Thursday, 27th November 2003
I don't use my mobile much, can you tell?
Continuing the theme of clueless with technology and too dumb to use an office phone, I can completely empathise with one or both of these. Well, technology in general I'm quite good with, providing it's slightly intelligent in nature. However, technology such as digital alarm clocks, digital watches (hm, a theme?), things with large remote controls, microwaves, fax machines - this list goes on and on, doesn't it? - and photocopiers, leave me feeling rather useless because how they work is never intuitive. (Strangely, I'm fine with video recorders.)
At the other end of the spectrum lie things which I feel should be simple, but which are intelligent beyond my expectations and which I therefore find insanely complicated. Good examples include expensive digital cameras, graphical calculators - honestly, how many functions does an A-level maths student need? - and mobile phones.
The problem of not being able to retrieve voicemail - I had the exact same problem about a month ago when I was waiting in London for Kevin to show up. My phone vibrated to tell me I had a new voicemail message, and started beeping as well. To shut it up I pressed the Cancel key, and then proceeded to stare blankly at the helpful text on the screen that said "1 new message".
In the next twenty minutes I went through every single option of every single menu, several times, and found to my disbelief that there is no option anywhere that allows you to call your voicemail inbox. Nowhere. You have to know how to do it, because it won't tell you.
Eventually I vaguely remembered that on my previous phone the way to call voicemail was to key in just one number and then press Dial. Could I remember which number? If I could, would that guarantee that the same method would work on this phone? (Different make, different service provider.)
No on both counts. Nevertheless, I went through and tried each number in turn, and got very fed up with "This number has not been recognised". Of course, it's "0" you have to dial for voicemail (oh of course! It's so obvious now! I've seen the light!), the last number I tried.
What this resulted in was - finally - my being able to listen to Kevin telling me he was going to be late, about thirty seconds before I spotted him on the other side of the road.
I have a problem with my office phone as well, which is that I recently noticed a teeny little light blinking red, with "Messages" written above it. Now, I don't know if that means that it's confidently assuring me that it's fully enabled and ready to take messages for me, or if there's a message there now waiting for me to listen to it.
Gah. I hate phones.
Comments
Ooooh, I forgot to mention the graphical calculater. *cackles* That could actually warrant a whole post by itself.
And of course it was the last key you tried. If it had been the penultimate key, you'd have been pretty daft for trying the next one as well. Having mocked you... I'm going to have to try that number thing, because I still haven't worked out my own voicemail.
Okay, well, obviously it was the last key I tried... but it was also the last key I intended to try, as I cycled through from 1 to 0. So I maintain that the thought was correct, but badly worded.
I think we've had this conversation before.
Cathy, not only do I empathise with you on this, I am absolutely delighted that someone so young and talented clearly has the same problems with certain technologies that I've had for years. I had previously assumed that it was just cos I'm a tired old git.
I have worked with computers of all shapes and sizes for 30+ years. I can program them in anything from assembler to python. I can instinctively figure out what the idiot programmer or idiot user did wrong but an office photocopier? no way, ask the girl on reception instead.
I have just "suffered" the experience of switching to a new mobile phone. I used to have a Siemens, I now have a Motorola; how was I to know that the two companies would have two different ways of doing things? It has taken me a full week so far, with much help from my 12 year old son, just to get the Motorola doing roughly what the Siemens did before. It does, however, vibrate to alert me to its ringing and it doesn't make phone calls all by itself in my pocket!
Haha - you'd get the hang of it. I personally try avoid changing phones as well...
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