 Dial M for Mobile By Michael WILLARD |
I don't really understand my mobile phone. On certain days, I think I understand Swahili, but my cell phone remains a mystery beyond the basic call functions. What's more, I don't want my phone to have a camera, and I don't want my camera to have a telephone. It would be nice, I suppose, if a certain brand of sipping whiskey could be poured out of my mobile telephone, but everything else seems rather superfluous.
I realize that I am in the minority. The fact is that cell phones with built-in cameras are selling faster than Botox injections. Recently, a professional employee with whom I work became totally distraught. No, her mama didn't die; she had lost her cell phone, and with it, the pictures she had taken.
Don't get me wrong. I am not anti-cell phone. They are at least as necessary as handguns, and it should be the right of every citizen to own at least one. Besides, they have become fashion statements, dangling from women's necks in the most elegant of pouches. They are small enough that men no longer have to wear holsters to carry them, a sight reminiscent of the tool belts worn by maintenance men. No one - not even aborigines in the Australian outback - dials a telephone anymore. They punch buttons; and many have become so adept at finding the little buttons that they do it without even looking. I personally have to put on my glasses just to see the buttons. I imagine that gnomes, with hands the size of Barbie's, work in the Nokia factory. And for some reason, my telephone dials numbers while it is in my coat pocket, as if it has a mind of its own. I am told this problem is easy to correct, but I have learned all I care to learn about the damned thing. I once heard the story about a divorce that might have been avoided, except that the telephone was in the fellow's pocket when he was grappling with his mistress. The number he accidentally called was his wife's.
I also wonder what possesses one to program the William Tell Overture into a mobile telephone? When it rings, it is a spirited call to action that makes you want to jump on a white horse named Silver. I doubt Gioacchino Rossini, composer of the symphony of which the tune is part, envisioned its use as a telephone ring tone, though he may have anticipated the theme of The Lone Ranger. These are questions to which answers will probably always elude us.
As you can see, I am not the mobile telephone's most ardent advocate, even though I have owned one for nearly a dozen years. The first basic Motorola model was followed by a series of Nokia products.
It's not that I believe mobile phones cause brain tumors; I am reasonably certain that they don't. I dislike them for reasons that have to do with basic comity among people. The cell phone is a nuisance and a threat to civilization as we know it.
I first saw a cell phone in about 1987. My main competitor in the advertising game, a rather smug fellow who had an Colgate smile and buttermilk for brains, was sitting in a cafe with two colleagues, demonstrating for all that his firm had the latest technology. I assume the two colleagues were primarily along to carry the box from which the telephone receiver was extracted, since it appeared somewhat heavier than Fat Albert. There he sat, shouting into the receiver so that the entire restaurant knew that: 1.) He was a very important fellow; and 2.) His company had just won a new contract. His name - even the name of his company - has long since slipped from memory, but the visual is indelible.
In truth, my cell phone is as much a part of me as my glaring bald spot. It is not that I particularly like the place that appears to have been defoliated by Agent Orange, but it is something I must live with - just like the cell phone. I expect to get calls on that little ice cream bar-shaped thing perhaps three times a week. Two of the calls are wrong numbers. I go to pains not to give out my mobile number.
There are reasons for this, quite apart from being a curmudgeon. Life is too short. I work a good solid 13 of those 24 hours, and the only time I would encourage anyone to call me outside those paid work hours is in an emergency. The Biblical Noah had an emergency. They are not that common.
I realize I am in the minority when I rail against cell phones. No, less than a minority - I am a speck of dust in the communications galaxy. The only other confirmed non-cell person with whom I am familiar is Newsweek columnist Robert J. Samuelson, and he is a real caveman about the thing. He also eschews laptops (I love them), ATM's
(I have no money) and digital cameras (I have the latest Nikon digital). Compared to this guy, I am not at all weird.
In 1985, there were 340,000 cellular telephones in the United States. Today, there are 170 million, or so says the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association. The association claims that mobile phone users cross all demographic boundaries. Even 60 percent of the ancients aged 60 to 69 have gone mobile. That's almost as high as the 18 to 24 year-old age group: 66 percent of them are chatting away while chewing gum and humming pop tunes. However, the largest user group in America is among the 30 to 49 year-olds, where 76 per cent own a mobile phone. What about people in the "noble rot" years, aged 80 or more? The figure dips to an astonishingly high 32 per cent.
A multi-national company thinks of me as the Miss Manners of cell phone etiquette, and recently asked me to outline the rules of the road for use of the instrument. Though the list includes just nine rules, I am sure that I could easily come up with a dozen or so more. But I am to entertain as well as educate, and don't wish to belabor the point for those of you who prefer your mobile telephone to your ex-wives.
1. Know when to switch your mobile phone off. This seems rather elementary, but obviously it is a lesson in advanced coolness. A telephone call taken during a business meeting is to say to the other suits around the table that they are not really professionals, but sacks of Alpo. In most all cases, turn off your phone when going into a meeting.
2. There could be times you are expecting an important call while you are in a business meeting. In such case, advise the individual or group beforehand that your mother could call, and that she is the Southeastern distributor of guilt. Then, step out of the room before you begin your conversation. Do you really want your colleagues to hear answers to such questions as: "Is that wife of yours providing you with fresh underwear each morning?" Or, "Did you make up with your little brother (who is 50)?" Even then, to prevent the interruption of a ringing telephone, put it on silent ring or vibration, and excuse yourself from the meeting.
3. Switch off the your phone's ring function if you are preparing to begin important work that can't be interrupted, such as preparing deadline work. Haven't you ever told your receptionist to hold your calls? Well, hold your own calls!
4. The office telephone is not a desk decoration. If you are in your office, encourage your associates and colleagues and friends to call you on a landline. Saving money is not bad.
5. Keep the ring tone of your telephone at a reasonably low level. These days, with virtually everyone carrying a mobile phone, the cacophony in the workplace and public places can send ordinarily sane people scurrying over the edge. This is particularly true due to the thousands of different ring tones available.
6. Speak softly. Mobile telephones are sensitive. For some reason, it seems many folks in New York feel their voices have to carry to Miami. The phenomenon even has a name: "Cell yell." Keep your voice to a reasonable level. If you want to impress the girl standing next to you, wear a Homburg on your head and a red rose in your lapel. It will be just as effective, without being quite as annoying.
7. Do you really want everyone knowing your business? Personal or business, conversations are generally meant for two people - don't tell the outfield bleachers at Yankee stadium.
8. Don't sacrifice effectiveness, confidentiality and professionalism for convenience and immediacy. Be as careful with where you talk as you are with what you say. Beware conversations in public where you could be easily overheard: in a rental car shuttle bus, in public restrooms and in elevators, for example.
9. The vast majority of callers do not require immediate access. Getting back to someone within a reasonable time is much better than committing mobile telephone bad manners.
|
Read also previous issue' articles:
"ASK THE LAWYER!"
The Achilles Heal of Management: Employee Communication
Ukraine Gets Image Makeover
Lateness, and Other Crimes
Hookers, Cotton Gin Workers and Other Professionals
The Invisible Bond
|
| |
CONTACT US |
|
|
|
