That feeling when all you need to buy is one – one – laundry net but you are stuck behind Man Who Feels The Need To Buy Everything In The Japan Home Store, in the only check-out queue manned by World’s Most Meticulous And Organised Cashier, who waits patiently for the same man to count out his cash to the cent ($107.90), while you have enough time to write and edit this post, including redundant and extraneous – tautological, perhaps – words, bearing in mind that the genesis of this sentiment took place some five – five – minutes ago…
…was how I felt this weekend when I popped into the shop for what I thought was a quick purchase, but which ended up taking 10 minutes.
These office items and gadgets, some of which were on the cutting edge in 1988, now all fit on a smartphone. Well, except for the coffee. Photo by Buck Ennis.
Hence, for my next trick, I’m going to ask: Technological powers-that-be, when are we going to turn our office numbers into work numbers for the mobile?
And mind you, I’m not talking about call forwarding.
I’m referring to an actual office line that can be combined with our present personal mobile phone line – but which we can choose to switch off when we’re out of the office.
Think about it. To create a clear divide between the professional and the personal, we have:
Personal e-mail addresses and office e-mail addresses; and
Personal phone lines and office phone lines.
Before the advent of mobile data technology, office tools were often fixed, and we had to enter the office to use those specific tools.
Now, we can do almost everything on the go; we can make personal calls on our mobile phones, and check our personal and office e-mail on the same device.
So at which point did companies say: “Hey! We’re gonna stop developing technology for office phone lines because there is no need to.”?
Because of this – lapse? change of focus? – we now have work-based communication taking place on our personal lines.
Some examples: Whatsapp office group chat messages, or text messages and voice calls from clients.
It’d be nice to have the option of setting “away from office” auto-replies on our work phone lines when on leave or after leaving the office, so we can draw a distinction between work and leisure.
Therefore, I’m calling this right here, right now, Lare-style: There’s a portion of the technology that’s lagging behind everything else when it comes to the modern office telephone line.
Technological powers-that-be, please do something about it. You’ll more than reap the rewards when everyone starts adopting this service.
In recent days, I’ve used my house keys to “tap out” before alighting from the bus, my EZlink card to attempt entry into my workplace and my workplace access card to open my house door.
Either I’m becoming increasingly absent-minded, or we just need one device to rule them all.
I posted this on Facebook, and a friend responded:
I tried using my van key remote to open the staff room door. Think we need to fight for lighter workload. Brain running out of RAM. 🙂
