Tag Archives: phone

Unexpected positive interactions

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I had to make a bit of an embarrassing phone call yesterday. I metaphorically dropped the ball. A parent needed permission to get a student signed up for an online course and had tried to contact me a few times. I never got back to her. She had a similar (but not the same) first name as another parent I was dealing with, and her son wanted a similar (but not the same) course as the other parent’s son. I still mixed them up, thought they were asking about the same issue, and only responded to the latter parent. The error was due to a careless error on my part… 100% my fault.

I remember the day last week when I dealt with the other family, then saw a message from my secretary after the fact and thought, ‘Oh, I just dealt with that’, brushing off the message rather than reading it fully.

Considering the first message from this parent was the week before last, maybe even the week before that, she’d been waiting quite a while. When I called at the end of the day today, I was expecting to speak to an upset person. I introduced myself and immediately apologized for my lack of timely communication.

The response I got was a parent happy to have finally reached me, and she immediately explained the situation. As it turns out, this was a situation that was clear cut and actually didn’t even need my approval. I explained how she could register, and gave the name and number of my secretary to connect with if she had any issues. I followed up with an email, and also let all my secretaries know that this person might call for help today, if she had any registration issues.

Yesterday was a long day of back-to-back-to-back-to-back meetings that left me with gaps of under 20 minutes of free time to get things done from 8:20am to almost 4pm. I did have a long and enjoyable lunch meeting in there, but that was also a working lunch, and so I couldn’t even look at my growing inbox the whole day.

Seeing the message about this parent and realizing my mistake was something that made me want to crawl under a rock as I sat at my desk at almost 5pm. But I figured this poor parent had waited long enough and I’d just take the complaint hit on the chin before heading home. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to hear a relieved parent who recognized that I was going to help her son get registered for the course he’d been waiting for.

Interactions like this just want me to pay it forward. I’m left wondering how I can engage with someone else in a more positive way? How can I interact with someone in a better way than they were expecting? How can I provide an unexpected positive interaction with someone when that’s not what they’d expect from me?

Spam call strategy

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I don’t know about you, but I almost never pick up a phone call from a number I don’t know. I’d rather listen to a voicemail than listen to spam. However, recently I’ve been trying something new.

I actually do pick up, then I immediately hit the mute button and the speaker button. So far I’ve only had a callback once from someone who was trying to contact me, because the call wasn’t a spam. And one other time I heard a questioning ‘Hello?’ and responded.

Every other call has been silence and then a click to end the call. I think it’s the muting of the call that does the trick. The auto-callers the spammers use waits to hear a greeting to know they have a person online. I don’t get a call back, and I don’t have to listen to the start of a spam message… and hopefully my number is deemed as a bad line, whereas responding and hanging up is confirmation that they have a ‘live one’ to call again.

The call is still an annoyance, but at least it’s less of one and also less rewarding for the spammer.

Battery life

I just got the notification at work that I can update my phone. This comes just in time because my battery has been draining faster and faster, to the point where it didn’t even last until 2pm yesterday before needing to be charged. I seem to be very good at killing batteries. I know I tend to be a heavy user, but yesterday I didn’t use my phone a lot more than any other day, and in fact probably less. I don’t know why, but battery power loss has been a problem with every phone I’ve owned.

I think it’s not just my phone, I think it’s me. My mom has had difficulty wearing battery powered watches for years, they would just stop working after a few days of wearing them. I think I inherited this effect from her. I think there is something about the natural charge of my body’s working that is hard on batteries. Of course it could just be my heavy use or pattern of use that causes batteries to have shorter lives, but I really think there is something about me as well.

I’m somehow the problem. This isn’t a helpful belief, and quite frankly I’d like to be proven wrong… but my phone’s battery health is only down to 86% and yet it’s barely lasting past half a day.

The good news is that an update is coming. That said, this was already a replacement phone since the last update. Why did I need a replacement phone? The battery kept dying. It’s not the phone, it’s me.

Sitting in silence

This afternoon I was emptying the dryer and folding my clothes in silence. This would normally not be anything worth noting but it occurred to me that I really don’t sit in silence much anymore. Cutting the grass, doing the dishes, cooking, doing the laundry, I almost always do these and other chores while listening to a book or a podcast. I fill the quiet with voices coming from my phone/headphones.

Folding my laundry today made me realize that I miss the quiet of thinking without a distraction. Just about the only other time I do this is while writing, and maybe that’s why this thought came to me, and why I’m sharing it now.

Who has time to intentionally sit in silence? Who makes that time for themselves? I think I need to find opportunities to do this, to ‘unplug’ from external thoughts and not just sit in, but be in silence. I wonder if the ever-present smartphone has made some people afraid of the silence of being alone?

Easy distraction

I’m finding my phone to be a painfully easy distraction that’s sucking away too much of my time. I need it to write this post. I need it to meditate. I need it to listen to music while I work out. I need it to listen to my book. These are all legitimate reasons to ‘need’ my phone.

I don’t ‘need’ it beyond that, but it still ends up in my hands, it still takes my attention. It still sucks time out of my day.

I’m realizing that I need to put it down more, tuck it away more, leave it alone more.

Less phone, more life beyond the screen.

Too much

I’ve been on my phone too much lately. Ironic to say as I peck away on my phone’s keyboard typing this. But it’s true.

I’m already an introvert, and so sinking too much time into my phone, beyond writing this, and meditation, makes me a bit antisocial. Cooking dinner? I’m listening to a book. Entertainment, a game or time on TikTok. Comnections on Twitter. Checking investments. Listening to music. Checking email. Checking email some more. Chatting with my siblings. Doing the Wordle when my sisters share their results with me. Googling, watching videos, reading articles and news.

Not all of these are wasting time, but all of these add up to my phone taking too much of my attention. I need to tome it down. I need to be more present. I need to recognize how much this little device pulls me away from the world… and I need to find more balance.

Living in a Faraday cage

Our house was built in the early 1960’s. The good news, no asbestos in our walls, so we don’t have a massive abatement cost added to an already expensive renovation. The bad news, the plaster/drywall has wire mesh in it.

We used to complain to our phone service providers that the coverage was bad in our area, they even came with trucks outside our house to test reception. But it turns out it’s just bad reception in our house. We are basically living inside a Faraday cage, with large dead zones. ‘Dark’ areas where signals can’t reach or be sent out by our phones because we are surrounded by a metal cage in our walls. Hopefully the center wall on the main floor being removed will make this better.

Currently, when using a cell phone in my house I’m reminded of when we used to be tied to a specific location where the phones were on tables or were connected to the wall. I would be walking around talking to someone and the line goes silent. I would then need to backtrack to where I last had the signal and hope that I wasn’t disconnected. Once I’m reconnected, I have to stay locked in that one spot.

For most people mobile phones are mobile, but in my house we are still tethered to specific locations. For those of you that have nostalgia for the old days, this isn’t as much fun as it might sound.

A Life Consumed

Overstimulated, over stressed,
Anxiety heightened but not addressed.

Faces lit in a constant glow,
From a device, in hands, below.

Palms cup, thumbs type,
Or click, or ‘Like’, or swipe.

Acceptance measured by affirmation,
But never enough for self-appreciation.

Pressure builds to levels previously unknown,
From always being connected, yet always feeling alone.

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