....do NOT call me at work.
Why? Because I'll be incredibly busy? No. Well, yes. I will be, but that's not why.
Because I'm working and it would not be ethical to take personal calls on company time? No.
Because...uh... why?
Answer: Because I'll have to answer the phone.... AND I WON'T KNOW HOW!!
We're getting a new phone system. Feh. Remember the good old days when working the phone consisted of:
1. ring.
2. Hello?
3. Talk talk tell me more tell me more like does he have a car? Yes? what then? gotta go.
4. Goodbye
5. Hang up.
easy peasy japaneasy.
Here's an idea of what's in store for me. I attended a phone training session today. It lasted 77 minutes. There's an instruction book that is 60 pages long. 60 SIXTY!! SIX OH.
The word "functionality" was used.
A lot.
The phone has the following features:
*soft keys
*navigation bar
*park
*i-- (oops. I forgot. It's some normal word onto which they've appended an "i" and it sends your calls to voicemail if you don't want to talk to that person. I-dodge?)
*99 speed dial numbers. Like I could remember 99 speed dial numbers! And maybe some
day, if you're good, I'll tell you my stand-up routine about speed dial and relationships and how my daughter thinks Jerry Seinfeld stole the routine from me.
*In addition to the 99 speed dial, there are the "One-touch" and "abbreviated dial" numbers. It's going to be easier just to remember phone numbers.
*there's more, but I kinda zoned out.
And by the way, exactly when was it that "Hold" became "Park"? I somehow missed that memo.
Basically, I'm so screwed.
Hello? Ernestine? One ringy-dingy. *snork*
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Sly, what you need is your own secretary to answer the phone for you!
Is this the party to whom I am speaking?
So "hold" is now PARK???
I've been out of the workplace too long.
Park - *snork*
Too funny!
I'll be calling you on April 11. That will give you one day to get ready.
Can't wait!
Ta ta!! :)
Sly, I sympathsise.
As a contractor, who, by the very nature of his work, moves from place to place a lot, a regular torment for me is to learn new phone systems.
Now I'm willing to bet you think a techo-type person like me would take that in his stride and have the phone sitting up and begging within minutes.
You would be wrong.
The place in my brain that was reserved for understanding phone systems has apparently been destroyed by excess drinking during my teen years.
I don't know how to transfer a call, let alone program the phone buttons, let alone remember how to USE programmed buttons.
There is only one thing I do with my phone each time I get a new one - figure out how to transfer calls to my mobile when I'm on the phone or don't answer it. And I inevitably have to phone the help-desk to get assistance with that.
My advice: ingnore it all. I have yet to come across a phone where, when it rings, you have to do more than pick up the handset and say "Hello", or one where you have to do more than remember to dial "0" to get an outside line before dialling.
Of course the phone can do MUCH more than that. The current one can do "group-pickup", which is where when someone else's phone is ringing I can take the call. But why would I WANT to? I get enough calls as it is, thank you very much, and I'd only be getting in the way of the person's voice mail answering system anyway.
As with yours, it can do speed-dialling. But its only speedy if you can remember what the speed dial number is. And to do THAT I need a separate phone list to keep track of them, so why not just look up the actual number? Particularly as I then have to maintain my speed-dial list as the phone numbers change, instead of just looking up the number in the corporate directory.
I put the whole thing into the same category as new features in my word processor. All this "functionality" may be very neat looking in the brochure, but by the time I figure out how to use it, I may as well have just done it the way I always have.
I somehow managed to erase the outgoing message on home answering machine. Now if you call and I don't answer you'll hear this pleasant generic man greeting you with "I'm sorry, we're not home. Please leave your etc, etc."
Of course I threw out the manual years ago and my phone gives ABSOLUTELY NO clues for how to record another one.
Two good aspects to all this:
1. Only your best friends leave messages.
2. My frighteningly brilliant best friend has exactly the same problem and exactly the same generic factory-installed message.
Deon, the voice-mail-turning-into-e-mail thing is Phase 2 of the new phone system. I think that's supposed to happen in a couple of months; after we are supposedly "comfortable" with the change.
Something tells me a lot of people are going to start using their cellphones.
I once left someone on hold for over 30 minutes because I couldn't figure out how to get them off. Also my phone has a large red button that says goodbye on it. I push this everyday when I leave so the phone knows I am gone and can tell all the other phones to come over for a party.
Post a Comment