Stop the ring to live in peace

OFFICIAL WOES

Picture this. It is the middle of the night, you are lost in dreams and are rather rudely woken up by a  call. Not only that, you are expe­c­ted to be mentally alert to deal with an office crisis.

It might be irritating in the extreme but throwing away the cell is not a possible solution because it has been provided by your company!

Of course, the ever reso­u­r­c­eful few have found ways and means to evade the dre­a­d­ed calls – starting from very innocuous methods like pus­h­­­ing mobiles under the sofas to putting them in the offline mode or trying out the more innovative ones of diverting calls to only city codes to save themselves trouble. Metrolife talks to professionals across board and discovers that they are the happiest when their phones are not ringing!

A chef by profession, Moh­a­mmad Aslam joined a five star a few months back and was given an official mobile. “Due to software issues in the mobile I returned it to the hotel and lived happily for a month.” But once the cell was repaired, Mohammad has been irritated by its incessant ring, “If the mobile is provided by the company then I am bound to receive all the calls all the time. Even if I am at home, the rule is the same.”

There are a few whose irritation with cells has led to innovative measures to make it unreachable.

Harshit Jain, a manager with a leading soft drink company says, “In summer when soft drinks are high in demand and production often falters, there are many insta­n­ces when dealers make ph­o­ne calls at all weird hours and we have to go there to ease the situation. At times it is so irritating that I keep my phone on silent or make it unreachable.” How can a phone be unreachable even when there is no network trouble? “Rem­o­ve the battery without switching it off and the cell is unreachable.”
Easy!

The call divert option is notoriously in use too! Ayushi Sharma, a corporate communications manager says, “We are liable to respond to even missed calls or submit an offi­c­ial letter specifying the reas­on for not receiving the pho­ne.” Then it is difficult to escape? “No, for numbers which make a lot of enquiries, my colleagues and I divert th­em to unknown numbers wh­i­ch give an unreachable tone to the caller.”

But the trick to dealing wi­th bosses – in times of Andr­o­ids and BBMs which have push mail facility, is different. Aakash Singh, assistant manager sales in a media house says, “It all depends. If you don’t receive calls at night from day one, the boss realises that and if it is urgent then I ask my wife to receive the call and say I am not well and have gone off to sleep.”

Some phones even have a profile ‘Flight Mode’ which automatically makes the mobile unreachable.  Perhaps by now, you have already figured out your preferred choice of going underground the next time an off­icial number rings.