Steve C. Phone Home

Some people are less tech savvy than others. Some people are virtually tech illiterate. And then there's Steve.

Quick example: A few years ago, at a meeting with our friends at the High School of Sports Management, a 15-year-old student took out a flash drive and explained that all of her info was on the drive. Steve later confided that until he saw her plug it into the laptop, he thought she was just going to throw it in the air, and a hologram would come out. (Help us, Steve. You're our only hope.)

Now, I'll admit...not everyone is on the level of Bill Gates, Al Gore, or myself. But there are some things that I thought -- until today -- everyone knew how to use, regardless of their level of tech-comfort. Like, say, a phone.

I was wrong.

Baby Alexa gave Steve a crash course in phone use this morning ("you talk into this end"), and somehow did so with a straight face. After their brief (20-minute) session, Steve decided to experiment by having Alexa go back to her desk (15 feet from his office), calling her from his cell, and doing his best Verizon Guy impression, while testing out different grips.

He settled on the standard right-hand-to-right-ear position for cell use, but occasionally slips back into his land-line comfort grip, which causes all sorts of problems (and makes next to no sense at all, since he's right-handed, despite the lefty placement of his mouse pad).

So if you call Steve on his new cell over the next few days (weeks), bear with him. He may not hear you, you may not hear him, or he may be trying to answer his stapler. He'll get the hang of it soon enough.

Until then, he'll be trying to figure out why his bluetooth won't work, even though he set his up just like this guy.

-- Dave