Hmmm ... maybe I've made a huge mistake!

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CAframer

CAframer

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
Joined
Nov 19, 2003
Posts
3,834
Loc
Orange County, CA
My good lady wife is somewhat gadget challenged (and that's saying it kindly!) ... but she wanted a better way of staying on top of her appointments, emails, and the like ... so I (foolishly?) bought her a new Blackberry Curve ... now it seems that every 5 minutes I get asked the dumbest questions! I must have 'splained the same dang thing a hundred times or more! How on earth am I going to get anything done! Sigh!

We also looked at the iPhone, I liked the graphics, but the quality (loudness) of the actual phone is VERY disappointing.
 
Nice Gift

You need to make a "cheat sheet" for her until she gets the hang of it. And then she'll be sending you text messages right and left.:D

Lori
 
If she can do anything with a Blackberry she is a couple of streets ahead of me. I don't even know how to use an ordinary mobile 'phone. I don't own one and don't want one for the simple reason that nothing I do is so urgent it can't wait until I get to a landline.
 
Well, art, it seems like the American population cannot get through a single day without a cell phone! Between following some weaving driver down the road who has a cell phone stuck in their ear to being interrupted in the middle of a framing estimate, it is a fact of life that otherwise very rational polite people will drop their thought train in the middle of a sentence to answer those blasted phones.

Yes, I have one. No, I don't EVER answer it when I am at work!! I check who is calling, hit the vibrate mode to mute the incessant ringing, and wait for a voice message later. It just drives the people around me nuts!! But I feel that it is extremely rude and very distracting to break out of a discussion or stop any form of discourse to answer a cell phone when you already have a connection established with the human being standing right in front of you!! Who knows who is on the other end of that phone line?? And how important can it be to stop working or talking about something to answer a phone?? When you interrupt a face to face conversation to answer a cell phone you have effectively put THAT person in front of you on hold while you answer some unknown person's cry for attention. That seems a very discourteous way to treat that person sitting or standing a few feet away from you.

I have never let a phone run my life as long as there are real people around me to communicate with!! So I admire you for not succumbing to the new electronic gadgetry that is flooding the market.
 
I even keep my regular phone at the shop on answer after 3 rings. The message states business hours and "if you've received this message during these hours, I'm busy with glass or a customer, but I will return your call".

Drives my in-the-shop customers nuts at first, they get all fidgety and say "You can get that if you want" and I tell them, nope, you're more important right now. And I really had to train myself to let the machine pick up when I'm on a project or handling glass and just don't want to be interrupted, but oh what a feeling of freedom when I finally can! Half the time it's a telemarketer disguised as a donation-for-charity vulture anyway!

Same thing for my cell phone. Hubby got it for me when I was going through my hip surgeries, in case "something should happen". It rarely gets used, maybe at the grocery store when I call him to ask "Do we need milk??"
 
Einstein reportedly mused that humanity would have about 4 years left if all of the bees were to die......

Earth can probably stand to loose a few creatures but we needs bees!!!

Funny about my shop phone ringing when I am with a customer - they always urge me to answer the call (and they always answer their cells, too). Some folk just cannot abide not answering a phone. Silly!
 
On the other hand... I find my cell phone invaluable. The store can reach me while I am running errands, or to tell me that the 3:00 appointment I forgot has come in.

It allows me to have what passes for a real life away from the store.
 
When I was caring for sick parents and inlaws, a cell phone allowed me to be instantly reachable - and I can't tell you how many times I've had to drop what I was doing and go immediately!

As for driving - if talking on cellphones is outlawed, then so should eating, smoking, messing with the cd player, talking/switching channels on a CB, and of course, putting on makeup. They are ALL dangerous.

I do answer mine when it rings, but make a point to say "excuse me" to whomever I'm with.

As with most things in life, it's not so much "what" you do, but how and with what attitude. But of course - this is just my opinion...
 
It allowed me to receive a call from my daughter at about 4pm yesterday telling me she had been t-boned by a Range Rover. She is fine, as is the passenger on the impact side. Her 2001 Subaru Forester is in ICU, and we may have to pull the plug.

She was on US1 just south of St. Augustine...a relatively rural area...and without a cell phone she could have waited for hours for emergency response.

I will make a wild guess as to why the driver of the Range Rover "Didn't even see her"...she was probably talking on her cell phone.

Small consolation in that the state trooper figured out who was at fault almost immediately and slapped the owner of the Range Rover with multiple violations. My daughter also got some guilt free satisfaction in seeing the brush guard rubbing against one of the low profile tires on the 22 bling rims as they pulled away.

I got the best and worst of cell phones all at once.
 
Glad your daughter is ok Wally. I can't imagine not having a cell phone now, especially with having a 12 and 14 yr old on the go. It has proven invaluable more than once. We just gave Nick the 14 yr old his first one for his birthday. We laid down very strict rules, so far so good. He's involved in a couple of different sports at school, it was time.

But thats as far as I will go at the moment with technology. I really don;t want to add more info in my brain, it hurts now as it is. I really dislike answering the phone when I am with a customer, thats why I have caller id. If it can wait, I let it, when a customer hears me say that call can wait I think they appreciate it.
 
That's the kind of call that can stop your heart!

I'm glad your daughter is okay, Wally.

The problem was not that the driver was on a cell phone but that she wasn't paying attention.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

My next door neighbor was rear ended on the interstate recently. It was a bad accident that not only totalled her van but landed her in the hospital.
They young woman that was driving the other vehicle admitted fault. Seems she dropped her cell phone and had bent over to retrieve taking her eyes off the road at 70mph!

Common sense and courtesy are lacking in a large segment of the population.

I don't like to be interrupted by a ringing phone when I'm with a customer but since I'm a one person shop I excuse myself and take the call.
I always keep it brief, offering to call back if needed.
I see both sides to that dilemma but after taking a call one day and hearing that I would get the job because I was the only frame shop that had answered my phone...
 
I've been in your daughter's situation a couple of times, Wally, and I'm so thankful I had a cell phone. That's what I got it for in the first place.

Gradually I've come around to using it for all my calls and have EVEN learned to leave it on all day even though I leave it in my purse in another room. Nights and weekends free, what a concept! My land line is for the computer only.

Betty, in your situation I don't think anyone would consider it rude.
 
D_Derbonne said:
I don't like to be interrupted by a ringing phone when I'm with a customer but since I'm a one person shop I excuse myself and take the call.
I always keep it brief, offering to call back if needed.
I see both sides to that dilemma but after taking a call one day and hearing that I would get the job because I was the only frame shop that had answered my phone...
Click to expand...

That's why I find caller id priceless, Deb. If its a company, Out of Area or a long distnace caller I don't recognise then I don't pick it up during the transaction. Local numbers, private callers and my kids I will pick up for. Alos if I am in an awkward position, like joining a large frame and the choice is drop the moulding or not pick up the phone, I always save the frame first. The I call the person back because I have the id. I can't tell you how many times it was a new person and they were grateful I made the effort to call right back, because new folks often don't leave messages. I started out not having the caller id and I won't go without it again.
 
Now this is a pet hate of mine.
:soapbox:

I take driving seriously and it really gets up my nose when I see some clown in a two-tonne Tonka truck of an S.U.V. lounging against the door pillar with one elbow propped against the glass and two fingers holding the wheel while his free hand fiddles with a mobile 'phone. I feel like swerving in front of him or nudging him in the side just to show him how little control he really has over the thing that way.

In Western Australia there is a specific law outlawing the use of hand-held 'phones while driving but it is widely ignored because it isn't enforced. They could also pass laws banning eating and drinking while driving or smacking kids in the back seat but it would be easier to just outlaw stupidity and build a few more jails.
 
Most days I have my cell phone attached to my belt for those "in case" moments with my two young children. If I get a text message or a call and I see who it is (not my mother) I put it on vibrate and continue with what I was doing. I have gotten my mother in the habit of calling the shop if it deals with the kids so I know I will get it and not miss it from my cell. During school hours my phone is everywhere with me but Im starting to lay it on the table and leave it alone while I am working. As for my shop phone, if I am the only one there I will excuse myself and answer it but if someone else is there and not with a customer, it is their job to answer it.
I really hate the customers that come in with their phones ringing up a storm while I am trying to explain something to them and they just nod their heads but freak out when they see the price at the end. I actually had an employee ask a customer to ring the bell when she was off the phone so my employee could go back and get something done. The customer was offended but I backed her up by saying that while we are here to help them in their process for framing, we do have other orders we need to finish and that it was rude to try to talk on the phone while my employee was just standing there. The customer, although irate, understood and appologized and ending up spending 400 dollars to frame her family photo. I think technology is great for helping speed things up and enabling us to keep in touch anywhere, but I feel there is a limit to when and where they use it.
 
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