NOT SO "LOOKINg Ahead."

Anyone over 60 will tell you, if they themselves are aware of it, that nostalgia for "the way things used to be" can overwhelm all your judgements.

So, instead of "Looking Ahead," I am casting a sorrowful glance over my shoulder and whining about "how things used to be."

Is it a kind of overblown self-importance that is expressed by the phone message: "I'm either out of the office, away from my desk, or on another call. Please leave...etc.."

Dammit - whatever happened to the common courtesy of answering your phone? Where does this "busy-man" attitude come from? I even have one friend who never, ever answers the phone. The service picks it up and within a short time I get a call "I was on another line" or some such other lame excuse.

Maybe it's a kind of 21st century urban plague. I didn't grow up with what we see commonly on movie and TV screens. Someone is making an urgent call and of course, gets an answering machine. The picture cuts to the person who is being called listening to the frustrated caller holler: "Pick up, come on pick up. I know you're there."

The plague is aggravated by a device that will show you who is calling so you can deign not to pick up or be simply too busy, unless of course it is a telemarketer, in which case their identity is blocked.

Is it too much technology? Is it too much real indifference? Or is it, as I said earlier, just an exaggerated sense of self-importance.

I am held captive by a banking system that is sometimes absurd. Like millions of you, I carry a line of credit. Because it is a "secured" line, I can't just take money willy-nilly or make any market transcations without first getting permission.
I can't even withdraw earning from my brokerage account, without contacting my account person. That's where the fun begins. "Hello - this is (name) at (bank name)
\I am unable to take your call etc.../or - I am away from the office until (date) Please contact (another name and phone number) and they will be able to assist you. You guessed it, the alternate contact also is either out of the office or away from her desk...etc.."

How anyone gets anything done is quite beyond me. I know I know, you will say "If you sit by your desk trying to get work done and you are interrupted contstantly etc..."

Well my forward looking friends, remember when someone, a real person, would answer the phone with a cheerful "Hello this is (name) office. Can I help you?"
(While I'm carping, who even told people it was more polite to say MAY I help you. My answer would be, I wouldn't have called unless I thought you could help me, which means that CAN I help you is appropriate. The answer to MAY I help you is obvious: my very phone call entitles you to help me, so asking "may I" is stupid.)

Two of my grandsons intend to follow their father, a successful marketing guru into college business courses. Isn't anyone trying to be a poet anymore?

They will, without question or demurral, enter a world of business where a machine allows you to duck answering your phone.

I'm convinced that technology has not in many ways, been our saviour. It only seems to be more efficient. What it does it add another layer to the already heavily layered protocol of going from point A to point B, the process of starting with a problem and going directly to a solution. Too much detail just doesn't hack it. Look if you will, at Occam's Law. Essentially it says that you will get there faster if you strip away all the unnecessary baggage. But phone answering machines (and most people) have never heard of Occam.