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I have a cell phone, often when I'm at home I'll have it turned to silent. If there is a true emergency people that know me well can use my landline.
My Mobile phone is always where i can get to it as no-one outside my family has that number. My house phone i'll answer if i feel like it but mostly it runs straight to answer machine. My friends all know this and know to leave a message, if i want i can call them immediately after they leave a message. If I want...
My phones are for my convenience. I pay the bill so i'll talk to people when I feel like it.
Yes. I think cell phones create unrealistic expectations and demands among family, friends, and people at work. That is why I would only have one for emergency purposes (car breaking down on the highway, etc.) and would not give anyone else the number. When I am out, I am out. When people get irked by that, I just say, "Somehow, we managed to make it to the mid-90s without instant access all the time. There was even a time when people called and if no one was home, the phone just rang and rang and you couldn't leave a message. You had to call back later. Oh, the hardship!"
I'm like Lilac110 and not because it's cool to be like that! I just think you have to claim your own privacy and live by your own privacy rules. Why should you be available to everyone 24/7? I have just a cellphone, no landline and if certain people are desperate to get hold of me, they know how ...plus there's email. I will not be the slave of a cellphone. Sure it makes it easy to call someone day or night but do you have to do that?
Good topic! Thanks for starting the thread...Well I'm grateful that cell phones were invented. They make life easier in many respects...But they can definitely be a "curse" and a big annoyance at times too...Right now I have to keep my phone "on" most of the time because my son is in an acute care facility. He's had brain tumors...But normally I like to "disappear" at times.. YUK! I don't want to feel like I'm on somebody else's "leash." Or "on-call" 24/7 like a doctor or plumber or ??...When my husband was alive we never called or texted each other when we "ran errands" or went out by ourselves for a little while. (Except for emergencies.)...We wanted to give each other a little space and freedom. It's no fun to be "bothered" all the time with "petty stuff!"...One of my acquaintances seemed shocked and upset when I didn't answer my cell phone one day and she had to leave a message. She left a rather arrogant message like: "Where in the world can you be?"....I don't bring my cell phone in with me when I take a bath because I don't want it to get wet or full of hot-steam etc. And I don't really care for arrogant people who think I'm at their "beck and call" and on their "leash!"
LOL, you got that right.
I take it this step further as well:
I have a very specific, short message on my voicemail. It says, "Sorry I missed your call. Please leave a detailed message, and I'll get back with you as soon as I can."
What this means is exactly what it says - leave a detailed message. This doesn't mean, "Hi, Stacy here. Call me when you get a minute." Or worse yet, "Hey it's me - where are you?"
I have had people get SO MAD about that! I've had people say, "Here's your detailed message - call me back." (you can imagine how far that got our conversation!)
Leaving me a detail or two allows me to prioritize my call backs. If you don't leave me any sort of detail, I'm going to assume your need is not time sensitive or all that important and it may be a day or two before I call you back, if I'm really busy. Or - I may call you back in ten minutes - but it will be at my convenience. That's what's so great about text messages - if it's an emergency, text me. Look, we can work these things out, but I am not on call as anyone's free entertainment or their instant gratification fix.
Wow, I sound like such a beeyatch. But I've had more than my share of people who do not understand personal boundaries. It's tough, but you've got to establish boundaries.
My own daughter, who I love dearly and enjoy a great open line of communication with, leaves her cellphone upstairs - away from the family - from the minute her husband comes home, till the kids are in bed for the night. That's right - for about 4 solid hours, no one can talk to her on the phone! Then she checks her messages (she and her husband both do this). They have decided that family time is more important than fiddling with their phones. I applaud them for this choice.
Im sort of old school and dont really use my cell other than as a 'portable phone'. I dont check it that much, but notice for people who do use cells a lot (a certain freind comes to mind), I tend to miss his messages because of this.
For me, the handiest use is to call people from places like, say, the store (to ask "do you need this"), or to coordinate a meeting when being on the go.
The option of leaving messages using both land lines and cell is a real convenience, though, since there is never really a missed call...AND you can screen calls. I think this is different than "always available".
I wonder if this is a generational thing. I also don't like being "bothered" by having people call me all the time, but I do always respond within a reasonable time period. I don't have a land line and most people in my peer group find texting to be a more acceptable way than a phone call to communicate minor issues ("hey are we getting together next week?", etc). Since texts are usually brief and unobtrusive, I usually respond right away-- or within a few hours if I'm at work. If I get a voicemail, I may not get to it for hours or days depending on why the person is calling. I won't answer the phone if I'm at a store or with other people, so I basically answer at my convenience but with the expectation that I will not ignore the communication for long.
The only people who have my cell phone number are those who would need to contact me in an emergency when I can't be reached on my land line- my parents, my sisters, my 2 best friends (emergency contacts for my son's school), my next door neighbor and my son's school. I don't even have the thing turned on if I am at home!
I actually don't use a cell phone. I kind of enjoy being somewhat of an oddity...
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