After years of coaching executives to avoid the perils and pitfalls of constant connection, I must confess to joining the Crackberry masses. The days of 24-hour response time to emails were obviously long gone, not to mention the pitying looks that came my way when I couldn’t access my schedule or pictures of the dog while waiting for an iced tea refill. So I caved in and went for the Bold.
But even with a Blackberry hanging off my belt and a Garmin on the windshield, I was determined not to let technology dictate my life. I was never going to answer a call from the ladies room and I certainly wasn’t going to fondle the little black box at the dinner table like I had seen so many do. Watching whole families sit in absolute silence at a restaurant while thumbing texts to their Facebook friends was horrifying to someone who makes a living helping people communicate better. The productivity drain of multi-tasking and the social impact of abbreviated, one-way communication were well documented and the Coach was not going to get sucked in.
Too late. Somewhere along the line, having access to email and Internet became having to have access. It began innocently enough, taking the B Box on a walk with the dogs in case the important email I had been expecting came through with good news (it did). Then it went along on a weekend outing ”in case we needed to look up something on the Internet” (we did). Today I <gulp> watched myself check email during a meeting and fury set in when I discovered that the pharmacy waiting area wasn’t a hot spot. It has only been a week and I think I need an intervention.
So I have humbly entered into Step One of the addiction 12-Step model: Admitting to Powerlessness. The Blackberry has taken me happily down into communication hell and I am looking to my Higher Power to save me from further decline into emoticons and Lingo-land. But until then, I found this cool feature called “bedside mode”…
