North Coast Connections

The source for this story is Sarah Gilbert, an author with Blogging Stocks who has an amusing and informative blog that tracks stock investments and ties them into common sense and truth-is-stranger-than-fiction stories. To be fair, some employers require staff to carry around cellphones and/or respond to email after working hours, but being tethered to the job 24/7/365 is only a prerequisite for emergency personnel such as firefighters, homicide detectives, trauma surgeons and Red Adair (the famous oil rig fire wizard), and even these folks get to unplug sometime. Nonetheless, some employees are suing because they are under the impression that they must be on call at all times no matter how absurd the circumstances may be.

As a technology guy, I carry around a laptop and cellphone when I travel but I have drawn the line by refusing to carry a BlackBerry-type device. It amuses me on the road to see adults furiously thumb-typing on these oversized phones trying to write and respond to email using wireless and cellphone connections. I fantasize that humans will soon evolve with oversized thumbs as a result of this ridiculous activity.

My 20-something nephew, Jerry, is a cellphone fanatic having started a cellphone sales company at a remarkably early age. Yet when he visits from Southern California, his phone will go off and he won't answer it. When I remarked about it he said that if the call is important, they'll leave a message and he'll get back to them at his convenience. Occasionally, he'll look at the caller ID and then decide whether to answer an incoming call. I found this to be a refreshing and levelheaded habit.

Some people get addicted to email and find themselves checking it every few minutes. I disabled my sound-alert for incoming email because I don't want to know every time a real or advertisement email arrives in my inbox, and it reduces the temptation to keep checking for updates. Similarly, I am slow to give out my cellphone number for fear that people will start calling me regularly. To me, it's for emergencies for my wife to get ahold of me, and for the convenience (and safety) of making outgoing calls. If I'm on a site visit, I'll give it to my clients so they can reach me for business communication.

So listen up ... these things are tools. They are supposed to work for you, not the other way around. Humans need to occasionally unplug and think. It's how we assimilate information and figure out its meaning. Don't get me wrong; I work very hard and too often I multitask instead of concentrating on one thing. However, I draw the line by occasionally going "off the air."

It's amazing ... the world still turns, problems get resolved and people figure things out without your help. It's not a bad thing. Try opting for quality communication instead of quantity. You and those around you will be happy you did.

Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com