Monthly Archives: March 2007 - Page 2

Phone Etiquette

Posted by on March 27, 2007 2 comments

With the recent influx of cell phones, the always on work environment and the rapid increase of things needing your time, phone etiquette has been lost in the mix.  While I was on the phone with someone the other day, they got upset with me after I hung up on the call after they’d been on the other line for over 30 seconds.  So, perhaps a refresher on phone etiquette or perhaps Todd’s Phone Etiquette:

- Always call showing your caller ID information if you want your call answered.  Everyone has caller ID and everyone expects you to send caller ID information.  So, do me and the rest of the world a favor and don’t use *67 and if you’ve restricted caller ID info at the telco level, have them remove the block.

- If you have called and I didn’t answer the phone, I know you’ve called (provided you show caller ID information).  So don’t waste my time leaving a message asking me to call you back, you called for something, I see my missed call, chances are if I like you, I’ll call you back.

- Voice mail should only be left if the call is of the utmost importance.  For instance my mortgage has been approved.  Perfectly acceptable.  The data center or network is offline, again acceptable.  What do you want for dinner or just calling to say hi.  Not acceptable.  Remember, I saw that you called on my missed calls log.  I’ll call you back when I have a few seconds.

-  If you’re on the phone with me and you receive another call, only take it if you think the world is imploding.  Concentrate on getting our conversation done with before moving onto another one.  If you split all of your conversations in two, you’re slowly eroding at your available time during the business day.  And if you take that second call and you’re not back in 30 seconds, don’t expect me to be there when you click back to me.  My time is as valuable as  yours, so you should not expect me to sit there waiting for you to finish your other call.

- Worried about not hearing your phone in public so you turn the ringer volume way up?  And next thing you know you’re in the office or a quiet environment and everyone within a 5 mile radius can hear your phone ring?  Yeah, unacceptable.  Do like I do, set your ringer to vibe a couple of times first before ringing.  I’d say 95% of the time I can get to my phone or silence the vibing before it goes to ringing.  No one else hears my phone ring and I haven’t disturbed anyone around me.  So do the world a favor and set your phone to vibe first or only vibe.  More often than not, if my phone is vibe only I can hear it a few rooms over on the table.  Much better than the alternatives.

- Finally, cell phone microphones are sensitive.  Much more sensitive than your standard home phone.  So even if you’re in the middle of Times Square, guess what, even if you talk in your normal or quiet voice, the person on the other end can hear you.  There’s no need to speak over the street noise–that’s just silly and it annoys everyone around you.

There you have it.  Todd’s Phone Etiquette.  I know this applies to a lot of people who I’ve worked with in the past and currently work with.  And to be honest, following the above makes your life easier as well as the lives of the people you work with.

Saab Service Update – Part 1

Posted by on March 27, 2007 Comments Off

On a recent road trip through the Adirondacks mountains, my car started to exhibit some funk.  During uphill climbs going 75 – 80 MPH, the check oil level indicator turned on.  If you’re familiar with Saab’s this indicator will not clear its self, so it is difficult to determine if the oil was simply shifting away from the censor during the uphill climb at a good speed.  So at the next exit I pull over and check the engine oil.  It is hot, so I’m expecting it to read higher than normal.  And it does, but no where near empty as the indicator suggested.  So I decided to continue on and the warning flashes up again.  I pull over and the same situation.

Now that I have time and I’m in Montreal for the next little while, I’m taking my Saab in for servicing.  I’ve asked them to check on this oil level indicator as well as do the warranty work that I asked them to complete during the first scheduled servicing–but they failed to complete.

The car goes in tomorrow and will probably be there all day.  I’ll post about my experiences as soon as I get my car back.

Desktop widgets

Posted by on March 17, 2007 Comments Off

I’ve used Yahoo’s desktop widgets for a while now, I also have a facination with weather.  I just like to know what’s going on outside by way of the internet, even if I have a window  ;)

That said, the graphics included in the weather widget I use are pretty awesome.  I meant to grab a screenshot of the windy weather, but forgot.  I snagged a screenshot of the stormy weather.  Pretty cool looking.

widget weather

Larger airports suck

Posted by on March 5, 2007 1 comment

Is it just me or does everyone think larger airports suck?  Over the last couple of weeks I’ve spent time going through Chicago O’Hare (ORD), Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) and Denver (DEN) and honestly, I hate all of them.  Who thought it was a good idea to create these massive airports?  And continue to grow them?  Crazy.

Not only do you have to fight with thousands of other people to check in, pass through security and walk through the halls.  And if you’re fortunate enough, you get to transfer by bus or train to different terminals.  So rather than spending less than an hour at an airport like Burlington, VT (BVT) that has 16 gates and 2 security lines, you have to spend 2 hours at these larger monstrosity airports and most of the time your plane is late coming in or leaving.

The other thing that gets on my nerves is paying for wifi at airports.  At some of the larger airports they’re charging as much as $14,000 per landing of an aircraft and the average is probably around $4-5k.  The airports should be including wifi to every single passenger at no additional cost.  I have an EVDO card, but sometimes when you’re in a bunker of an airport all you have is wifi.  Drop the cost, you’re making enough on the landing fees to give wifi away.  And while you’re at it, put power bars around the airports.  How much does it cost to power a laptop for an hour or less?  And if a plane is delayed, you’ll have a much happier passenger if they can keep their laptop powered.