Changes? Perhaps, perhaps not.

I was over at a train wreck in maxwell checking things out and the conversation came up about the plan (?) to outlaw cellphones on airplanes, and then some comments about the joys (sarcasm alert)of turning on some new service and my mind kinda wandered over to:

How in the hell did we get here?

Years ago as a lowly Sales Representative I would travel the southeast, and everyday I would stop at a paystation and call the "factory" where a lady would give me my messages, who was doing who, who had been caught, who was going and who was coming. She would also write letters for me that made sense to my customers and had impeccable spelling and English. She was a Secretary. A lovely person and someone you could trust.

Typically the next morning I would call those who asked me to. If I missed them their Secretary would take a message and that was that. We had communicated. It worked well. My customers liked it. I didn't have to involve my boss, his boss or any boss. I knew the cost, the price and could cut a deal on the spot in 90% of the cases.

Somewhere in there a friend, and a customer, gave me a great price on a Improved Mobile Telephone Service, IMTS. This was beyond sexy. It had console with a telephone handset with a keypad... it reeked of "I am important." Even better, it meant I could call our Secretary while on the way to the motel, get my messages, etc., and make it to the bar about thirty minutes quicker. (Some things are important.)I could also get on the road about 30 minutes earlier in the morning by returning calls from the car. That was a nice productivity improvement, but nothing really changed.

My boss at that time took great pains to explain that his job wasn't to do my job and that if it became his job to do my job then we didn't need one of us. I had no doubt which one of "us" wouldn't be needed. He was a great help on the inside politics and getting my points re what was needed to close major deals through to our management. It was a loverly relationship. We both liked our jobs.

In fact, I can remember leaving him a "weekly report" that said: Made the numbers.

But times changed. I got a new boss who, because I had an IMTS, thought I should call him daily and give him a status report. And since he had both hands in everything it was decided that he had to approve all pricing. And since he didn't know the customer or the product or the competition he'd have to check everything with management.... you get the point.... A 30 minute task handled by my lowly self and a capable Secretary became 10 man hours involving Very Important Managers.

Time, mergers and promotions went on... I had a good run of bosses that let me do my job and then came voice mail. Now I didn't have someone taking my messages, and who could answer 75% of them, I had a machine that everyone would call. And many thought that you should call them back within minutes, not understanding that you actually had a job that required talking with customers, not marketing types. A typical day would see 30 messages. And that ability to do a deal.... it was gone... replaced with endless messages and conference calls.....

Along about '86 true cellular service came along and I had another phone in the car. Bad bad. Now I could do conference calls coming and going... and before long I had a pager where people could page me and a portable Compaq that weighed at least 50 pounds. I was wired. I was plugged in turned on and connected to the world. I knew where my boss, and by now my employees, were and they me.

And neither my boss or myself had as much authority as I did when I was a Sales Representative covering the Southeast. Everything took longer to do and generated more confusion.... but by golly we could talk and talk and talk....and then came Vines and we could do email......

Looking back it is hard to believe that we actually managed to sell anything, but we did.

I've been told that this makes me sound like a Grouchy Old Man, but that's Denny Wilson's job and effective he is.

No, I recognize that this was caused by the explosion of competitors and profit margins becoming razor thin. Plus everyone knew that the information was available and senior management wanted to know just how far out their collective butts were hanging. So middle managers were chosen not for what they knew, but how effectively they could collect, summarize and transmit information up the food chain. If they could also manage sales people it was a plus, but not really a high priority.

Note that middle management no longer had to analyze anything because upper management could now do that. Of course the fact that the further away anyone doing analysis is removed from the raw facts leads to deadly errors was ignored. After all. They had the numbers. Management became lawyering and accounting. Neither of which is known for its dynamic decisions.

In 1996 I got my first cellphone, and the number survives to this day, going through one long distance move and three service provider changes, although it does take some serious effort to convince the new provider that the FCC says I can keep the number... The first phone wasn't a brick, but it had some heft to it and I often left it in the car, which still had the cellular car phone... Finally my friendly accountants said choose and the car phone went to that great scrap heap in the sky.

Along the way I discovered some neat tricks. Caller ID let me screen calls and ignore the ones from silly people. I could answer many others so voice mail tag was reduced... and I could Call Forward my office number to my cell phone...

One of my fondest memories is explaining to a person I considered a first class idiot that I could answer my Denver office phone while being in San Francisco by noting:

"I wear tight fitting clothes and have a cape."

Of course cellphones are no longer cellphones.. We can also do text messages, access the Internet, play games, listen to music, take pictures and do video. Yes things have changed...

Or have they?

Remember where I mentioned that when I returned my customer's call many times his Secretary would answer and take a message? Guess what. That made her a Very Important Person deserving of tender loving comments and care because she had the keys to the kingdom and could be of great assistance.... or not if she thought you a boor.

Well today they are called Executive Assistants and are as likely to be male as female. But they are still the one who will take a message, see if the boss has an open lunch slot and maybe, just maybe ask the boss to take your call.

The trick then, and now, was to know who the boss was and who his assistant was.

Otherwise you will just be leaving messages.

So maybe technology isn't as important as too many of us think it is.