31–40 of 62 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a couple of voicemail transcription services available, or you can use Twilio. I suggest language like "For quickest response, please spell me your email address."
Google Voice transcribes voicemail. A bit hit-and-miss sometimes, but decent (and, presumably, getting better with more data).
If you are stinking rich or important and have an assistant, you don't need a cell phone because your assistant will have their cellphone and you can take it when you need it or have your assistant call someone.
I'm in shock!
Sorry, Charlie, I plan to keep mine.
If I can't find someplace, I need the maps on my phone or the ability to call someone. I can't just lean over to my driver and say "Take me there."
If my plans change, finding a pay phone is impossible. One time, my car ran out of gas. I was broke and couldn't buy any at the time. I thought it would go 3 more miles. So I started walking home and figured if I saw a payphone I would use it. I didn't want to impose on some store's line to call my wife. Would you believe that after passing 3 gas stations, 4 fast food places, and more along an entire strip, there wasn't a single payphone?
Seriously, what is it with you yanks? "I used [something most people use] every minute of every day, but I decided to stop using [that something] alltogether and now I feel [free/empowered/at peace/intellectually stimulated/etc]." What about moderation?
I disagree that it necessarily makes the world run on your time. All it does, is make the default method of communication asynchronous and forces synchronous communication to be scheduled. It doesn't "make the world run on your time", unless you're still using a phone to interrupt other people with unscheduled synchronous communication. The responsible way to ditch the interruptions and improve focus is to shift your…
Absolutely it doesn't make the world run on your time. Being contactable by mobile if your friends expect to be able to is basic politeness. I mean, if we're waiting for a train and one of our group is late and they call/pick up when we call them, we can make a plan, to wait for the next one or meet somewhere else. If not, I don't think it's reasonable to expect telepathy to work... We're gone.
"Meeting up" is precisely the kind of time when I have my phone set to ring.
It's silent during my normal daily routine or when I'm with all the people I planned to be with. (out of respect for our time together)
You don't need to be immediately reached by phone in these events unless you can actually do something about it. Calling 911 and attending to the emergency trumps calling me at unless I'm close enough to help, i.e. walking the dog, at the neighbor's house, etc. If I have to drive to get there, it's too far; call me after things have stabilized.
If it's a call to break bad news, the last thing you should be doing in the event of tragic news is hopping in a car a driving somewhere while you're an emotional wreck. Racing to the hospital in an attempt to get in "your last words" is dangerous and is not as fulfilling as you might hope. Live in such a way that you're at peace with everyone you care about and last words are not needed.
Also, in my own ability to cope with events, simply receiving news that someone died is the easiest. Being there and witnessing someone die is far harder (or visiting them every day in the hospital until they die...even if you aren't there when it happens), and the hardest for me was performing CPR on someone and the person dying anyways (it helped me to learn later from the autopsy that CPR was never going to help, but it's still traumatic to me in a way that the other events weren't).
In short, real emergencies happen too quickly for a call to non-emergency services to be of any help, worrying about those situations is a waste of your time, and it's possible if you're like me, that actually being there is worse than not being there. Business emergencies are a different beast though.
The "what about emergencies?" issue comes up quite a bit, I thought I'd share my perspective. Having been in a few actual life or death emergency situations in my personal life and formerly being a police dispatcher, I've been on both ends of this. You don't need to be immediately reached by phone in these events unless you can actually do something about it. Calling 911 and attending to the emergency trumps calling…
It's a matter of YOU having a phone to make an emergency call to 911 when/if you have the need.
The "what about emergencies?" issue comes up quite a bit, I thought I'd share my perspective. Having been in a few actual life or death emergency situations in my personal life and formerly being a police dispatcher, I've been on both ends of this. You don't need to be immediately reached by phone in these events unless you can actually do something about it. Calling 911 and attending to the emergency trumps calling…
The way I see it, the "what about emergencies?" argument is not so much about someone in an emergency being able to reach you to ask for help or to inform you. It's a matter of YOU having a phone to make an emergency call to 911 when/if you have the need.
(Edit: I guess you're personal behavior will probably dictate which conversation you have, reach-ability vs. emergency services).
And once I'm available 24/7 for work, I become available for anyone else that has that number.
I stopped carrying my cell phone to theaters because I kept forgetting to put in on vibrate. I stopped carrying my cell phone to business meetings because I didn't want to be distracted by the vibrating. I stopped carrying my cell phone to restaurants because I wanted the people I was with to think that no one was more important than them while we were together. I stopped carrying my cell phone to my mother's because…
I then switched to a voice mail message that asked the caller to email me, but I still kept missing things - perhaps your contacts would be more polite, but 80% of the people who called me would still leave messages on my voice mail.
I finally got rid of voice mail altogether about a year ago - if I don't pick up, people get the standard 'this voice mail inbox has not been set up' message. I no longer miss things, since people can't leave a message and therefore don't assume I'm on it - they go and find another way to get in touch with me instead.
There were complaints at first - from my girlfriend, from a couple of business associates. It took a couple of months for them to adapt to my new behavior. Now they text me.