Yesterday, some poor guy schlepped 24 phone books to our office. I'm not kidding. He delivered 24 AT&T white, yellow and business-to-business pages to OnMilwaukee.com. I have to laugh, because I can't imagine why we would need all those dead trees in a company that does almost all of its business electronically.
I'm trying to figure this one out. Maybe it's because we have 15 employees, and someone thought that we needed a few copies for each and every one of us. But there's no way that AT&T would know how many people work here, right?
More realistically, they brought six phone books for every phone line (four). Which is even more ridiculous, because our phone system shares those lines across every extension in the office, making six a most arbitrary number.
But the bigger question is, who really uses phone books anymore? I, like most everyone who works in an office, has a computer in front of me all day, with high-speed Internet access. When I need to look up a phone number or an address, I hope online to Google or Yahoo and find it in seconds. If I'm not in front of a computer, that means I'm probably in the car, and I use my Blackberry to call up a number. I don't think I've cracked open the yellow pages or called 411 in a few years. Maybe I'm not the typical case, though? When was the last time you used a phone book at work?
I guess we'll hold on to one set of these old-timey books, just in case, but the rest will go directly into the recycling bin. It's a huge waste for everyone involved, from the phone company, to the poor advertisers who spend their money in these dinosaurs, to the consumers like us who now must schlep these 24 books into the dumpster.
I would've never expected to see 24 phone books piled in my office in 2007. Maybe in 2008, they'll deliver a few less.
In 2009, maybe we'll see none at all.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
