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RE: The curse of the BlackBerry

db4565 Updated - 5th Aug 2008

I am a COO and I am addicted to my blackberry. It has caused problems at home. As a small but international company, there is more work than can be accomplished in a 40 hour work week. It just hast to be done and as we are a service provider, we have to provide adequate coverage.

I had my blackberry set so that emails would give a specific ring when they came in. This led me to have and average response time to new emails of less than 5 minutes (30-50 emails/phone calls a day on average on my blackberry alone). My contacts began to expect this level of responsiveness.

This was definitely having an effect on the home front, vacations included. I was with my family but constantly on my blackberry (like a teenager texting) and not "home" in person or attention to my wife and kids. It was constantly pulling me back to my computer and into a desire to finish projects.

I finally had to turn off the email notifier. If there is an emergency, I trust my contacts to call me (they usually don't but wait for the next day when I respond to the emails). I still sneak a peak every few hours at my new emails to see if there is an emergency, but I definitely agree that even this should be considered as being "on call" as far as compensation goes.

I just have to remind myself what is most important and that I am working so I can be with my family...so I better "be" with my family.