with people who prefer sending an IM or an email though. It doesn't tie up the land line that way, and my phone calls are only about 30 seconds long anyway.
I have a feeling that my cell phone does make me flakey and indecisive.
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While the phone's function will never go out of style, today it's pretty much impossible to buy a phone that's just a phone. No, you need e-mail functionality, you need to be online 24/7 to respond to clients, you need to be able to read twitter, facebook, rss updates, watch videos, listen to music and text all in one handy, and above all, mobile device.
I don't do any of that shit with the exception of the odd text, communication, zomg! So futuristic!~
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EPT
