My apologies if I have blogged about this before, but it is fresh on my mind.

My beloved technology industry, the exact same one that spawned so many .com millionaires, put a desktop computer in practically every household in the country, revolutionized the entire world with the advent of the internet, and gave me the opportunities to have a fruitful career, is now starting to cause me grief to some extent, and I do not see the problem correcting itself. I am referring to the Blackberry. For those who have lived under a rock for the past few years, a Blackberry is a device which allows the user to send and receive email on a mobile device. Sounds great on the surface, but let me tell you how it has had a negative impact on my life, so we can then analyze what it all means.

My manager at work (and his manager, and his manager's manager, etc...) has this phrase that he uses quite a bit about being "available 24 hours a day, because I have this Blackberry". Wow, sounds great, instant access to my boss at a moment's notice. While this may be true to some extent, it can be quite counterproductive at the same time.

Here is what I find happens. I get to work at 7:00am. My manager comes in some time after 9:00am, or not at all. Hey, he has the blackberry, so no problem right? Wrong. Say I get to work at 7:00am and something important comes up at 8:00am. More than likely, my manager is either asleep, dealing with kids, driving, or any dealing with any other activity that prevents his full attention to company business. So I send him an email giving a description, my analysis, and a few different options for solutions. Let's assume the email is a half a page long. If a person is driving down the highway at 70mph, there is no way in hell that the recipient can possibly scroll through my email on their 2" screen and get a firm understanding of the email and provide the attention needed to truly deal with its contents.

So what I get is a vague reply, which most of the time is not helpful in any way shape or form. I will send an email chock full of questions and looking for guidance so I can adhere to company policy, and I get a response like "Ok". Then what happens is that the email gets shuffled to the back burner. Perhaps there is the intention to give it a closer look later, but this seldom happens. Once the manager gets through with whatever he is doing, and gets to the office, and gets situated, other things have popped up, and so my important business email never gets a second look.

I learned pretty quickly that this was happening so I have formed a workaround of sorts. Knowing that this will happen every single time I send an email, I have begun to craft my emails in a manipulative manner, for lack of a better term. Now, when I send an email, it is more for informational purposes only and usually leaves no alternatives other than denial. In other words, I find my self using phrases at the end of my emails along the lines of "If this is a problem let me know". This way I can essentially do whatever I want, because the onus has been placed on him to deny my request. Since I know damn good and well the email will basically get ignored, I never get a denial.

A fine example of this is Wednesday of this week. I had the DirecTV satellite installers scheduled to do some work between 6am and 8am, which then became 8am-12pm, which then became 1:30pm, and then finally 2:30pm. I emailed my manager 6 days prior to the Wednesday to let him know that I would be working from home, while waiting for the installer, and that I would be in the office after the work was complete. At the end of the email I used my phrasing "If this is a problem, just let me know." I got a read receipt on the email, so I know that he saw the email. Wednesday rolls around and I am working from home. Around lunch time, I get an IM from a co-worker stating that he was looking for me and wondering where I was. I told my co-worker that I emailed the manager last week, so he was aware that I would be out. A few minutes later I get an email from my manager asking if I was "out today?" I replied that I was working from home, that I had emailed him that information last week, and a brief list of the 2 or 3 projects I was working on. The email was only a couple of paragraphs. At this point, it was during the time that he is usually at lunch. A few minutes later I get a response from him... "OK, thx". The working from home mail was clearly not as important as "Hey, everything is broken, all systems are down, and the company is in complete turmoil", but in the past it has been.

So basically what it boils down to is that Blackberry, and other technologies that were invented to make the world a better place, have had a different impact. They seem to be dumbing down society. The convenience of being "available 24/7" apparently has a downside. Can you imagine if the person reading their email while driving down the interstate was your doctor? What if the lab analyst that has your results is on the other end, writing the "if this is a problem, let me know" emails, and that person is just making their own decisions because they know the doctor won't really be paying attention to your emails. What if it was your lawyer, and their assistant?

I don't where the world is headed based on these types of things. If you don't think there is a problem with the dumbing down of modern society, talk to a teenager that uses text messaging all day. It is like trying to talk to someone from another country. If you really want have peek into what life could be like if this process continues, check the Luke Wilson film "Idiocracy", from 2006. In the movie, the character wakes up 500 years in the future, to find that he is the smartest person in the world. It is a really bad movie. It is really stupid, but it does make you think a little bit about how this dumbing down could have long term effects.

Am I telling you to trash your Blackberry and other email or text messaging devices? YES, throw that fucker in the trash right now, and never use it again.