Cell Phones, PDAs and Less Time
So cell phones have become part of who we are. In medicine, it is how I can contact my patients anytime they have any questions or problems. Cell phones provide my patients a way of reaching me 24/7. I can call and see how a patient is doing while driving home, to exercise or to meet my wife for dinner. Just giving my patients my cell phone number offers them enough security to know that I am just a few numbers away. Without a doubt, cell phones have improved my ability to provide a higher level of care for my patients. Great. So now I am dependent on cell phones.
Along comes the PDA. First bulky and awkward. Then, after years of improvements and refinements, PDAs are now bulky and awkward. Hmmm. Something's wrong with this picture. Like most of us, the newest one is always going to be so much better than the last one. You know, the one that I finally mastered, only to have it fall into a toilet at LAX. Then of course, that model is no longer available and it is time to move to the next model, whether I want to or not.
Time to lower the bar. Relax, breathe slowly, the man with the little beard says.
And then some brilliant electronics wizards gets a bright idea: let's mix both a PDA and a cell phone into one. That way, Joe American can carry around and talk into something the size of a large flat potato. A new contraption that really is nothing like my favorite cell phone and also fulfills the need we must all have of carrying a bulky PDA with nowhere to put it. And to top it off, it isn't even a good phone or PDA. Wow. Count to ten. Breathe deep. Visualize a mountain lake. Lower the bar.
I finally get a great new phone, with a bit of PDA and surprise of all surprises, it still works at 1 1/2 years. Finally, after hours upon hours, I have come to understand all the subtle nuances and tricks that make it such a great tool. I now know what it must be like to finally achieve cell phone nirvana. I am at peace with my pocket friend. I drop my guard, finally content with what I have mastered.
And then it hits.
Suddenly without warning, two apparently independent events occur (or is that what They want me to believe?) - my computer, the host to all the information that I synch daily to my little friend, becomes a blabbering worthless machine. An electronic version of an Avian flu infected chicken. So it must be put down. I can handle that. My trusty phone is still here with me. But wait. Somehow, for no reason, I have just lost all my memory in my phone. All 600 entries? No problem, I'll just synch it to my...
...okay, let it pass. Think a happy thought. The babbling brook scene from the calendar. Lower the bar.
What's that you say, Mr. Computer Man? Even with the software disk, you are unable to get my new computer to synch with my tried and true phone. Repeat that? The phone is considered obsolete and so there is no longer any corporate support? I have to get a new phone and new system so I can continue as I have done for so long?
Okay, I can handle that. I have talked to all my friends, and now I know exactly what I want. The newest and bestest. But wait, the only way I can get this great new phone is to open a brand new account? But I have had an account with you for so long; surely you must know I am a good customer. Let me see if I understand this Ms. Cell Phone Lady, if I am a good customer for years, I can't get the phone I need. If I am a nobody, with no loyalty to the company and no past money gladly provided to contribute to your profits, not only can I get the phone I want, but I also get a rebate. Seems simple enough.
Drop those unrealistic expectations, Sheldon. Close your eyes and relax. Just lower the bar.
This takes me to the Myth of Sisyphus. That poor Greek guy sentenced to spend eternity pushing a stone up to the top of a hill, only to have it fall down the other side, and then to push it back up the hill again, and so on. Eternity is such along time. When Sis, as his good friends in eternity probably called him, finally realized that the darn stone was not ever going to stay at the top of the hill, he probably heard the same thing. Drop those unrealistic expectations, Sisyphus. It's just the way it is. The stone will never stay. Deal with it. Lower the bar.
Related Topics: Desk Rage, Cell Phones Raise Work-Home Stress
Along comes the PDA. First bulky and awkward. Then, after years of improvements and refinements, PDAs are now bulky and awkward. Hmmm. Something's wrong with this picture. Like most of us, the newest one is always going to be so much better than the last one. You know, the one that I finally mastered, only to have it fall into a toilet at LAX. Then of course, that model is no longer available and it is time to move to the next model, whether I want to or not.
Time to lower the bar. Relax, breathe slowly, the man with the little beard says.
And then some brilliant electronics wizards gets a bright idea: let's mix both a PDA and a cell phone into one. That way, Joe American can carry around and talk into something the size of a large flat potato. A new contraption that really is nothing like my favorite cell phone and also fulfills the need we must all have of carrying a bulky PDA with nowhere to put it. And to top it off, it isn't even a good phone or PDA. Wow. Count to ten. Breathe deep. Visualize a mountain lake. Lower the bar.
I finally get a great new phone, with a bit of PDA and surprise of all surprises, it still works at 1 1/2 years. Finally, after hours upon hours, I have come to understand all the subtle nuances and tricks that make it such a great tool. I now know what it must be like to finally achieve cell phone nirvana. I am at peace with my pocket friend. I drop my guard, finally content with what I have mastered.
And then it hits.
Suddenly without warning, two apparently independent events occur (or is that what They want me to believe?) - my computer, the host to all the information that I synch daily to my little friend, becomes a blabbering worthless machine. An electronic version of an Avian flu infected chicken. So it must be put down. I can handle that. My trusty phone is still here with me. But wait. Somehow, for no reason, I have just lost all my memory in my phone. All 600 entries? No problem, I'll just synch it to my...
...okay, let it pass. Think a happy thought. The babbling brook scene from the calendar. Lower the bar.
What's that you say, Mr. Computer Man? Even with the software disk, you are unable to get my new computer to synch with my tried and true phone. Repeat that? The phone is considered obsolete and so there is no longer any corporate support? I have to get a new phone and new system so I can continue as I have done for so long?
Okay, I can handle that. I have talked to all my friends, and now I know exactly what I want. The newest and bestest. But wait, the only way I can get this great new phone is to open a brand new account? But I have had an account with you for so long; surely you must know I am a good customer. Let me see if I understand this Ms. Cell Phone Lady, if I am a good customer for years, I can't get the phone I need. If I am a nobody, with no loyalty to the company and no past money gladly provided to contribute to your profits, not only can I get the phone I want, but I also get a rebate. Seems simple enough.
Drop those unrealistic expectations, Sheldon. Close your eyes and relax. Just lower the bar.
This takes me to the Myth of Sisyphus. That poor Greek guy sentenced to spend eternity pushing a stone up to the top of a hill, only to have it fall down the other side, and then to push it back up the hill again, and so on. Eternity is such along time. When Sis, as his good friends in eternity probably called him, finally realized that the darn stone was not ever going to stay at the top of the hill, he probably heard the same thing. Drop those unrealistic expectations, Sisyphus. It's just the way it is. The stone will never stay. Deal with it. Lower the bar.
Related Topics: Desk Rage, Cell Phones Raise Work-Home Stress
1 Comments:
Gosh ,do men really have a health office--what are you doing,don't you know that this office is required to look into sore female tonsils.
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