way way OT: wireless on planes (aside)

[Fairlight]

You'll never BELIEVE what Nancy Palmquist said here...:
> Climbing on my soap box so watch out.

As long as you don't fall over on me...  I suppose that'd be the path to
the Trimmer Me though...

> So do you respond to the phone when you are in the toilet or in some 
> other inappropriate situation.  It should be reasonable to anyone that 
> there are times you will be unavailable and they will have to leave a 
> message.

But of course.  Hey, if I call a client, there's a 50% chance the party I
need to speak with is not available.  Why should it be any different in
reverse?  I may say 24hr callbacks.  That's sort of an outside guarantee
where if I'm sick or you hit me on the flip side of a whacky schedule, I'll
at least hit you by the next day.  In practise, it's more like 5min-3hrs.

> I firmly believe that we are becoming more and more impolite in the way 
> we use our cell phones.  I refuse to answer call-waiting, the person who 
> called me first has my attention.  The person who called me second can 
> leave a message and be next on my list (or however far down they fall in 
> the scheme.)  I feel that many people use this technology to "jump the 
> line" asserting that they think they are the most important person and 
> my current customer can wait on them.

There are valid exceptions for using call waiting (although I heartily
agree with you about the impoliteness of it).  If you call the doctor's
office to get something out of them and are waiting for the (inevitable,
and also inevitably delayed and unscheduled) callback, you -want- to be
able to grab that call, as you have a prior arrangement--that, and without
your health, you're no good to anyone.  There -are- times when you simply
-should- take the call because it's detrimental not to.

> I refuse to drop everything to answer an email.  Just because they can 
> send something quickly does not require that I answer quickly.  You take 
> your chances.  Email's convenience is that the person at the other end 
> does not have to answer at the moment you send a message.  If you want 
> that pick up the phone.

I'm actually the opposite.  I check email far more often than I check my
voicemail.  It's the surest way to reach me and the fastest way to get a
response.

> Of course I do not suggest that Richard or any person that was involved 
> in this posting falls in this rude category, but just was annoyed by 
> Richard being worried that his customers would insist on his answering 
> the phone at 36,000 ft (or however high planes fly).  His customers 
> struck me a rude.

It strikes me as Richard being a bit too worried about what people
think.  Yes, we all have responsibilities to our clients, and we take them
seriously.  We're also (many of us) freelancers, and we're answerable
to ourselves, not The Man--within reason, anyway.  I strive for high
availability, but I'm not a slave to the phone -or- email--I just happen to
check email -very- often when I'm conscious.

There's an "emergency" where someone "NEEDS" something, and you find out
they bothered you on an instant basis and left 20 voicemails in an hour
because they couldn't RTFM or just flat-out didn't understand something
totally innocuous.  Then there's a -real- emergency.  If someone tries to
bell me at 3am, platters had BETTER be flying out the sides of their case,
or something to that effect.  It had better be an enterprise-crippling
disaster to even try me at some entirely unreasonable time.  Ditto on
weekends, unless it's a prearranged and agreed-upon issue.  I don't mind
donig things way after hours in the wee hours of the morning or on
weekends, as long as it's ahead of time.  But the false-alarm emergency
thing is just so overdone.  Too many people cry, "Wolf!" over the smallest
things, and then complain if you don't take it seriously when they have a
Real Problem.  Well the solution is simple--don't abuse the emergency
status in the first place.

> Let us rebel against this intrusion into our lives.  Work is not 
> supposed to be 7x24x365 - that is unreasonable.

Amen.  Hey...if we wanted that, we'd be on-call working for someone under
salary conditions, doing the daily (and nightly) grind thing.  BTDTGTTS.
It's highly overrated.  I don't even offer -anyone- "on call" 24x7 even
excluding holidays.  I make a best-effort attempt to be as accessible as
possible.  But hey..."always on-call" is just not in my vocabulary.  My
time and sanity is worth more than anyone could possibly pay me (seriously,
I could be offered $20K/mo for 24/7 on-call and I'd turn it down flat--not
worth it to me).  You need to de-stress and take time away from work, or
you burn out and you're no good yourself or anyone else.

mark->
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