Cell phones and me just never clicked. I just rarely find the need to chat with anyone while I'm away from home, though certainly I recognize there are times (infrequently for me) when having a phone on the road would be very handy.

I let the minutes expire on my smart phone last February. Being unemployed, I didn't see the point in spending another $100 to keep me going for another year. It's an Android Trac Phone, pay as you go plan.

Today I had to complete 2 different time sheets for my new job. I got them signed and used the company fax to send them to the recruiter's office, who will be issuing my paychecks. The fax indicated only 1 page went thru the first time, so I sent it again and this time, the 2 timesheets went through.

That was around 4 pm and I didn't see the 4:30 m email right away from recruiter saying call me, there's a problem with your fax. Maybe he sent that after I sent the first fax, where only one page went thru. Maybe he didn't, I didn't know.

So I sent a quick email to say i was heading home and would call him when I got there. I couldn't call him at the office becus 1) i didn't have my old smart phone with me and 2) the company doesn't use normal phones. They use something called Fuze, which is a phone via computer, and I haven't set it up yet. No one's really around to help much and I thought I might even get thru the whole monthlong assignment without needing to.

I got home and there's another message from recruiter saying call me there's a problem. Of course he doesn't say what the problem is. If it wasn't that the fax didn't fully come thru, it could be becus yes, I did claim the 4 hours of at-home time I worked for the company before starting on-site. This was done at the request and blessing of my new boss there who gave me a pile of reading material to absorb about the client so I could "hit the ground running" when I started the job 4 days later. So maybe the problem was the recruiter was going to tell me I couldn't bill for that.

I still have no idea because although I immediately replied to the email, called and left a message AND scanned and emailed the 2 time sheets in case neither fax went through, the recruiter never got back to me. Even though it was just before 6 pm when I tried to call him back....not that late.

So anyway, if I'd have my own phone with me I could have easily found out what the problem was while I was still at work. So I'm thinking I should activate the stupid phone again.

Here's why I don't like using it:
1. The on/off button is hard to push. Do most people just keep the phone on at all times and then have to recharge like every day?
2. Half the time when I tried to check personal emails on the phone while i was at the bank, the internet connection did not work. I was using the bank's wifi to connect. This was totally annoying. I just don't know enough about using the settings to know what do so, especially since the phone didn't come with anything more than the briefest instructions.
3. Figuring out how to send photos I'd taken to my computer was also a real pain in the butt.
4. The phone was synced with great difficult with the Bluetooth in my car but then inexplicably was disconnected. This happened more than one.

The phone was fairly straightforward to use, so I guess for that alone I could use it but every other function just seems so complicated and a hassle. I could just get a basic phone with no internet, but then i couldn't sync it with my car's devices, and that's one of the coolest things about it! I can make calls using buttons on the steering wheel. Truth be told, once again rarely had need to do that, and the number had to be one already stored in the phone. But it was still cool.