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Saturday, May 17, 2008
That Beeper
Like many of our neighbors, we have an "emergency beeper." During the Barak reign of terror, that Hell of a year when Ehud Barak was Israel's Prime Minister and Arab terrorists very frequently attacked innocent Israeli citizens, many communities like ours got beepers to send out quick announcements about security issues. Ours is by the dining room table.
Thank G-d, by the time the system was set up, Barak was out of office and things calmed down. Now the announcements are reminders to attend events, whether lectures, parties or funerals. Just before it began to ring, and I went into a panic:
We also have the beeper and many of us don't have it plugged in because there are some days it goes off every hour with more social events and/or corrections to these 'alerts'.
We've complained to the office and to the RavShatz that the beeper should only be used for emergencies (road closures, funerals, etc) and all social beeps should be emailed to everyone instead (actually I think emailing emergency alerts is a good idea as well since people aren't always home and knowing the road is closed before you leave the office can help).
I had to return my beeper 2 months ago because the screen went black. Haven't gotten it back and I don't miss it much.
We have phone trees. They don't work as well as email, because email is immediate, everyone who reads email gets it. But not everyone reads email. The phone tree works by last name, so if your last name begins with a Z, you get the news last.
So when you hear a certain recording on the phone, it's also: "Who died?"
pesky, by us it's doubly nuts, since shvut shares ours. Shiloh made a decision that it's only security, funerals and other urgent things, like "water will be turned off just when you were planning on doing all the sheets and towels." But sometimes we get an announcement like "puppet show should have started 20 minutes ago in shvut; hurry and get your seat."
leora, we've found that phone calls sort of get stalled when someone, like #3 out of 9, leaves a message for #4 to continue the chain. But #4 won't be home for two days, and... Or if you count on someone getting an email, the computer has been broken.
We also have the beeper and many of us don't have it plugged in because there are some days it goes off every hour with more social events and/or corrections to these 'alerts'.
ReplyDeleteWe've complained to the office and to the RavShatz that the beeper should only be used for emergencies (road closures, funerals, etc) and all social beeps should be emailed to everyone instead (actually I think emailing emergency alerts is a good idea as well since people aren't always home and knowing the road is closed before you leave the office can help).
I had to return my beeper 2 months ago because the screen went black. Haven't gotten it back and I don't miss it much.
We have phone trees. They don't work as well as email, because email is immediate, everyone who reads email gets it. But not everyone reads email. The phone tree works by last name, so if your last name begins with a Z, you get the news last.
ReplyDeleteSo when you hear a certain recording on the phone, it's also: "Who died?"
pesky, by us it's doubly nuts, since shvut shares ours. Shiloh made a decision that it's only security, funerals and other urgent things, like "water will be turned off just when you were planning on doing all the sheets and towels." But sometimes we get an announcement like "puppet show should have started 20 minutes ago in shvut; hurry and get your seat."
ReplyDeleteleora, we've found that phone calls sort of get stalled when someone, like #3 out of 9, leaves a message for #4 to continue the chain. But #4 won't be home for two days, and... Or if you count on someone getting an email, the computer has been broken.