Talk is cheap and so is the phone

My company is switching from a traditional telephone service to a Unified Communication (UC) solution. For internal communications, the UC solution is all the rage. Easier accessibility and dual connection avenues (i.e., IM and VoIP) can curb or eliminate the need for traditional phone services, email traffic and even travel. The introduction of a UC approach is to reduce the cost of doing business. The idea sounds great. It’s the sound itself that is the problem.

           You know you make me                   I'm sorry,

               want to SHOUT!                     can you repeat that?

 

The transition to the UC has been piecemeal. First: a suggestion. Second: a toothless policy. Third: an administrative rule. Our traditional telephone charges started with scrutiny and have ended with declined expenses. I accept this; change is the constant. But it has been challenging to adopt this latest technical push for integrated voice. I would be an early adopter if the transition was seamless and the product superior. However, this arrangement makes me feel like a beta tester. Our UC solution has a variety of options for connecting with co-workers and I have experienced hiccups with most of them.

Okay! Okay! We'll remove you from the test team.

There are complications before even joining a call. The conference IDs are ten digits long, the same length as a phone number. That is a problem. To avoid confusion between the dial-in number and the conference ID, the UC solution removed the dashes from the conference ID. Still a problem. It may look different but it is harder to memorize.

Dashes displayed within the phone number layout make them easier to read and recall. Human vision can process three and four number groupings more easily and put them to memory. A ten digit number is challenging. Instead of referencing the conference ID to access the call, I find myself looking back and forth, repeating the numbers out loud and then cursing when my access is denied. That denial is a blessing in disguise. A less appealing circumstance is actually entering the call and hearing the Theremin effect.

These vibrations don't feel so good.

You have made it to the call! Time to enter another dimension of auditory distortion created by The Art of Noise - - while on acid. What Ed Wood did for movies, the UC does for sound: voice echoes, bouncing reverb and high-pitched feedback. The conversation ends up being a discord of bings, bongs, beeps and boops that could make Lil Wayne’s grill dance. It doesn’t sound like cost savings to me. It sounds like a vacuum of money flying out the door. The idea of the technology has outpaced its reality. And both are in a forced marriage despite the absence of synchronicity.

This even sounds weird to me

I want to pick up the phone, dial and talk. Does each advance in technology mean we have to adopt it? Philip K. Dick could have easily made the UC solution into a novella. In the interest of cost-cutting and adopting all forms of technologies we sometimes lose sight of the original business purpose. The bigger promise of technology lends it an unwarranted long leash which is rarely reined in. All this progress makes me want to go back to a simpler time, a time when I could dream of my virtual vacation memories on Mars.

Get me off of this call and back on vacation!