By Burr Johnson, Senior Copywriter
Two phones sit on my desk. One has to go.
My iPhone has won all of my phone, email and texting business, and therefore has nothing to worry about. But surely the days are numbered for the black Toshiba office landline that sits silently in the eleven o’clock position somewhere vaguely beyond my iMac. There it collects dust but no voicemails, pushed as close to the back edge of the desk as it can be without falling off.
Hopefully, it will. That would be the most action this phone has seen in the three and a half years I’ve been here.
The most I’ve ever used the line was for tech support when we moved in. But now, no tech problems, no landline calls.
Robocallers and reps left voicemails a few times. Even they didn’t persist.
So generally, I could easily cut the cord on this line for the same reasons that people cut them at home.
Surely our account people put theirs to better use with clients. But internally, we tend to email one another or stop by and huddle. Our far-flung clients usually interact with me, as a copywriter, by WebExtm or by Action Needed forms. Industry people reach out by Facebook or LinkedIn.
Sometimes one of my art directors will pick up their own Toshiba and call me for a conversation that consists of, “Um, can you look at something on my screen?”
But one art director is much more likely to IM me through Google than call. Another sits so close that he can just speak up through the drywall that separates our offices. Some things can’t be improved upon.
As for my family, they wouldn’t know how to reach my office phone if it was the last paging-enabled device on earth.
My wife and I text to clarify end-of-day plans for getting our kids. Sometimes this falls off into spate of misunderstanding around 4 pm that requires an iPhone call that lasts three seconds.
My older daughter will also deign to texting me, but it’s just so inconvenient that I’m not on Kik. Using email occurs to her about as often as using FedEx Ground®. For her, email is an uncool and extremely workmanlike platform required to sign up for some websites, and landlines are in last place behind that. It’s the phone you never answer unless you know the caller.
So, it would never occur to my digital-age daughter that Dad has a landline at the office, or to reach him through it. Which is probably why, in our digital-age agency, it rarely occurs to anyone else.
Sorry, Toshiba.
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