A day without my mobile phone
For the first time in years (far longer than I can actually remember for sure), I’ve forgotten to take my mobile phone with me. As I am now half way along my journey to work, this means I will be separated from my phone until at least 7pm today.
I already feel a bit cut-off, but that will soon change when I get into the office. For now, I’m making do with my 3G modm and the MacBook, which is how I am doing today’s post.
Suffice to say, if you need to reach me today, you will actually need to call my office landline for a change, rather than going straight to my mobile.
I do get rather fed up with people, usually work contacts, who insist on using my mobile phone number as the primary way of contacting me for work-related queries (and I’m talking about the pointless stuff like “did you get the press release we sent you a week ago” rather than the more useful “My client is running late for his lunch meeting with you”.
I have a perfectly good landline in my office - please use it in the first instance. The mobile is there so that you can get hold of me if it is urgent, or if you have genuinely failed to get me on the landline first - don’t just bypss my office number altogether.
I do reject about 70 per cent of the calls I get to my mobile number during office hours anyway (and definitely bounce unknown and withheld numbers straight to voicemail unless I’m not sat at my desk, then I will answer), so chances are you’ll still only end up talking to my voicemail before you talk to me, so you may as well talk to my office voicemail if it is not time critical - it’s more likely to get a reply, or at least listened to before my mobile voicemail will.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:40 am
I once went three months without a mobile phone when I was working in Cyprus and I loved it. No one could contact me but I could contact them when/if I needed to.
I felt free. These days I (like everyone else) can be contacted in all sorts of ways.
Enjoy your day mobile-less.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:50 am
The most I’ve managed to go in the past is 10 days, when I went on a canal holiday with some mates and made a point of leaving the BlackBerry behind.
I was climbing the walls for the first two days, but felt great by the end of it.
I haven’t started getting the shakes yet, but there is still time. For now, I shall enjoy the peace and quiet