My Outside Voice

Monday, September 19, 2011

I Love Caller ID

Caller ID is a great thing when you are trying very hard not to use your Outside Voice. Instead of having a telephone conversation that you're fairly certain will degenerate into unpleasantness, you can see who is calling, choose not to answer the phone, and thus avoid sticking your foot in your mouth. It also has the side benefit of completely annoying the person who is calling you, who probably deserves it anyway.

That said I know a couple of people who intentionally block Caller ID on their outbound calls. This doesn't help you - I know who you are, and I still may not answer.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Anonymous Software

Today a "customer liaison" told some of us on a project that while they wanted to use our software, we couldn't have our group name/logo on it anywhere, or the software application name either. That's kind of like a Hollywood producer telling someone, we want you in our film, but we're going to hide your face and not put your name in the credits. And by the way, we may not pay you either. Like that would happen! ... oh wait...it did...remember Flashdance?

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

The Death of Personal Correspondence

I had a close friend and mentor - my 9th grade Spanish teacher actually, great guy - who among other things taught me how nice it was to send and receive personal correspondence. This all pre-dates email. Despite living in the same town(!) we would write letters back and forth to each other. Ok, they were slightly impersonal in that they were typed and not handwritten, but they were newsy, informative, and fun. I kept all of his (which probably would have horrified him, actually), and every now and then when I miss my friend (he passed away in 1989), I take a few out and re-read them. I really looked forward to getting those letters.

Fast forward 35 years. Almost *nobody* writes letters - although I do have a circle of friends here who write lovely handwritten thank you notes after we've had them over to our house for dinner, drinks, or a party. "Bread and butter notes" they used to be called. It's worth noting that most of the note writers are my age or a few years older.

I do get thank you notes from my sister's daughters at Christmas - always have, from the time they could wield a writing implement - but I suspect only because she beat it into them (figuratively speaking) at an early age that it was the right thing to do. And also the occasional graduation gift thank you finds its way into my mailbox, again due to threat-wielding parents.

Everyone else? Forget it. Email and text messages suffice for most communication - and I'm ok with that aspect, it is convenient and expedient. (I do have a couple of faithful email correspondents, but again...they're all about my age.) But for some, one doesn't even need to communicate directly - it's enough for them to see what you have posted on Facebook. No actual personal interaction required! No responses required! We're just all posting stuff on a giant big-a$$ bulletin board and that is all that anyone needs to do!

Don't get me wrong, I like Facebook, and I post a lot of stuff there that I specifically do not want to email out to individual friends, or things for which I do not really need or expect a response. For example, these blog postings. :-) But you know folks, FB is not a substitute for actually reaching out to people when you have something to say to them directly, or want to know how they are. When my generation has all gone to letter-writing heaven (or hell, as the case may be), nobody will be left who knows how to reach out to anyone. And that will be sad. Glad I won't be here to see it.

Next topics coming soon: the death of cursive handwriting, and WTF can't anybody spell?