Cell Phones

Cell phones are an incredible phenomenon in Japan these days.

It's not just talking on them, it's text messaging and e-mail. It's become very much of an addiction for more people than is believable. A potentially life-threatening addiction, at that. Depending on the time of day, I would say that easily more than a quarter of all people I see driving a car are either talking on or in some way using their cell phone as they drive down the road (there are times when that is closer to half...or more). The number of people using their phones (as much e-mail as speaking) while walking can go even higher than that (again depending on location and time of day). There are also a surprising number of people that are reading or writing e-mail on their phones while riding their bicycles!

I don't like phones much. I never have. They have their uses, esp. living as far from most of my family and more than a few friends as I do. Even so, I'm on the phone less than the average guy in my situation. I like cell phones even less. In addition to just not esp. liking talking on the phone, mine has allowed me to be even dumber than I once was. I remember a time when I knew every phone number of friends and family...and most of those used on a regular basis. Right now, I just use speed dial...and don't even remember my own number. Cell phones are moderately convenient from time to time, but I might not even have one if it weren't for work. My cell phone is absolutely essential to my job. For this reason (among others, to be sure), I now have a garunteed space reserved in the fifth level of Hell.

My cell phone died Sunday. Saturday night at nine it worked fine. Sunday morning it was just a piece of plastic.

On Monday it turned out to be necessary to take a one hour trip to wait four hours for someone to tell me, "Your phone is broke." They claimed it was moisture damage. It was never wet. It wasn't hot enough for perspiration. I didn't drop it. They offered the lame excuse that maybe condensation from having it outside in the cold and bringing it into a warm room may have been enough to damage it. Somehow, they actually thought it was a valid argument that their phone couldn't handle being outside on a night not even cold enough to snow and brought into an apartment that wasn't all that warm. The phone wasn't even two years old.

I'm basically screwed. I learned my lesson long ago to back up everything on my computer with some regularity, but didn't really think all that much about backing up what was on my cell phone. NTT can't (or won't, if one of my engineer friends is to be believed) recover my directory. I have lost so many business contact numbers I could cry. I made a backup list about six or seven months ago (and can't even find that), but anything newer than that is gone. NTT will send me a list of all my out-going calls for the last three months, but all the important numbers were incoming calls. The directory was more important than both of those combined though.

It gets better...

The law changes next year (I think...too late to be useful to me in any case), but right now, changing cell phone companies means changing phone numbers...and the wonderful people at Docomo reminded me of that at least fifteen times. I will now need to change my business cards (I'm rather attached to mine, and they aren't cheap), send out something like 75-100 notification letters (twice, since the letters are so important that I can't wait for the business cards to be finished...that'll be about 100-200 hours of my time, since most of my business contact was by phone).

There is a little light in this disaster in that it will force me to get in touch with more than a few agencies and clients I haven't heard from or been in touch with for some time....still, it didn't stop me from screaming at the construction idiots this morning. Five weeks, seven days a week and they might be done by the end of the year according to what is becoming daily updates in the mailbox. The fifth level of Hell has an invitation with my name on it.