Let Me Transfer You To Our People On Jupiter. They Ought To Be Able to Help You
Can you believe there was a time when the only thing you could do with a phone was pick it up if it rang or call someone else and make it ring at their end?
Otherwise it just sat there on your desk or on the table in the hallway or on the wall just outside the kitchen, like some brute device, built for only the simplest of functions.
‘Primitive’ is the only word that will do to describe those times when we consider what our communication devices can do for us today.
Yes, primitive is the exact word.
Wasn’t it great?
It limited your interactions with the outside world in a way that was handleable by ordinary human intelligence.
As far as I can determine, there were really only five states of being in a person’s relationship to the telephone:
You could have called someone and you were talking.
Someone could have called you and you were talking.
You were thinking about calling someone.
You were wondering if someone was going to call you.
It could ring and you could either answer it or ignore it.
And that was about it. Its very limits were its strengths.
You did not have to consider if your phone was correctly tracking your precise geographical location, nor if anyone had just sent you a note that you had to attend to, nor if any news was breaking that needed your attention.
People kept themselves perfectly satisfied through long and productive lives doing nothing more with a phone than answering it when it rang and calling someone else and making their phone ring.
It never occurred to a soul that you could want a phone to do more than that.
Why would you want to?
Academics who have studied the history of the takeover of human civilization by telephone-like devices do not, interestingly, point to the advent of long distance calls as a particularly dangerous step.
Why? Because, in fact, it came with its own safeguards.
When long distance calling first burst on the horizon it exacted a cost that the ordinary family could bear only intermittently and with great pain.
It was not unusual to limit your long distance calling to a loved one to a certain time on a Sunday afternoon when the price was discounted.
The cost per minute was significant; that simple fact made a person choose their words carefully and try to get the most bang for their buck.
It is said that poetry is simply a novel conveyed via telegraph, but there were many a Sunday afternoon long distance phone call that rivaled some of our best poetry in their concision and compression of meaning.
“Hi, there; you know the front hallway? I re-tiled it. You know the kids? Two of them graduated. You know my appendix? They took it out. You know what lightning is? And you know what our dog is? The one got hit by the other. I know you liked that dog, but get over it by the time we talk next week, it's not worth the expense of talking about it. Gladys’s sister got engaged to a salesman in the lumber business, lots of travel, we don’t give it much chance. OK, Gladys says time’s up. Good to talk, we’ll call you in a week.”
And that just about covered it.
It was like a highlights reel for the week. You’d put the phone down breathlessly, just under the limit whereby higher charges would kick in. You’d feel good about that for the rest of the week. It made you feel a bit like a rich guy, all that extra change you had jangling in your pocket that you hadn't spent on talking.
Hemingway said that an important law for a writer is what he leaves out, and long distance calling in those days left out a lot. You didn’t go into your mid-life crisis or the state of the lawn or your take on international geopolitics.
The listener on the other end and the rest of the world would have to wait to hear what you had to say on those fine topics until you were in the same room at the same time, by which point you had no doubt forgotten where you were coming from altogether. It makes you wonder if they were that important to begin with.
And who’s to say, who’s to say? When you are paying per the word it tends to make a fellow pare his message down to the essence, as poets are said to do with the haiku.
No, scholars today feel that the real danger came into the world when people suddenly had the ability to transfer a call to someone else using their phones. This opened up an entirely new can of worms.
Prior to this so-called advance, a certain type of conversation might go as follows.
Caller: We’re getting nowhere on this issue, you frankly don’t seem smart enough to handle this. Let me talk to your accounting department.
You: Can’t do it.
Caller: Well, then, forward me to your best person in invoicing.
You: No way.
Caller: How about the head of your tax division?
You: Nope.
Caller: The CFO then.
You: Nope.
Caller: What do you mean ‘nope’?
You: Forwarding a call hasn’t been invented yet.
Caller: Oh, that’s right, I had forgotten. Well, how can I get in touch with those people?
You: Couldn’t tell you. Hang up and call ‘em, I guess.
Caller: Hmm, maybe I’m better off dealing with you after all. I think we were making a little progress.
And so the long afternoon would wear on.
Well, and then all of a sudden it was possible, or possible to a person of even medium intelligence, to in fact transfer a call to another party, which left the rest of us in quite a pickle.
You could get into a lot of trouble if your call-transferring skills were not up to speed.
Let us say a call comes in from the founder of the company.
Founder of the Company: Listen, Carnahan, I’m coming into town tonight to attend the annual meeting of The Alfalfa Society. I hear you’re just the man I need to prepare a quick speech on Whither Alfalfa? Crop at the Crossroads.
You: I’m not sure that you have the right…
Founder of the Company: No, no, this isn’t the type of thing that I would get wrong. You are our alfalfa man, I’m sure of it.
You: (with dawning realization) Oh, I get it! You think I’m Carnahan! No, you see, he’s a floor directly below me. I'm Canavan! Canavan! It's always been my name!
Yes, yes, I too have heard great things about Carnahan and alfalfa. ‘Gripping’ is the word that people use to describe him at the front of the room. Using only the English language, some snatches of classic poetry, and a few black and white slides, he can put any room into what can only be called a state of Alfalfa Exuberance.
Founder of the Company: Yes, now you understand me, that’s exactly what I want you to do tonight for my Alfalfa Alumni Association. Now, mind you, make this one of your best efforts, a few of my old professors are going to be there and I want to make a good impression.
You: Yes, well, you see, I would, but as it turns out I don’t know a blessed thing about alfalfa. I’d have trouble telling you exactly how it’s spelled if you want to know the truth.
Founder of the Company: Nonsense, everyone says that you’re the expert. What am I paying you for otherwise?
You: Well, see, that gets us right back to the point of who exactly I am. I’m Canavan, and the fellow you want is Carnahan. A simple mistake, easily made. Here, let me just transfer you to him, he’ll likely jump at the chance.
Founder of the Company: Transfer? I don’t want to be transferred!
You: Let’s see, let me just look up his number…
Founder of the Company: Listen; are you giving me the runaround?
You: It says to press the pound sign and then the party’s number that I wish to reach, and then press the pound sign again. OK, here we go.
(the telephone is disconnected. And then rings.)
You: Hello?
Founder of the Company: You again!
You: Wait, I thought I transferred you to Carnahan?
Founder of the Company: (fuming in a way that isn’t easily conveyed by the written word.)
You: Oh, you know what? You’re going to think this is the funniest thing! I mistakenly transferred the call back to me! Myself! It didn’t go anywhere at all but right back here to this phone! If that isn’t the funniest thing.
Founder of the Company: You will have the best speech ever given in the history of the world on the topic of alfalfa ready for delivery to The Alfalfa Society tonight or I will have your job!
You: Yes, I see now that I should have pressed the star button before the pound key, then entered the number of the party I wanted to reach, followed by, again, the star button, the pound key, and then light a candle of supplication at my preferred house of worship, if any. Let me just try it again.
Founder of the Company: Transfer me no transfers. Let me put it to you this way: either that speech happens tonight or the person at this extension on the other end of this phone call won’t have a job tomorrow.
And again, the long afternoon wears on.
Well, it does you no good to hang up the phone and call Carnahan directly and plead with him to take on the speech, as he has left the firm six months ago to take the head position at the Alfalfa Institute.
There was a short length of time when the two trends overlapped and if your timing was right you might have accidentally sent the caller to Mongolia or Hong Kong or the Lost Continent of Atlantis, all being destinations with very burdensome long distance rates, at which time he would have slammed the phone down in alarm at the prospect of paying such a price.
But these were rare occasions, and in any case soon enough things were going quickly downhill in this regard altogether.
