Less physical than pinball: Phone tag, a sport for the lazy

Phone tag. We're all participants, but are you good or a goof?

We’ve all played it, but what are the rules?

When calls go straight to voicemail, they don’t count, as long as you don’t leave a message you can call again guilt free

However:
If you’ve called and left a message once, NEVER call again before the other player attempts, otherwise you reek of desperation

If you initiated the call:

And get an immediate call back (within 24 hours) it’s a draw

Are just calling to leave a voicemail, but the person picks up in any stage of the game, you lose

Are just calling to leave a voicemail and the other party calls back, leaves a message and you call back again and leave a message and they return the second call, you win

Design your call as a game and consistently ping pong at least 3 times without actual contact, you win

If you phantom call to make someone curious as to why you’re ringing and they call back within 30 minutes, you win, way to go

If you leave a message that’s not urgent, something along the lines of “call me back when you’re getting your chai tea” and the recipient calls back in an hour, you win

If you “received” the call:

And you get them to call twice before you contact them, you win

Call back because you have big news too, you both win

If you still have an old fashioned land line answering machine and pick the call up in mid-message, catching your “only called to leave a message” opponent off guard, you win

Call a “only called to leave a message” friend during their message, they have to call back or make a good excuse, so you win

If you can somehow rig your phone to interrupt “only called to leave a message” guy as a landline answering machine does, you are a champion of phone tag

If you call someone on their deceptive “only called to leave a message” bluff, you win

If you call back within an hour, regardless of non-emergency circumstances, sorry, but you lose

If you call a phantom back and leave a message, you lose

If you call a phantom back, message or no, more than once, you fail, they were testing you

Paper pushers pushed too far: Why are so many mainstays of major newspapers being fired or forced into early retirement?

Communication Breakdown
There was a time when the typewriter ruled the print media world. Said world is going the way of the typewriter. Its epitaph is written everywhere, except on physical paper. Community papers are the only newspapers making money these days, because people want to know who won the high school football game last night. Many are aggressively competing with the big city papers, forcing these publications to adapt—feature more specialized articles, quickly rev up an interactive website, or hold on and decimate the seasoned writing staff. “Don’t know web publishing?” Then it’s “do I know you?”

Book and magazine publishers better stay ahead of the curve, also; digital magazines that update continually and books with automatic edition renewing hit shelves soon.

As personal service plummets, interactivity mounts; manufacturers will have to replace personnel with artificial intelligence to make consumers comfortable again. Despite the brave new world’s exploding population, there are fewer personal touches; business is brisk and often faceless, so technology has to take over. Imagine if you didn’t have to send a greeting card because a server already signed, sealed, and delivered it. Myspace and Facebook already alert users to buddies’s birthday. It’s happening; witness all the abandoned Northeastern U.S. paper mills.