Telephone & Cell Phone SNAFUs

Posted on July 28, 2011 by admin

Situation Normal All …… Up!

A number of years ago I was a professional sales representative selling industrial advertising to mid-sized industrial companies. I called directly on company presidents, and rarely dealt with anyone other than the president or owner. The personalities and styles of these CEOs varied widely, and overall they were sharp, intelligent, professional, and usually polite. Most. Some had pretty big egos that you had to deal with. I had to get very good at “reading” people and their signs, behaviors that fairly well communicated this:  “I think I’m really important, so you better take note.”

For them to buy what I was selling they had to focus, to listen, to examine information carefully, and make sense of the concept and the details, as some of this was intangible and somewhat complex. I knew that when they didn’t engage and pay attention I wasn’t going to get a sale. To increase my chances I would make an appointment to see them, often a week in advance, and I’d show up on time prepared with materials and information specifically related to their business and industry segment. I usually got across the idea that what I had to discuss with them was important for their business and they would engage and pay attention.

Once in a while there were interruptions, significant interruptions that generally went like this:  I’d start into presenting the ideas and then the phone would ring and my prospect would answer it. After all, this was the president. However, these calls were often trivial, not critical business – obvious, you could tell by listening to what he said and was discussing. After a time he’d hang up. I’d start again and a minute later the phone would ring – again he would answer it. Two minutes would go by, three, four, before he’d hang up, saying, “Oh, uh, now where were we?” (It was as if the more calls he got, the more people wanted something from him, anything, the more important that he felt he was). I’d start in again. The phone would ring; he’d answer. While he was on the phone, I would pack up my materials, close my briefcase, and stand up in front of his desk, waiting for him to get off the phone. The second he hung up I would extend my hand to shake hands and say, “Thank you very much for your time. If you’re interested in this I can make another appointment for a future time when you aren’t busy with pressing matters. I may phone you next week sometime. Thanks again, and it was a pleasure to meet you.”

What was the response? Usually an apology, a sincere apology, followed by an insistence for me to sit down and proceed, a quick call to a secretary to hold or take all his calls and not to have anyone interrupt him. Why an apology? Why indeed. Because he realized, most realized, that they had been disrespectful, discourteous, that their behavior was offensive and had said this:  no matter who is calling me, no matter how trivial perhaps, it is more important to take that call than to listen to you or attend to you. The person on that phone, whoever they are, is more important than you are. It is singular disrespect, and it is offensive. It is telling. It is a power trip. It is a “Dis…” It is a lack of manners and common courtesy. Doing this is the same as turning your back on someone.

[An aside: Mutual respect is very important in most relationships. Additionally, it is much more difficult to buy something from someone you don’t respect. I respected them and I expected them to respect me, and I politely made sure that I got theirs and that they knew my expectations. The sales rep who thinks that the way to get a sale is to give in on any point, to pander, to grovel, doesn’t understand this, obviously. When I went on an appointment and was kept waiting, I’d wait 15 minutes past our appointment time and not a minute more. Again, it is an issue of respect. I respected their time, why I made an appointment, and I expected them to respect mine. I’d leave my card with the receptionist and indicate that I may call back for another appointment. Sometimes I did if the prospect was significant; sometime not, and felt it was their loss.]

Why do I feel compelled to explain all this? Why must I? I have to say all this because now we are in the age of cell phones. Vast numbers of people have adopted the very phone behavior illustrated above as perfectly normal, perfectly acceptable, and they do it all day long with their cell phones. Much worse, they see nothing wrong whatsoever with taking a call while sharing a meal, discussing something important, watching a program, playing a game, etc., sitting there talking or texting and ignoring who they are with. Two people talking, one person’s phone rings, and they are off in a conversation or a texting with someone, oblivious to the person they are sitting with. And the message that the other person sitting there gets is very clear:  “No matter who is calling me (or texting me), I’d rather talk to them than to be here with you or talk with you.” The phone has top priority. And this kind of behavior can become more extreme, as we experienced recently.

We had guests over as we were holding a small party for a younger person visiting us from out of town, and about six people arrived, young men and women 25-30 years of age. Old friends with our visitor, most everyone knew everyone else and was enjoying the reunion. Conversation was easy. Sitting in the living room we were all talking and enjoying drinks and snacks when one person pulled out their phone, presumably to check messages. Instantly out came 5 other phones and, at that very moment, one person’s phone rang, they answered it, and stood and walked out of the room talking on the phone. Soon silence, complete silence blanketed the room, other than a few click noises on keypads. No one was talking to anyone else in the room, and all heads except our two were bowed to the phone gods, viewing screens, smiling, punching buttons. I wondered if one of them or more was texting someone in the room rather than talking to them?

Ready! Set! Text! Call! Search! Tweet!

Another person sitting there and looking down actually called someone else right then and got up and left the room without a word to us or anyone else. The silence continued. And continued. The first person who had left the room hadn’t returned, and some time had gone by.

All this behavior was bizarre to us, but to everyone else it seemed to be “situation normal.” And all of that silence and phone engagement said these things:  I don’t want to be here. I’m uncomfortable in the here and now. Anything on this gadget in my hand beats engaging with you. And somebody sending a message that they just went to the bathroom and, ugh, they are still having a bad hair day and don’t you know what that’s like and, well, that’s an important thing to communicate. Smiley face. Smiley face.

Hmmm...another bad hair day, eh?

Cell phones. A mobile computer in your hand. Huge benefits. Huge and seemingly uncomprehended costs.

Have you experienced things like this? I asked a dinner guest to turn off her cell phone because she’d received and taken several calls in succession since her arrival, at least to turn it off during dinner, a dinner that a lot of time and effort and care went into the preparation. She gave me something of an argument, saying she didn’t see why that was necessary and that she might miss an important call. I smiled warmly, and said, “Well, I insist. And that’s what voice mail is for, so you don’t miss important messages. It’ll be okay.” Reluctantly she turned it off.

Cell phones. Improved communication? A step forward? Surely. But how many steps back? What do you think? How do you see it? What are cell phones doing to in-person communication and relationships?

 

Posted in Phone Communications | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Technology? Enhanced or Diminished Communication?

Posted on July 15, 2011 by admin
One-on-one communication...

One-on-one communication...

Here are some observations and possibly some conclusions, just to start.

Maximum Communication? Two people sitting and talking together, one on one and in fairly close physical proximity, perhaps facing one another and making eye contact:  this model may be the ideal, perhaps the best possible chance for communication. Here you get the full weight of visual cues, non-verbal visual communication, feelings, perceptions; no words but a lot of communication back and forth. Add language, conversation, questions, and answers to this, adding voice, sound, nuance; no communication technology needed. Is this not the ideal? If this is ideal, then most everything else is less.

Distance: Distance is where technology enters, whether it is a note or letter or a telephone or telegraph or a smoke signal or email. When physical distance comes between peoples ability to communicate, enter technology, so pick your poison.

Poison? Poison? All the technologies that have been invented, those just mentioned plus cell phones, interactive communication, social media, answering machines or voicemail, call forwarding, single phone answering from multiple numbers, and so on:  these are all positive and have enhanced our ability to communicate. Yes? Yes, most certainly, and then again, no.

Two Way Street: For every advance, or supposed advance, in communication technology, there is a retreat or a diminishing of communication at the same time. A negative? A diminishing? How’s that? Some examples?

The Telephone: Benefits of the telephone are obvious, and you can talk from just about any distance. In the middle of the 20th century, people always answered their phones when they rang, 99%, whether in a business or at home. When the phone rang, you answered it – period. You had no idea who was calling, but it could be an emergency, something awful or good, or something important. When you telephoned someone, you expected them to answer and, if they didn’t, it was presumed that they weren’t there. Reasoning:  if they were there, they would have answered. If you got phone calls at home when you or anyone else was not at home, you didn’t know it. If you didn’t know someone’s phone number, you called information for free, or looked it up in the free phone book, because if someone had a phone, their number was published. Prior to cell phones, telephones were landlines, of course, and were tied to a physical address.

Answering? Calls when you weren’t at home to answer? Did anyone call? Who called? What did they want? Enter the answering machine. Problem solved. However, this meant that often, even when you were at home, you could find out who was calling before you picked up, if at all, by listening to the message. Now, you didn’t really need to answer. Many people stopped answering and started screening their calls. The telephone was no longer so direct – the expectation that if someone was at home they would answer was replaced with doubt. Home? Not home? Being ignored? With or without an answering machine, enter the enhancement of Caller ID. Answering the telephone decreased even further. Screening was easier and faster. Enter the introduction of paying to block a Caller ID to a call recipient, and also enter the technology to use a bogus alias to get someone to think it was someone else calling altogether. The reliability of Caller ID decreased.

Cell Phone Confusions: Enter the cell phone, no longer tied to a location, and suddenly communication improved immeasurably, and became very much worse all at the same time. When there is no answer when calling a cell phone that you figure is with a person all the time, wherever they are, what does one think? It goes to voice mail. Are they on the phone talking with someone else? Are they seeing who it is and deciding not to answer your call? And they don’t call back? What to think then? What you feel is uncertainty. Yes, their phone could be dead, out of cell tower range, etc., but it is unsettling to say the least. If you know that someone you know lives even a couple of blocks away, try to find their telephone number when all that they have is a cell phone. It’s not fast, it’s not convenient, and it’s not as easy as calling the former telephone company information number and getting it in seconds.

Conclusions? Many conclusions here, of course, but it’s really a mixed bag of pros and cons and paradox, enhanced and diminished at the same time. Remember, people used to actually answer the phone, all the time, while having no idea who was calling. It was a risk, kind of. And when you see clearly that technology that is touted to improve and enhance communication is actually and mostly used to block communication, it can be a little bit of a shock. The answering machine and voice mail and Caller ID do just that. That’s my take on this – what’s yours?

Posted in Communication - General | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Time flies…

Posted on June 25, 2011 by admin
clock

Time flies when...

Time flies when you’re having… well, fun or not, time flies. I started this blog with good intentions, of course, and pictured myself blogging every day and all the time. I have no idea how people have the scads of time I understand that they put into tweets, facebook, YouTube, blogs, and all the rest. How do they do it? The best advice I’ve heard is a strict weekly schedule which I’m going to try to get into. However, I hardly have time for all the things I really do have to do, absolutely MUST do. However, it’s my blog, my time, my deal, so it will go how it will go. You have to start somewhere, and it’s taking that first step that is the most important thing, just to get started… So, I’m there.

 

Posted in Communication - General, Uncategorized | Leave a comment