Nobody expects an instant response
That's great for you, but I believe that the point of giving them to employees in general, especially those who have desk jobs and are not frequently on the road or out of the office, is to tie them to work 24 hours a day. They already had my personal cell phone number and that apparently wasn't good enough. There's nothing inherently wrong with the Blackberry (well, I could complain about a number of UI and other design decisions), but the implication when given one by your employer is that you should always be doing work.
Surely if your job involves getting phonecalls at all hours of the day and night then why would a few emails make any difference? If it galls you that much just turn it off and blame the cell carrier if you miss something critical. I've always informed my employer that cell coverage is very patchy at home and they've never said anything.
The only people in my company that use them all the time are company directors or people on call, both have signed contracts of employment that state this as a requirement. If you've been given a blackberry but your contact with your employer hasn't changed or you've been explicitly told you need to answer emails at all hours of the day and night then what's the big deal?
If I look at the emails I get after 5:30 it's usually from some piece of critical kit that's fallen over and it's in my best interests to fix it before it affects on air output, assuming it hasn't already, in which case I'd probably get a phonecall.
Previous Topic
Index
