A Compelling Case for Office Cell Phones

So, my office currently, and every office I’ve ever been in, has landline phones. These phones have been varying degrees of nice – my current one is the 1984 edition but I’ve had one that was at least the 1997 edition (lucky me).

Personally, I haven’t had a landline in my place of residence since 2001, when I believe I still had a phone in my residence hall room. I’m pretty sure my apartments have had landlines but I can’t really tell you where they are since I haven’t used them at all.

I think it’s time to scrap the office land line as well.

It’s not as if we’re using magic jack and taking advantage of the cost savings of new technology. These aren’t VOIP phones that can call internationally for pennies an hour. These are old-school desk phones; they’re a cost sink and they’re not the most efficient way to handle office communication. Moreover, there is an expectation that we have each other’s cell phone numbers, because we can’t reach each other on the office line.

The main argument I’ve heard against office cell phones is that people don’t want their boss to be able to reach them any time. News flash: they already can reach you any time. Second argument is that people don’t want to carry 2 cell phones constantly; honestly, to that I say, give me a break. You already carry tons of stuff with you all the time, a cell phone will not end the world.

Let’s say you work in an office with 4 employees…
your desk phones run at least $25/month
if you were to go with 4 t-mobile cell phones then your cost would run around $70/month for the plan and unlimited calling between those 4 phones. That’s a $30 cost savings, not to mention the benefits of being able to reach someone when they’re not at their desk (a huge thing in student activities).

So why are people not doing this? The same reason that people don’t pursue anything innovative with regard to technology – they don’t know and/or worse, they don’t care.