As a general rule, unless you are my mother, I do not answer your phone call. There are of course exceptions. I don’t always respond to my mother… Be careful, don’t get me wrong! I am not a sociopath (at least not diagnosed). The proof is that I answer the phone when my bosses are on the line. Most often on the second call.
I almost never answer a call on my landline. I installed in my home a few years ago, by twisting four multicolored wires with copper tips, an old beige rotary telephone from the 1960s. It works. Son called me on my smartphone, sliding his fingers across the rotating disk of this antique. Never have we seen a reasonable human being take longer to dial a local number.
Exceptionally, I responded. Even if I was by his side. To see his eyes light up at this miracle of modern technology, like those of Alexander Graham Bell when he heard Tom Watson’s voice on the receiver.
What I like most about this beige phone, besides its all-purpose color, is that it doesn’t ring. The device is broken. You have to listen carefully to hear, in a room upstairs, the ringing of a more modern telephone. Then when answering, you have to wait two seconds before being online. You said vintage ?
Warning: Leaving me a voicemail on a landline at home or at the office runs the risk that I won’t hear it before the next solar eclipse.
I no longer have a telephone at my desk in the office. Why do I still have a landline at home? For one very good reason: I am very proud that my multicolored thread craft worked.
On the one hand, I have a rotary phone that is older than me and doesn’t ring. On the other, a smartphone permanently set to silent mode, as deaf to calls from my friends and acquaintances as to those of scammers and telemarketers.
“Why don’t you ever answer the phone?” », I am often asked, with a tone that betrays subtle frustration. Diplomatic response: my cell phone ringer is muted because I’m often at the movies (which is true). Less diplomatic answer: if some meetings can be summarized in an email, several calls should result in a text message.
Of the two very distinct camps that emerge in the report by my colleague Olivia Lévy, I place myself resolutely in the one that does not want to be disturbed by a call. My credo? “The person you are trying to contact is not available. » To others “Your call is important to us”. Jesus himself said that there were “many called, but few chosen.” I pity them all. I am not a candidate for any election. Don’t call me.
Read “For or against telephone conversations? »
Do not call me without first warning me of this intrusion into my private life by text message. Unfortunately, I risk “missing” your call. What nerve it takes, after all, to call without warning! Do I ring your doorbell unexpectedly, asking to be served lunch straight away?
One good thing I have, in addition to a defective rotary phone, is to be the happy owner of a smartphone that is losing its autonomy (battery). My old cell phone stops working frequently and unexpectedly, giving me another excuse to justify all those missed calls.
I have a love-hate relationship with this evil yet useful device that siphons off my time and energy. My father does not have a smartphone and is not any worse off. Son, for his part, is definitely thinking of trading his cell phone for a “flip”. In order to free ourselves from the chains of this electronic leash, starting with the diktat of immediacy.
The latest fashion among young adults, he explains to me, is not to respond immediately to a text message. So as not to give the impression that we have become a slave to our phone and to convince ourselves that we have a life to live, far from technology.
Son’s phone is mainly used to listen to music. Needless to say, he doesn’t respond any faster to my calls than he does to my texts. He took out some mothballs from his mother’s old Discman. After having adopted the LP, he now buys CDs. My discotheque, which has been gathering dust in the basement for years, is being used again. I wouldn’t be surprised if he digs through my old tapes from the 1980s and 1990s, he loved the film Perfect Days by Wim Wenders.
For some, we are witnessing the return of the technological pendulum. I wish I could say the same about the couple my age sitting next to my mother and me in the theater two weeks ago. Addicted to their phones to the point of checking them, for about fifteen minutes, until an usher comes and warns them to put them away. Without the slightest scruple, the brightness of their camera at maximum, in front of flesh and blood actors!
In the theater, as in all circumstances, the ringtone on my phone is turned off. Out of respect for other spectators. And also, if I’m being honest, because it’s a good reason to never answer the phone. I repeat: there are, of course, exceptions. None of this applies to you, Mom.
Read “Smartphone: Useful for everything except calling!” »