HI Kurt,

On Tue 2038-Dec-28 12:21, Kurt Weiske (1:218/700) wrote to Richard Webb:

KW> I miss pagers. As an on-call IT person, back in the old days, people
KW> paged you, gave you a telephone number to call on, and you spoke to
KW> someone. You were both engaged in the process, and it filtered out a
KW> lot of unnecessary after-hours "urgencies".

Friends of mine carried them who had similar jobs.  I
carried neither.  I had an answering machine at home that I
could access from remote to get my messages, any touch tone
phone would do.  I don't want a cell when I'm out and about
either.  We have one, for emergency use, but that's what
it's for.
IN my profession when I'm out and about, especially if I'm
on the client's dime I'm working for that client, and giving my full
undivided attention to his needs.

KW> Nowadays, anyone can email you at all hours of the day or night and
KW> expect that some sort of game-clock starts as soon as they hit
KW> "send". Regardless of whether or not their request is valid, sent to
KW> the right person, able to be accomodated, reasonable, &tc.

I can believe that.  I remember more than once a friend of
mine in IT used to call a customer with a problem when he'd
get the page, and often get things to rights for them just
by giving them some instructions over the phone.

KW> Pagers needed pay phones, though. Part of the beauty of pagers was
KW> being able to be out and about with a pager and a handful of dimes. 

sUre was a lot of that.  I think of about a dozen close
friends half of them had pagers back then.  OF the other
half dozen half of those didn't even have telephones .

Regards,
           Richard
--- timEd 1.10.y2k+