The Technology Perspective

I thought the call waiting feature on my home ‘land line’ had been dropped so I called the mega telephone company yesterday. After getting trapped in the unhelpful computer voice generated phone tree maze (“okay…let me look at your account…thanks”) I was able to opt out to a live agent and was soon connected with Mary, a pleasant person who immediately came across as sincere and likable.

I told her that it seemed that I was occasionally getting a busy signal when I called home and since we have call waiting I really shouldn’t. She mentioned that she thought the same thing was happening at her home until she realized that her kids were tying up both lines and suppressing the call waiting feature.

I told her that my kids almost exclusively use their cell phones and hardly the land lines. She laughed and I said ‘tick…tick…tick’, insinuating the impending death of the land line. She took it to mean that her kids were not old enough for cell phones yet. “Hey, I’m not that old yet”, she said. We both laughed, but at different jokes. So we both had different perspectives on a technology issue and I think we were both right. Her kids will get older and land lines will continue to be eliminated.

As for my problem? My wife had tied up both lines….and she never uses her cell. Yet another perspective!