So today, coming back from a client meeting, I had one of those scary moment. The technology confronted me, and it won...again!
Thankfully I was in the passenger seat and not driving, although I did manage to scare one of our other managers so much that he ended up in completely the wrong lane entering the motorway.
I'm not sure why I always expect technology to behave in a certain way. Wayne says I expect too much. I just think I'm surprised when an advanced feature actually works when you haven't spent 45 minutes shouting the word 'call' in as many different accents as possible to make the call (I now have a fabulous way to do this as American accents always sound best- its more like 'caaaaooooll') to get the darn thing to make a call using voice dialing.
So here I am, manager in the drivers seat of one of our new fleet cars and me in the passenger seat. As usual, ever second of my time is productive time to me, so I grab my phone and start checking emails and then see the time. I am going to be late for my 5.45 appointment back in town. Darn. So I pick up the phone to dial the customer I am meeting with ....and then it happened.
"Dialing......". I could have sworn the sound was amplified and it was the car. I tried to act cool to the manager driving the car, like I knew what was going on. Then it suddenly got even worse. "Ring....ring...ring" I'm looking at my phone, its not on speaker. I am going insane, but still play it cool. The driver is now looking at me oddly. This all feels like it is happening in slow motion, but it all happened within about 5-10 seconds. The I hear a voice. Its not the radio and its not him and my phone is not on speaker but it supposedly had called someone.
Now I am now not acting cool. I hear voices and its not him and its not me and my phone is not on speaker. Its the car. I am losing it. I fumble and look right at the phones screen.
He looks at his phone- not on... or ringing....still screen locked.
Instant reaction- TURN THE PHONE OFF AT ALL COSTS!
So I turn my phone off.
Weird. The manager I am with is now checking the stereo and playing with the volume. Its not just me, he heard it too. He simply said- "what the heck was that?"
Right. So now things appear normal, I will try and call my client again.
Phone on. Dialing......And there it goes again! "ring...ring...amplified.
Yes. It was the car talking to me! I was right, not losing it!
OMG. How totally embarrassing. I have just worked out what has happened. I am NOT telling the said manager at all costs. He will simply nominate me for Dick of the Month in this weeks staff meeting....this is not an award I want to win!
So this is what happened.... About 4 months ago, one of our staff wrote off one of our company cars- one of the very few autos in the fleet. Insurance paid out and we had to replace it. We could not find any more Suzuki Swift's in the same price bracket so had to go for another type of car. Introducing the Hyundai Getz. (These are great little cars by the way!). Wayne and I went out the weekend after the write-off to a fleet dealer yard and they must of had 50 of these little Getz cars. We of course test drove a number of them. As I was again in the passenger seat (what is it about males and driving??), I thought I would check out all of the other features the car had to offer. Glove box, stereo and owners manual. I read from cover to cover and said to Wayne- 'check this out'. "These cars have blue tooth kits built into the stereo". I need to check this out. So spent the next few minutes trying to work out the connection code (even had to call Hyundai on the test drive to work out how to do it). My inner geek is now shining through, my phone is now connected through the stereo- how cool. So I call Wayne's phone (very odd thing to do given he is sitting right next to me). Cool. It worked. (Admittedly though, we had one of those weird awkward conversations you have when you can see the person you are talking to- definately not normal, or cool.) Time to hang-up!
So I call my Mum, have a chat on the hands free during the test drive. Its very clear, no echos on her end or mine- very cool. So then I get Wayne's phone and try connecting that. Connected. I now call my phone from his phone. I'm like a kid in a candy shop- 2 phones connected simultaneously. I'm on a roll. I now call my brother in Sydney (I have no idea why I did not call anyone in NZ, but I guess sibling rivalry could be a reason).
I'm now in my show off voice "guess what- just test driving this car and you can have TWO phones connected at once and it will simply cut over to which ever phone the incoming call is for, or which ever phone dials- cool...I bet that's better than your custom car-kit!"
I have no idea why I act like a 12 year old around my brother. I think we have always been competitive.
At this point, I do have to mention that when he first showed off his voice dialing car kit to me, he managed to over-right the word "call" with "Lyndal". From then on for a long time later to make a call he would have to say "Lyndal... Dennis, or Lyndal Fred". When I heard him do this, I laughed like mad.... he just told me to shut-up and that it was my fault in the first place...nice!. Personally, I think it serves him right for trying to show off. Needless to say he did eventually work out how to fix it, but I still find it amusing, and still take every opportunity I can to point out his error!
So, after playing with the blue tooth on the Hyundai's, we asked a few more questions of the dealer about the cars and told him we'd get back to him about the purchase once he supplied us more details around the warranties.
Wayne then contacted him a week or so later to say that we would take two white ones.
I thought no more of this until today.
How freaky. I actually managed to scare the heck out of myself due to this one oversight.
Four months or so earlier, I had been playing with the blue tooth in this very car!
I had connected my phone and simply thought no more of it, walked away from the car yard and that was that. Now by total co-incidence, of the 50 Hyundai's on the yard is now ours.
I was in the very car I had connected my phone to, AND IT WORKED! My phone had simply connected and dialed out as it should have through the radio in the car and used its speakers to amplify the dialing. It was my brain that had malfunctioned, not the technology this time.
Yes, technology continues to amaze me. Love it or hate it, its awesome when it works!
I'm still embarassed, but I'm sure my secrets safe with you lot!
No comments:
Post a Comment