Cut the Crap

Is there a huge disconnect between the marketing of Blackberry and most people’s real life experience with these devices?

According to Blackberry:

Many owners find that BlackBerry® makes more room for their family and personal lives, because they’re not stuck in their offices waiting to conduct business. And when they’re working, they can still take care of personal tasks.

This seems to be saying that having your work intrude on your personal life is “balanced” by conducting your personal life during work hours, coming and going as you please.

In an employment climate where personal phone calls during work hours are actively frowned on, mobile phone bills scrutinized for non-work related usage, access to internet banking and social web sites blocked from company PCs, and toilet breaks are timed, the so-called “balance” seems to be all in the employers favour.

Just last week, members of an Australian government department refused to have Blackberrys foisted on them, citing the negative impact the devices will have on their personal life.

There have been so many stories, surveys and studies relating to the instrusiveness of Blackberrys, mainly in the hands of men it has to be said, you have to wonder why anyone would want one.

The funny thing with Blackberrys is that enthusiasm for the devices increases with rank and salary. People on big salaries seem to like the idea of being called on for their unique talents at any hour of the day. And its obviously pointless firing off missives at 10PM if no one is going to read them, so subordinates also need them.

The rest of us with real lives to lead would rather not hear from our employer between the time we’ve left the premises in the evening until we show up for work the next morning. Some people will even put in a claim for overtime if they receive work calls after hours.

Of course you can argue that we live in a fast paced, switched on world, and the old ideas of work hours don’t apply.

Alternatively, you could argue that senior executives grant themselves whatever new toy they like, to use as they like, just as senior executives have done for time immemorial. Anyone who manages a Blackberry fleet knows only too well the sudden need for a replacement Blackberry when a new model is released.

If a government can run a country without its staff permanently connected to the hive mind, I suspect the rest of us can get along quite well without a Blackberry as well.