COMMUNICATIONS MADE EASY

29 years ago I started working for Illinois Bell Telephone Co. as a business service rep. taking orders for business customers in the south suburbs. We placed orders for telephone lines and phones. The choices were few. Phones in different colors were just coming into fashion and trim lines were the going thing, but black rotary was the most popular and cheapest. You could choose between touch tone and dial. Businesses had the option of having key phones, a set that had buttons, hold keys and were able to handle more then one line( more then one phone number). If you had more then one phone in your house or business you paid for it and the phone company had to know about it or it was considered an illegal phone. And when you disconnected, the phone company came and got those phones because even though you paid a monthly fee they still owned the equipment.

You called someone and if they were not there or the line was busy you called back because there was no voice mail, no answering machines to leave a message. I had a friend who lived in a rural part of Indiana on a farm and was trying for day to reach a neighbor about a mile away. After many many tries he called the operator to check to see if the line was working or was their trouble on the line. He was told by the operator that "the neighbor wasn't that far away and maybe he should just get in his car and take a ride over there."

Now in the year 2009, the communication arena is enormous with a new option popping up before you had a chance to figure out how to use the last one. We started out with the call waiting, call forwarding, 3rd # calling. Then there were voice mail and answering machines. Once the PC took over you stopped calling and started e-mailing. Letters became obsolete and now we can order groceries, clothes, dates, pay bills, anything you need is at your finger tips.
That was not enough, along came a better way to communicate with friends, family, co-workers and even people you don't even know. Along came Myspace, blogs, facebook and now tweeter. All to make it easier to keep in touch.

My reason for going over all of this is it has become apparent to me and many like me that with all of these communication devices available to us we have been so busy communicating we have forgotten all about manners.
I cannot tell you how many calls, e-mails, invites I have sent in the last year that have been completely ignored. No one knows or cares about RSVP.
I started getting frustrated about this when I was working on the Obama campaign. I spent hours and hours daily calling volunteers, leaving messages about our canvassing trips to Indiana. Out of 100 calls maybe 2 would call back. I know people are busy but these were volunteers not cold cases. I would schedule a driver to take 4 or 5 people to South Bend, confirm with them and come that a.m. we would be left standing on the corner with no ride and they never answered their phones. I set up a phone bank in someones home, with 20 volunteers saying they would be able to be there. Several even called to verify the time that same day. Come evening, 1 person showed up. The hostess had provided food, dessert and drinks and not one person called to say they could not make it. One e-mail after another has been sent to members of groups about upcoming meetings or dinners with a please RSVP and the same 3 or 4 folks show up with no response from others.

So where this is all going is just to say, maybe the world is becoming smaller and things are getting better but we are just so busy inviting strangers to join our facebook and posting digital pictures, we're tweeting tweeter or tweetering tweets to celebrities so they can get 40,000 tweeets, or looking for a match on Harmony.com we have lost track of the one simple thing called basic manners. Have you heard of it? Is it something you taught your children? Is it something you would like to experience once in a while? I would.
Be polite, it may make the world a little happier. It would at least make me happier. Breathe and be considerate.