Speaker-phone

In my opinion, there are only 3 legitimate reasons to utilize the speaker-phone function of a phone:

1. If you are truly doing something else important with your hands (i.e. Driving)
2. If there are multiple people you want to include in one room
3. You have no arms

…And that’s it!

My office is an open environment, with no employees having offices. (It’s seen as “Googley” for no one to be more important than others…Larry and Sergey have their own offices, but they share it with random engineers….) Anyway…For some reason, all of the people who THINK they should have their own office are lashing out to the rest of us by making us sit through their voicemails and other annoying crap. It’s like their way of trying to say, “I’m important” is by using speaker-phone. To me, it’s their way of saying “I’m a loser.”

Although the concept around the speaker-phone is to make people more efficient, I am not convinced it actually does this. How many times on a call with speakerphone is the question “What?” spoken?? Between the volume quality and the fact that people are multi-tasking and not focusing – I would argue that speakerphone actually makes calls much less efficient!

So, in the future, I’m giving everyone 10 seconds on speakerphone – either to explain why it’s on speakerphone – or for them to finish up whatever they are doing with their hands. After that, I’m hanging up. Don’t waste my time. Don’t disrespect me. And don’t make other people around you miserable. Bottom-line: Say NO to Speakerphone!!