I am a bit old-fashioned, when it comes to gadgetry. As long as stuff works fine, I am not searching for replacement. Other than my boss. Who loves all the latest technical stuff. He keeps dissing me for my old fashioned mobile.

Mostly, because he is annoyed by my private phone habits: I don’t answer calls, if avoidable. I live with darn phones ringing day in, day out at work, so why bother in my spare time? Sweetheart usually answers the landline at home. The calls are mostly for him, anyways.

And my mobile is usually:

• out of power for days on end, without me even noticing
• somewhere in my purse, so I am unable to hear the ringtone, while digging away in my garden or out on the patio
• audible and in mint condition, but I am too slow to get it
• audible and in mint condition but I can’t remember in which direction to swipe to answer the call, thus missing it
• audible, heard, and in mint condition, but I still can’t be bothered to answer

Ever since the engineers invented the incoming-calls-list, I am free to choose whom and when to call back. My “Always-Call-Back” list is very short, but does include my boss. Yet, we are on different levels of understanding, how this works:

• He can’t believe, a person does not always have their phone on the body, ready and able to answer any call instantly
• I , however, think. that we don’t work at an emergency unit, but a golf course, for crying out loud. What’s the rush? (Other than fire or flooding, of course, but what help could I be of, in such cases while off site?)
• He might think, I ignore him purpose, whereas:
• I think, he should deem himself privileged to be on my “Always-Call-Back” list. In fact, he is – next to Sweetheart – the only person always and instantly rung back upon notice. It just takes a while, with me, to notice. For above mentioned reasons. That’s all, nothing personal.

Now, this kind of disagreement has worked very well during the past ten years. For my side, anyways. He slowly learned, that most of the time it is not even neccessary to call me, when I am off work. And I, well, I enjoy my time off much more for it. In return, I do check my mobile occasionally, even when off work. Power provided. And do return his calls asap.

Now a new occasion arose for him, to end the silent cease-fire, we reached on this topic. Corona virus forced the golf industry to come up with ways to transmit tournament scores other than in the olden way of handing in signed scorecards. In Germany, for that end, an app was programmed and ready to be downloaded for iphones and android phones. To test it, I tried to also get this app. But wasn’t able to download the darn thing. First I thought I was too stupid to do it, but had to learn, my phone was too old to deal with the app. Get a new phone, was the message. There I had it: too old, out-dated, junk. And my boss was too happy to mention that fact to me at least three times a day. He strongly suggested, I should get a mobile befitting the 21st century. Along with other staff members. And sweetheart.

All my good arguments trailed off quite unapprecheated: my mobile works fine – I just bought a new battery two years back – it is online, whenever I want it to be – why waste all the good engineering and fine materials going into its production, while it still works ok. You get my take on the topic, I guess.

I kept repeating the story of my mobile past: First the Nokia bone phone: a gift from business partners (weird, how it initially was also work-related) who finally wanted to get a hold of me, whenever they chose to (at least, they also paid for every single phone bill, even long after I stopped working with them, gentlemen, they are). I had the Nokia way past its sell-by-date. But when the little monitor faded and wasn’t able to produce any SMS texts any more, I had to shop for replacement. I got hooked on Motorola’s Razr – its sharp design did it for me. And I used this one way into a time and age, when everybody else already had a smartphone. But I only really wanted a cellphone to call my next of kin and friends. And for emergencies. All that other stuff, folks were so into doing on the go, I had my laptop for. I never was much of a multi-tasker, to read a book while riding a train or airplane is as much as I can take. So why would I need a pocket computer? I didn’t. Until sweetheart bought one for me five years ago. I still used this one for calls, mostly. Not much more. Weather app and calendar were the added features most in use.

So, until recently, I was on my third mobile. Despite the fact, that folks usually get a new phone every second year, at the latest, in Germany. Because telcos here offer 24-month contracts and with every renewal, you usually can choose a new phone. I didn’t. No need to replace a good-looking and working phone. But now they had me. I was ready to give in to all the peer pressure coming from left, right and center. And being, who I am, I asked sweetheart to scout out the one product featuring the best camera.

He is one for hunting down a good value for money option. But I was not going along with his best camera option for a reasonable price, this time. Being dissed as tech-hillbilly, I was going to show them. Samsung offers a brand new Galaxy something with a 108 MB camera. And I was ready to buy it. Despite an extortionate € 1.300,- Samsung asks for it.

It took sweetheart to mention, that my car was propably worth less than that, to make me sleep this decision over. He was right. And came up with the perfect solution: a phone featuring the exact same camera, but of a lesser known brand: Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Pro. Still costs almost half my car’s worth. But now I have them all on my side: great pics, every feature imaginable. Turbo-charge in an hour. I don’t have any excuse any longer.