Pick Up the Damn Phone

We see you hiding behind text and emails. Yeah, you. Stop it. Here’s why.

- Ross McCammon

HEY, WANNA FEEL old? Great. Let me a get a startup exec on the phone. [Ring, ring] Hi there. I’m trying to reach Elena Gorman, product marketing lead at HipChat, the group-chat and file-sharing company. [Waiting] Elena, hello! Question for you: What do you think of when I say the word telephone?

“Working in Silicon Valley, I haven’t had a desk with a phone on it since 2010.” You don’t say? “I can imagine a scenario where getting someone on the phone would be the quickest way to resolve a complex issue. But even with that, we have video chat and group video chat in HipChat. The only reason to ever bring up my phone is if wi-fi is spotty. I think most young people probably associate telephone communications at work with interviews or more high-pressure situations. In Silicon Valley, we all work at computers, right? And most of our jobs are based around using the internet in some way. To use a phone takes me physically out of my workflow. Just the manual process of dialing with my fingers, looking up a number…”

Excellent. I’d like to spend the rest of this column unpacking pretty much everything she just said. Thanks, Elena. Elena?

(I think she hung up.)