I had one of those customer conversations today that reminded me why my no-phone-calls rule exists. Nice guy. Perfectly polite at first. He had some questions about classes, which I'm always happy to help with. That's part of the job. If you need to know which course, lesson, or video covers the thing you want to learn, I'll absolutely point you in the right direction. But then the conversation started drifting toward, "I've got some other questions about Access. Can I just call you? It'll only take three minutes."

No, sir. It won't only take three minutes. I know better.

There's no such thing as a three-minute phone call. That creature is as mythical as a stable Windows update, a perfect Access database on the first try, or a redshirt making it through the whole episode. I know this because I've spent years (decades!) in sales and consulting, and "just a quick call" is one of the oldest traps in the quadrant. Three minutes turns into ten. Ten turns into thirty. Then somehow we're discussing your database design, your printer, your nephew's laptop, and whether Mercury's in retrograde.

The bigger issue is that phone calls are wildly inefficient for the kind of work I do. Email gives me a written record. Forums let other people learn from the answer too. A forum post about a technical problem can help hundreds of students later. A phone call helps one person once, and then it's gone, like a probe launched into a black hole. If I spent my day answering technical questions by phone, I'd never record new lessons, or TechHelp videos, or update courses, or get anything done beyond saying, "Uh huh... right... OK... hang on..." for eight hours.

There's also the simple fact that I just don't like talking on the phone. Never have. Never will. I'm an internet business. I like written communication. I like being able to think before I reply. I like having specs in black and white so there's no later debate over who said what. "No, sir, you didn't say you wanted the button to make that Star Trek door opening whoosh sound when clicked." With email, I can go back and check. With a phone call, it turns into one more courtroom drama in the grand tradition of Starfleet bureaucracy.

And to be clear, this isn't me being rude or standoffish. It's me protecting the one resource every solo business owner eventually learns to guard with phasers set to maximum: time. When you're running a one-man operation, you can't let every incoming request turn into a live consultation. You've got to set boundaries or the day disappears. I'd rather spend that time making something useful for everybody than repeating the same answer twenty times on the phone to twenty different people.

So yes, sometimes people get frustrated when I say no. Today one of them did, and he chose not to buy anything from me because I wouldn't get on the phone. That's his right. No hard feelings. But my rule is still my rule. If you need customer service, email me. If you've got a technical question, post it in the forums. If you hate typing, use voice dictation and send the message that way. There are plenty of options in this century that don't involve a telephone.

The bottom line is simple: I'm not avoiding people. I'm avoiding inefficiency. I'd rather teach ten thousand people with one lesson than help one person with one phone call. That's how this ship runs. And if that means phone calls stay at the bottom of my contact list, somewhere below fax, smoke signals, and Starfleet subspace radio, so be it.

Live long and prosper... and please, send an email.
RR