Today, I have three cell phones in my care: my personal cell phone, which is the one that might actually ring once in a while; The duty cell phone for the command, because I am the Petty Officer of the Watch until zero nine hundred tomorrow, which gets called maybe three or four times a month if the alarm at the building goes off or if someone needs help after hours; and, from last Wednesday through next, the duty cell phone for the Reserve Services office (since I got moved up there from the Admin office at the start of this month), too, which does not get called ever but which we must carry with us Just In Case.

A year and a half ago, I didn't have any cell phone at all and liked having voicemail on my landline because it could be checked from other places. People would leave messages on that and wait patiently for a response, or just hang up if it was something more urgent or they didn't like machines. Now, people hang up if they don't like machines, still, but it's almost hard to NOT reach me live outside of working hours.

Three cell phones, though, is certainly excessive. Especially since I have this habit of sometimes dropping phones. But I have yet to break a cell phone as far as I know, so that at least is some consolation.

I do keep them apart, though, so that when my phone rings I don't accidentally grab another. They all look different, but only feel so different in a pocket full of phones, so I have to get very creative with always having all of them on me but not getting them too confused.

Fortunately, I can't or don't use any of the three of them during working hours, so when I hear a ring at work it's got to be the big, black one beside me. Except that usually it's in one of the neighboring cubicles, and upstairs (in the pay office) we don't pick up everyone's line like we did downstairs in admin. I'm still getting used to that.

Just thought I'd share.