Monday, June 28, 2010

What Am I Missing ?

I wonder what I am missing right now?

Why do I say missing?  I have developed a history of missing it. In '87 I saw my first fax machine.  It was roughly 2 ft long, a foot wide, and not quite a foot high.  It used roll thermal paper and did not include a telephone.  You had to plug a telephone into it to use it.  Cost was just under $3000.  I said "Why would anyone want one of those?

I totally missed it.

Today fax machines are so common I have one at home and one in the shop.  Both also function as ink jet printers.  If I had specialized in fax machines who knows what would be today.

A few years later I saw a tower going up between Marshall and Clarksville.  It had to be a cell phone tower.  I did some investigating and found it was Cellular One from Danville.  I met with Chuck (the manager)  in Marshall and had in my hand the contract to be the first agent outside of Danville.  I was working for a GTE Mobilenet agent at the time selling office machines (yes, including faxes) and as part of my employment had signed a non-competition agreement. 

I pondered on it.   My employer knew the non-comp agreement was unenforcable.  I did not directly sell phones, I was in a different license area, even in a different state.  But I looked around.  At the time we were selling Panasonic transportables (they were about the size of my current fax machine) for $1600.  I looked at the market and thought "I might be able to sell maybe a dozen in the Marshall area."

I REALLY missed it.  There are more cell phones than that waiting in line at McDonald's

Maybe cell phone is not a very good description.  My cell phone has a 3.2 megapixel camera, video camera and player, a mini SD card with 2 gigabytes of memory, an MP3 player, FM radio, calendar, on and on.  You can fit 2 if them in a pack of cigarettes.

I have a friend who runs his business from his cell phone. His billing,etc is from his computer, but his communication and scheduling are all on his phone

So I am wondering what I am missing today? 

1 comment:

Big Sis said...

You're missing a real smartphone, and a decent connection for it in West Union (there's hardly any point in having a smartphone unless you have 3G, in my experience of visiting your neck of the woods).

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