I’m sorry he is not available at present.

Suddenly he is available now and gearing up for the September rush to complete everything that should have been done before he became ‘unavailable at present’.

We have a wealth of communication tools at our disposal, but it doesn’t come as a surprise to find that most of us don't use them, especially the old fashioned but essential idea of telling those we do business with that we are going on holiday (translated: unavailable at present).

How many of us soldier on under the misguided belief that our emails will get answered, someone will lift the phone at the other end or that the message we left on the answerphone (sorry it's voicemail isn't it) will elicit a response? However, as we know, we are surrounded by systems that simply don't work.

The ether is awash with 'sent' emails - it's amazing how many times we’re told 'I sent you an email' or 'We emailed you straight back'. Did you? Where too - Mars? No wonder the poor little robot on the red planet threw himself into the quick sand, his circuits were overloaded with 'out of office' replies. 


Unfortunately the telephone has also developed an error known as 'incoming incognizance'. In other words you are told that they made a call to your office saying that your contact was ‘unavailable’. They definitely made a call; they are sure they made it; they are convinced they made it, but isn’t it amazing how these systems fail. We never received it, the phone doesn't remember it, 1571 doesn't, 1471 doesn't, the voice mail doesn't and, I suspect, neither will their phone log, but a call was made and answered by someone in our office.

Now I was in Sierra Leone, my colleague was in his car, my PA was at a conference and we don't have a dog, so who answered the call? Get me that little metal chap on the red planet!