Cell phones, clocks and Alzheimer's

I’m having a bit of a love hate thing going on right now with cell phones. In the past the hate thing was typically reserved for my former service provider, Sprint. (Don’t even get me started on what a horrible, no good, rotten company they are. I could go on for ever!) Today my issues are related to four things:

My phone is showing the wrong time. It’s off by about 8 minutes. It’s slow. Now I don’t spend a lot of time looking at the clock on my phone, in fact I spend very little because I can’t see it without putting my glasses on. (It’s hell getting older!) Most of the time I refer to clocks on the wall or across the room that I can see without glasses. Here’s my problem, when I need to set one of these other clocks, I’ve been setting them by my phone. This morning, when the person on the radio mentioned the time I happen to be looking at my alarm clock, set to my phone’s clock, and realized why I have been running late for the past week.

Now, I had to reset the time on my phone. I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to do it and could never figure it out. So, of course today I was even later getting to work. Apparently I can set the alarm for the clock on my phone, but not the clock itself. Technology, don’t you just love it!

Periodically, like every 3-4 months the ability of my phone to receive email just goes away. You have to reset it. I’m assuming this is some kind of security function, and I’ve asked to have it remove. Apparently they can’t. Now, most people don’t have a problem resetting their email function. It is a very simple thing to do that really takes only a few seconds. They are smart enough to remember how to do this for themselves. Not me. I’m still going in every time to ask one of the very nice people in the AT&T store to reset mine. I should be able to do this! I feel so defeated!

Just about everyone I work with on a construction project has a cell phone. So, why is it that every time I absolutely need to talk to one of them right away, I can’t get them? Of course this is the same thing that happens when I need to talk to individuals not related at all to work. It’s like a universal constant, if it’s imperative that you talk to someone right away, there is no way in hell you can get a hold of them. Why is that?

As frustrating as these things are I still love my Blackberry and I’m still glad that the people I work with are generally accessible. I think cell phones are great. I even read this morning that a scientific study has shown that cell phone use by Alzheimer’s prone mice cut the occurrence of that disease by 68%. I have no idea who the mice were calling, if their phone kept better time than mine, or if they could reset their email functions, but I’m feeling a lot better about my mental health in old age.