What if we just stopped?
Posted: August 15, 2006 Filed under: Uncategorized 4 Comments »
What would happen? What if we didn’t answer the phone or check email?
This summer, I made a conscious decision not to answer all my email immediately. Of course, I am doing my work and I reply post haste to my clients. I need to buy school shoes for the boys. But I mean some of my volunteer emails. And some of the (dare I admit) family emails. And, yes folks, even some of the emails from the hub.
You might think it’s funny that Andrew and I email each other. We do. We send things back and forth. That’s funny to me since we work and live together. We see each other all the time. And I mean ALL THE TIME. But, it gets funnier. We now IM each other, too. It’s kind of like an intercom system. But it takes away the ability to have a little space. I mean, it’s not as if he doesn’t know I’m in the office, right?
But I digress.
What if we stopped being so available? Well, I know that I was worried about a colleague who didn’t respond to me quickly last week. Was she okay? Back in the day, one would assume someone was simply busy and would get back to you when it was convenient. But now, we know that whether your target is on the train, walking down the street, driving, or having lunch, he knows you’re lurking. He knows you want a reply.
Does that mean he has to reply right then? I say no. We need to rebel. We need our space back. So I’m going to count to 10 (or maybe even 20) before I reply to emails and voicemails from now on. Well, I’ll try.
A girl can dream.
photo credit to Ernest von Rosen
Hi wendy! Yaakov and I i.m. each other too. sometimes it’s actually *easier* to discuss certain things that way. But I know what you mean about “needing your space back.” I thank G-d for 25 hours of space on shabbos, I really mean it. No phone, no internet, no car – what a relief! It gets to be such an overload. It’s such a beautiful rest, so renewing and refreshing.
Very thought-provoking post; I’ve recently been analyzing my (so-called) dating habits, and I realize I’ve become too comfortable with exchanging email addresses to ease into getting to know someone…tidbits I’d once toss around over dinner are done thru the net. Maybe I’ll put the brakes on that.
Still, I’m a geeky gadget girl, and I am happy not to live “back in the day” before there was even such a thing as an answering machine.
I used to have a 45 minute commute to work. No one but me and National Public Radio for 45 minutes. Now I live just five blocks from work… The transition from being completely wired into the world at work and being completely wired into the world at home takes three minutes.
I walk to and from work now. Somehow it always takes me 45 minutes to walk five blocks.
(My wife and I e-mail each other all the time, too. I think of the e-mails as “little notes in her lunch bag” that she can find from time to time throughout the day.)
When I was working, I allowed someone 24 hours to get back to me. I knew they probably had more important things to do, plus I didn’t want to make a pest of myself by calling or e-mailing more than once a day, unless it was something urgent a supervisor was breathing down my neck about.
The Citizen and I e-mail things to each other – at night, after the kids go to bed and we’re in the SAME room! Sometimes I’m too lazy to get up and look at something on his laptop (a mere 7 feet away!) so he e-mails me the link. Sheesh. Talk about lazy!
I love cellphones and e-mail because I can keep in touch with my family without counting the minutes on a telephone bill or the wait for the U.S. postal service. If you live out of state from the rest of your family, technology CAN’T be beat!