Anyone who knows me in my work spaces knows of my phone fetish. It ain’t like I have lots of them, or even that I have nice ones, or do strange things with them, but I do make myself available on them for faculty/students who need help. I’ve been doing that for some time and I think that the faculty/students are always appreciative that I am there, so they can reach out and, ah, touch me….
Um, well, like I said, I don’t have a phone fetish….
I do think that we live in a time when we all loose our minds searching for answers on the web. And sometimes, after you look for ten minutes for an answer to something you know is ridiculously simple, you break down and call the help desk, or the bank, or pharmacy. And you get the lovely, “Please listen carefully as our menu….” I just throw my phone at that point.
Todd’s Help Line, as I refer to it in my dreams, does not have an answering machine or redirect of any kind. If I can, I answer. If I can’t, I don’t. But I’ll call right back. That woks for me. I know my boundaries and can live that way.
What I have found is that hardly anyone ever really calls me. It ain’t like I have all the answers. And I know most people are looking all over the internet before they look to me, and usually they find some cat videos and an answer out there. I am a psychological backstop. Just by being available people wander around the darkness of the internet with a little more confidence cuz they know if they can’t find what they are looking for, they can call me and I may have an answer. If not an answer, I will say things like, “You know, this is all very tricky stuff and most faculty/students struggle with this.” Or I’ll say, “You know, I think we can do this another way that will work just the same.”
I’ll say something in a human voice. I’ll empathize with their challenges. I’ll listen. I’ll make them laugh.
It works. I remember the Bat Phone. It worked too 🙂