[Discuss] Paperless falling behind the Phoneless Office?

[Kent Borg]

My employer is doing a network switch upgrade over the weekend, it seems 
to support a new VoIP system.

Why,  I wonder?  We have $40 phones that seem to work, why replace them 
with $400 phones?  (Or whatever they will cost.)

I *did* use my desk phone yesterday--for a personal call, because my 
personal cell minutes are low for the next couple days--but mostly it 
just sits there, unused, sometimes for weeks on end.  When I first 
started working here my phone didn't work from some time, and it wasn't 
a problem.  When we moved to a different floor, getting my phone to work 
was the last thing I did.  From what I see, our work runs on e-mail, 
personally talking to someone, plus a few other online things (source 
code management, a code review tool, bug tracking tools, etc.).

Oh, I certainly carry my Android phone with me all the time, but I don't 
*talk* on it much, it is too valuable for other things.  This month was 
rare, usually I am way under my monthly allotment of talk time.  My 
phone and tablet are largely interchangeable, even though the tablet 
makes a terrible phone (I assume, I have never tried).

On to my subject line: I remember when the paperless office was 
predicted.  That was many years ago, and though the quantity of paper 
seems to be declining, the amount of talking on the phone seems to be 
falling further.

I think the next step down for paper will be from tablet computers: have 
a long PDF to read?  Copy it to a tablet instead of printing it.  And 
though I don't think talking on telephones will ever go away, I am 
wondering, have phone use fallen as much for others as it has for me?

-kb, the Kent who doesn't hear much phone chatter wafting over cubical 
walls, either.