Think learning to use a phone is simple?
Did you ever have one of those nightmares where you are back in high school and you’re wearing your pajamas, don’t know your locker combination or your class schedule and you realize that you’ve been out of class so long that you’ve fallen way behind. Well, that’s exactly how I’ve felt for nearly a month. Every morning I walk into this office and see that sleek black gadget on my desk. Sure it gives off the appearance of a telephone. It has a handset and a numerical keypad. But that’s not all. It has so many buttons and lights that I haven’t a clue as to their function. Its main purpose is to intimidate.
It’s all my fault, I suppose. Office hype pre-installation of the new telephone system billed these gadgets as being capable of doing anything short of buttering your toast in the morning.
But you can’t just advance someone’s desk phone by a half-century’s worth of technology and expect them to cope well.
That’s why they held training classes. I skipped them and now it’s just as my father warned all those years ago when I got caught cutting a class, “You might have learned the most important thing in your life today.”
Not only did I miss the class but the new phones did not arrive at a convenient time for me. I was out more than in the office the first week or two, (The phone man promised he’d give me a tutorial. Yeah, and the check’s in the mail.) so I missed the class discussions by my colleagues as they learned to successfully navigate this system.
As with any class assignment missed, it takes extra effort to read through the material. My goal this week was to learn how to use this phone without cutting people off.
I started with the textbook, which wastes eight pages called “Finding Your Way” before getting to the Table of Contents. In it I was supposed to find “a map for your phone and this guide.” Now anytime a map is needed to decipher an instruction book, trouble can’t be too far behind.
So I scanned the Table of Contents for “Getting Started.” Good, it was going to tell me how to make and receive calls. The author notes that “making and receiving calls is the basic purpose of any phone.” Whew, I thought its purpose was to interrupt dinner with sales pitches or a good-night’s sleep by a kid with another flat tire.
The book goes on to explain that I can decide which language I wish for my phone. I’m thinking of going with whatever language the caller and I speak. Seems among the many choices that I can’t speak are two that I could probably fake: American English and British English.
The textbook’s author switches frequently from tech-speak and acronyms to dropping little tidbits such as, “In an ideal world, someone will always answer the phone when you call.” Sadly though that doesn’t happen often, so the redial feature will take care of that annoyance.
I work quickly through my self-guided tutorial. I’m fairly confident that I can answer and place calls without too many problems. Not so confident about transfers and forwards and the 300 other functions available. Give it time, I think, as I flip to the next section, “Moving On.” Here’s where it becomes frightening with advanced features such as performing a hookflash. It never really explains this, so I don’t think I’ll try this any time soon, although I now possess the codes to do so. It might have something to do with a subsequent reference to “requesting agent help.”
I closed the book at this point before hitting the chapter called “Learning More.”
I had learned enough. It seems there is a button on this phone labeled “DND.” It stands for Do Not Disturb. Press this one and the phone will be deactivated. Sounds like a plan to me.
Luanne Traud is the Herald-Standard’s editorial page editor. E-mail: ltraud@heraldstandard.com.