January 3, 1992
Dear Everyone:
Well, the Year is finally over.
Christmas is past.
All the Holiday leftovers have
been consumed, the last piece of Christmas chocolate devoured.
So… On your mark… Get set…
D I E T!
While I was away on vacation, someone came into my
office and took my telephone. That's
the Good News. The Bad News is:
They replaced it with another,
bigger phone.
The super-duper phone with "soft" keys and "hard"
keys and a 75 page User Guide to tell you how to work it.
Written, of course, by the same
people who brought you "How to program your VCR" (in 27 steps).
It has a display window, filled with cryptic codes
like LAST # and TIMER. When you
key in the number you want (notice, you don't
dial the number; you
key it in), the Display
Window tells you who you’re
calling. Neat, huh?
Now, let's think about this for a moment, shall we?
Let's say I want to call “Rowena
Chandler”. If she is not busy,
maybe we'll have lunch together. So
I key in 55555. And the machine
checks its software and comes back and displays:
“R L CHANDLER” 55555.
But, I already
know this. Why, in heavens
name, what I call someone and not know who I was calling?
Why, for that matter, would
anyone?
Another handy feature, the Display Window tells you
who is calling you (providing they’re calling from inside the Company system and
within San Francisco). So, when
the phone "rings", you can look at the Display Window and decide if you
want to talk to this person. If
not, you simply don't pick up the call and the caller gets your Voice
Mail and leaves a message. Then
you have to return their call and they can look at
their Display Window and
decided they feel like talking to you. It
adds a whole new dimension to "telephone tag".
And there are extra features.
Like "Voice Call". No, this isn't
where you say to the phone: "Call
Mom" and the next thing you hear is "Domino's Pizza".
It means you can use your phone
as an intercom. Ask your
secretary to bring you another cup of coffee.
You can look at who's calling you and type in a
charge code so that you start charging the caller for your time even
before you pick up the phone. Lawyers
thought this one up.
And, get this, "Malicious Call Trace".
This is an actual button that you
can press when you get a malicious call.
Then, you stay on the
line, talking to this malicious caller until the machine has time to
trace the call. Excuse me?
How many times a month would you
even need to do this? At what
point does the extra charge for this feature become cost-effective?
Of course, our phones don't have
all these features.
Ours are the stripped-down
models. No am/fm stereo or
factory air-conditioning. Just
"Handsfree" and nine “Autodial" keys. In
fact, I'd say about 55 pages of the 75 page User Guide don't apply to
us. Thank goodness.
"Handsfree" lets you use your phone as a "squawk
box", thus allowing everyone down the hall to listen in on your
conversation (whether they want to or not).
"Handsfree" is also a "mute"
button, allowing you to cut off the person you're talking to so that
they can't hear you. The idea
here is that you might want to say something to someone else in your
office without the person on the other end of the line hearing you.
I can see some people getting
into real trouble if they should get their "mute" and "non-mute" mixed
up. I can see it now on ABC:
America's
Funniest Phone Calls.
"Autodial" is for people you call frequently, but
don't want to be bothered with remembering their phone numbers.
For instance, if I want to call
“Rowena” again, instead of keying in 55555, I can just hit an "Autodial"
key that I've pre-programmed with her number, thus saving myself a grand
total of 4 keystrokes. Of course,
it takes anywhere from 7 to 13 keystrokes to pre-programmed each
"Autodial" key. This is called
progress.
Of course, this presupposes that you even
know nine people that you
call frequently. And that they
would be at the phone when you call.
Whenever I call “Nelly” or “Jerry in the “Livermore” Records
Center, I almost never get who I'm calling.
The “Livermore” people are very
sensitive because a former boss yelled at them once for not picking up
the call quickly enough; so now, when the phone rings,
any phone, everybody dives to
grab the call.
My fancy phone also tells me what day it is and
what time it is. Of course, the
time on the phone doesn't match the time on the PC, which doesn't match
the clock on my desk which doesn't match the clock on the window sill;
but who cares? The phone will
also, automatically tell me how long I've been on the phone, another
useful feature.
And last, but not least, there is that old,
familiar standby: The HOLD
button, conveniently placed right next to the RELEASE button, thus
affording you the opportunity for cutting someone off when you only meant
to put them on hold. I,
personally, am famous for this one. Even
when I didn't mean it.
Love, as always,
Pete
| Previous | Next |