OK the phone is unplugged

[Ray Cover]

If anyone needs to contact me PM or email is the ONLY option until after the engrave in. I have already had five phone calls this morning and its not even 10:30 yet. It has been that way for the last week or so.

I will never understand why people feel compelled to wait until within three weeks before a show to call when you're in crunch mode. Anyway, I have physically taken the batteries out of the phone so my OCD compulsions can't make he answer out of habit.

Ray

 

[DakotaDocMartin]

:yes :banana: :yes :banana: :yes

 

[JJ Roberts]

phone

Ray, Go to Radio Shack and get a Zapper,it works for me. :yes J.J.

 

[Gargoyle]

Yup, if you're on the phone all the time it doesn't leave you free to hang out here in the Cafe... gotta prioritize!

:yes

 

[Sam]

That explains it. I wanted to call and talk about the weather but got no answer.

 

[Christopher Malouf]

Shucks .... I had my "war dialer" program all ready to go .... looks like I'll have to reconfigure it to send 1000 e-mails per minute instead. (sinister Renfield laughter in background .. LOL!).


JJ ... are you sure not confusing that with the "Clapper" hahaha!!!


That's it!!! I'm taking the day off. It feels great to do absolutely NOTHING .... once. $20 bucks in the bank and $10 grand in unfinished "shtuff" laying around here .... I don't care!!! .... Till my mood changes again in about an hour. LOL!!

 

[Sam]

Same here, Chris. Been teaching 2 weeks straight and I'm looking forward to a few days of R&R

 

[Ray Cover]

THere is a difference Gargoyle,

When someone calls on the phone I am interrupted on their schedule. I have to stop what I am doing, answer the phone, etc. When I am done it takes about 5 minutes to find my place back to where I was and another five minutes to get back in "the zone" to be efficiently working. It seems the phone always rings when I am right int eh middle of a process that takes a lot of concentration to pull off.

With email, PMs or forum post I'm interrupted on my schedule and I can take care of those things when I have already stopped to do something else like get up to eat, go to the bathroom etc. The ones that are absolutely unimportant I can ignore.

The latter is much less disruptive to the work flow going on at the bench than the phone calls are.

Suppers over time to get back to work:big grin:

Ray

 

[jimzim75]

That's gotta be one of the biggest problems I have. I interrupt myself enough without
extra help from customers, relatives, and guys from India who want to make life
easier by taking a few minutes to answerer a survey.

Most conversations with jewellers take less than a minute. That's the way they like it
and the way I like it. Little said and a lot done.

Jim

 

[JBrandvik]

THere is a difference Gargoyle,

When someone calls on the phone I am interrupted on their schedule. I have to stop what I am doing, answer the phone, etc. When I am done it takes about 5 minutes to find my place back to where I was and another five minutes to get back in "the zone" to be efficiently working. Ray

SO TRUE RAY!!! That's exactly why you won't find my phone number either on my website or with 411. When I advertise, I list my marketing director/wife's number. I hate the dang phone ringing when I'm working. I guard my phone number more than my social security number.

My definition of success is the day when I won't even own a cell phone.

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Well, I have just been reading about the e-mail and cell phone intrusion into our lives and how it has made overall stress levels rise as we become available 24/7

It used to be cool to receive cell phone calls when we were out of the office............ It made you look important that everyone wanted to speak to you urgently.

Now the new cool is switching your cell phone off when you are out of the office.................it makes you look more important by making the caller wait.

Go figure that one


Cheers
Andrew

P.S. So that makes Ray even cooler by going one step further and taking the batteries out of the phone.............a trendsetting moment that just could catch on and become the next new cool.

 

[Keith]

i have a switch on my main phone line. if i want to be left alone, or take a nap during the day? I switch it off. by the way, this was posted from my new cel phone.

 

[pilkguns]

Ray, I did get the Engrave-In plaque back, with your engraving and Ron Smiths added. Wonderful stuff! I appreciate you getting it done so quick in a crunch time. .

 

[shovelrider]

I guess that I'm one of the five this morning. Sorry Ray I didn't mean to interupt. Have a great weekend with no more distractions.

 

[Ray Cover]

Bill and all,

I don't mean to make folks feel bad. Its not the individual caller, it is the shear mass of calls that I get that is the problem. One day last week I got 25 calls. Most of them were totally useless calls. Needless to say, I did not accomplish a whole lot that day. When I have that much of my time needlessly wasted I develop an "I hate the telephone syndrome" and I have to consciously force myself to be kind to the folks who are legitimately calling. I get to where I hate to even hear the phone ring at all. I realize that is probably a fault in my own personality.

My personality makes me a process oriented person. I enjoy the process of engraving. Honestly, I am not even that caring about what happens to the final product. I am not one of those people who feel like the things he creates are "one of their kids". A customer could toss every project I made for them in the trash and it would not bother me. It is the process that drives me not the final product.

Because of that, I like to be at the bench working in that process. The business end of making a living as an engraver is a necessary evil to me. The business part of it is hard enough for me as it is. Interruptions that needlessly take time away from working make the business end of it even harder for me. On top of that, the actual part of the business that I enjoy has been stopped for a period. I have to be very careful to not let myself develop and bad attitude about it. Again a flaw in my personality.

Your call wasn't that big a deal. It was business related and it was short and sweet. Another customer called this morning with a business related call that was short and sweet. Again no problem. The other three were not necessary.

But there are people (most of these are friends of mine) who have no self control when it comes to a phone. They find themselves bored driving to work or on break and call to see whats going on. Every time I tell them "I'm working". I have friends who call me with stuff like, "Ray, I'm at Walmart and they have #### on sale. You want me to pick one up for you?....NO!

That type stuff is about half of the calls that irritate me.

Another part of the calls are semi business related calls or Blade Show/Engrave in related calls that sometimes are pertinent but usually are not. And most could have been dealt with via email.

The rest are legitimate business related calls which I don't mind. But I have to be careful with my attitude on those days I have too many useless calls.

I apologize if I offended anyone. I certainly did not mean to.

That being said email is always better.

Ray

 

[shovelrider]

No offense taken. My phone drives me crazy most days too. Still sorry to have added to your distractions. Enjoy the quiet.

 

[Christopher Malouf]

That's ok Dude .... I think it's the most clever way ever devised of telling the forum how popular you are. (laughter hahaha!!)

I'm actually quite surprised Barry Lee hadn't thought of it first .... :big grin:

------

We know the real reason for the e-mails ......

 

[Marrinan]

I have a very old FEGA tape of Lynton McKenzie discussing this issue pre-cell phone days. Fred

 

[Gargoyle]

THere is a difference Gargoyle,

I know that, I was just kidding you.

Fortunately, most of the time I have my wife or my assistant here and they answer the phone, but also some of my early training enabled me to walk up to a piece after an interruption, be it a 5 minute or 5 month interruption, and pick up right where I left off.

I can't remember which drawer in the kitchen my wife keeps the cups or knives in, or which file cabinet she has the tax returns in, or that she asked me to pick up something from the store, but I can remember which chisel I was going to pick up next and which cut I was going to do.

I recently finished a piece that I'd started 5 years ago, and then did a day of work on last year... that one took me two or three minutes of looking at it to get back in the flow.

 

[Sam]

I absolutely hate phone calls unless it's an immediate family member. I'm not a chatty phone person. I think I have 400 minutes a month on my cellphone plan and use less than 30 of them.

Thank god there's email for cranky people like me.