Date: Sun, 27 Dec 92 08:13 PST
From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: California PUC Reduces CLID Restrictions
Reply-To: John Higdon <john@zygot.ati.com>
Organization: Green Hills and Cows
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 921, Message 9 of 10

On Dec 26 at 13:37, TELECOM Moderator writes:

> [Moderator's Note: Well good golly, how did you manage to make do all
> these years before Caller-ID was invented?  How did you manage to deal
> with all the strangers on your phone lines in the past? Whatever you
> did, just keep on doing it.   PAT]

What I have done was patiently waited until CNID would become
available, tolerating the mostly useless (to me) voice telephone the
best I could. Now that I see the waiting has been in vain, it is time
to change strategies.

The telephone is for my convenience to talk with those people with
whom I wish to speak and none others. The fact that I have a telephone
is not an open invitation for any and all to bother me -- whether it
be to sell something or to harass or even to chit-chat when I am
otherwise occupied. I have been waiting patiently for CNID so that I
could take back control of my phone. Now that those who know what is
better for us than we do ourselves have decided that we who have
telephones are to be punished by never knowing who is at the other end
before it is answered, I am taking matters into my own hand.

I have a phone in the garage. I do not know how many times I have been
loading the bike or truck and the phone rings. Since there is the
possibility that the call is from someone at my destination or someone
who has information that will otherwise be useful during my day's
activities, I usually answer it. About 80% of the time it is someone
calling with chit-chat, or non-essential information that can wait
until later, or even a junk call.

Sample: I notice that I am going to be just about on time for an
appointment as I am rolling the bike out of the garage. As the garage
door is going down, the phone rings. So I slide in under the door and
grab the phone. "Yeah, John! This is Fred (a client). I wanted to talk
to you about some changes in that latest software." "Actually, I'm on
my way out the door. Could I talk to you later?" "Oh, this will only
take a minute. Here's what I was thinking ... (blah, blah, blah)."
"Yeah, OK, uh Fred -- I've really got to go. Why don't you decide what
you want and then e-mail me." "Well, I think that covers it ... oh, by
the way ... (blah, blah, blah)."

Ten minutes later, I'm out the door and late for the appointment.
Unless, of course, I get another call or two while talking to Fred.
Then I may as well cancel the appointment. With CNID, a glance at the
phone tells me that it is Fred and since I have no urgent business
with him, I let it ring and let my machine (which is inside the house
and out of earshot) do its job.

Without CNID or my full-time-everyone-who-calls-gets-screened-device,
the only other two possibilities are: 1) get rid of the phone except
for fax and modem use; or 2) just become much more rude ("Sorry, I'm
busy! <click>", after I have discovered that it is someone that is
non-essential.)

You can perhaps suggest another alternative?


John Higdon  |   P. O. Box 7648   |   +1 408 264 4115     |       FAX:
john@ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264 4407