I’ve finally got a blackberry. I’ve wanted one for a while, and it just so happened that mobile contracts were up for renegotiation at work. When my turn came, I requested a blackberry (I’m thinking it might be useful while sitting in waiting rooms, which I can see much of in my future.)

It came. It’s pretty cool looking.

HOWEVER…

Our IT guy set me up on the “Hunt Feature.” That means that if my regular desk phone rings and I don’t pick it up in the first 0.2 milliseconds, it starts ringing on the blackberry. If I don’t pick it up, the caller eventually is invited to leave a message on my work phone’s voicemail. In an additional feature set up b/c I remote in quite frequently to work, that voicemail is then stored on my phone AND emailed to me. I cannot tell you how irritating this is to be sitting at my desk at work and have the unholy trinity of my desk phone, computer and blackberry beeping at me urgently. “Missed call! Missed call! What the hell is the matter with you!? Someone actually had to leave a message for you!?! Bad 21st century working girl! Very BAD!”

Why does it have to labelled so violently? Why isn’t it called a “Seek Feature” or an “I just had to hear your voice and couldn’t wait for you to get my voicemail” Feature?

But no, my technology is now the hunter, and I am the prey.

Maybe I’ll mount it on one my neice’s My Little Pony’s and give it an Elmer Fudd cover/skin (you know the pork chop checked cap?). Maybe I could even change the ring tone to be one of those bugle calls or the braying of the hound dogs. I should at least enjoy the thrill of the chase. If you see me zig zagging through the water park I’m just trying to throw my blackberry off the scent.