Why do docs use pagers?

[ATPMD]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but why do doctors use pagers when cell phones are available? It would be one less thing for you to remember to carry around and charge. Why not just send a text message to a phone?

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[DadofDr2B]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but why do doctors use pagers when cell phones are available? It would be one less thing for you to remember to carry around and charge. Why not just send a text message to a phone?

Pagers have less dead coverage. Which is what every resident wants, less dead coverage. No one wants more dead anything.

 

[smq123]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but why do doctors use pagers when cell phones are available? It would be one less thing for you to remember to carry around and charge. Why not just send a text message to a phone?

* You usually don't "charge" pagers. They have batteries in them.

* More people are using cell phones more often - the surgery residents at my school are given cell phones by the department. The graduating class of residents gives their phones to the incoming interns.

* Some hospitals have terrible cell phone reception. In those cases, having pagers is more dependable. At our affiliated peds hospital, there are dead zones EVERYWHERE. You turn a corner and your call gets dropped. My cell phone basically only works if I'm standing right next to a window.

* Some services need pagers rather than cell phones. In the case of an emergency, there needs to be some way of paging many people all at the same time, instead of just one person at a time (which is what you'd have to do with cell phones). For instance, if there is a massive trauma, they'll need to page the entire trauma team - so they'll choose to just page the "trauma pager," which will alert everyone on the trauma team (the trauma surgery attending, the trauma service residents, etc.)

 

[Tired]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but why do doctors use pagers when cell phones are available? It would be one less thing for you to remember to carry around and charge. Why not just send a text message to a phone?

Because sometimes you need a couple minutes to either wake up or suppress your rage before you interact with another human being.

 

[smq123]

Because sometimes you need a couple minutes to either wake up or suppress your rage before you interact with another human being.

It's also cheaper to replace a pager after the overworked intern has hurled it against the wall.

(Or after it's been accidentally flushed down the toilet...hey, it happens!)

 

[f_w]

- my pager lives about a month on a single AA cell. My cellphone will die after 48hrs or so.
- my pager works in every room of my house, my cell drops out in the basement.
- the paging company has a separate low-power paging terminal in the hospital (in addition to their tower network). That way, every steel-enclosed broom closet has pager coverage.
- a pager can wait a minute to be answered if you are on the phone/doing a procedure etc. The phone requires either instant attention or retrieving a voice mail from a unneccesarily cumbersome voicemail system.
- they are cheaper to operate and you don't have to worry about keeping business and private use separate.

 

[turquoiseblue]

In addition to all above posts, some hospital floors do not allow cell phone use.

If only pagers can be used, it would be nice if these pagers had at least texting capability--where you can type the message to the receiver from the pager itself, or maybe voice capability to record and carry voicemail--now that would be pretty valuable, so the paged person knows what the pages is about, or both voice messaging and text capabilities. that's my dream pager

 

[sunlioness]

(Or after it's been accidentally flushed down the toilet...hey, it happens!)

Yeah. I know firsthand that pagers really don't like that. (It was an accident! I swear!)

 

[smq123]

Yeah. I know firsthand that pagers really don't like that. (It was an accident! I swear!)

Oh...I'm afraid to ask, but...did they make you go in and retrieve it? Or did you just leave it for dead?

 

[sunlioness]

Well fortunately, I didn't actually flush it. It just fell in. And well, it could have been a lot worse. I did retrieve it and then rinsed it off like mad in the sink with soap and water. Then I, very sheepishly, took it to the paging office where they had a good laugh at my expense and gave me a new pager and a clip thing to securely fasten it to my pants.

Now, when I was an intern in the CCU at a different hospital, a colleague of mine dropped the code pager in the toilet. He did the retrieve and rinse thing and the woman at the paging office yelled at him for giving her something that had been in the toilet.

What an interesting conversation this is!

 

[Top Gun]

Yeah. I know firsthand that pagers really don't like that. (It was an accident! I swear!)

Happened to me too once. I totally believe you about it being an accident. It was an accident for me too.

 

[f_w]

or maybe voice capability to record and carry voicemail--now that would be pretty valuable, s

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away from here, I carried a pager that had ONLY voice capability. It was a fixed in-hospital system. Worked like a charm, you new instantly 'ward 5, room 12, patient has chest pain, call 515' or something of that nature. Key was to get the message on the first try because it didn't record them or display a number (system was similar to the VHF tone-pagers volunteer firemen tend to carry).

 

[Winged Scapula]

In addition to all above posts, some hospital floors do not allow cell phone use.

If only pagers can be used, it would be nice if these pagers had at least texting capability--where you can type the message to the receiver from the pager itself, or maybe voice capability to record and carry voicemail--now that would be pretty valuable, so the paged person knows what the pages is about, or both voice messaging and text capabilities. that's my dream pager

They do exist...my residency hospital had them. It was nice because you could send messages which didn't necessarily need a response (ie, meeting time changed to 530 pm; CT scan scheduled at 1:00 pm, etc.)

I had a voice pager in the old days before medical school...hated the darn thing because my resident friends used to play jokes and send pages like "help me, help me"...got me a lot of stares walking down the hallway.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Happened to me too once. I totally believe you about it being an accident. It was an accident for me too.

I did it twice in the same night...45 minutes apart, while on trauma call.

It was an accident, honest.

They got us new pagers with belt clips soon afterwards and starting charging residents for "breaking" pagers.

 

[sunlioness]

How did you have time to use the bathroom while on trauma call?

 

[Winged Scapula]

How did you have time to use the bathroom while on trauma call?

I am *very* quick (hence the forgetting to take the pager off the back of my scrubs before sitting down).

 

[tkim]

When I was in Cali, a lot of the hospitals used Spectralink wireless phones. Voice communiation without cellular airtime cost and lower-power transmission meant reduced possible interference with medical equipment.

I'd imagine the cost would be between pagers and cell phones.

Haven't seen them here in Bflo.

 

[turquoiseblue]

When I was in Cali, a lot of the hospitals used Spectralink wireless phones. Voice communiation without cellular airtime cost and lower-power transmission meant reduced possible interference with medical equipment.

I'd imagine the cost would be between pagers and cell phones.

Haven't seen them here in Bflo.

I've seen some nurses using these special wireless phones at a certain hospital. It is nice to have an immediate response--just dial and voila! I guess they don't have enough money or trust to give 'em to us podunk residents. Old school pagers seem to be still the main plan despite all the advancements. But yeah, it would be great to have special cells like that!

That way, you don't have to run to find a phone or wait for someone to get off a phone to answer your page.

Actually, I don't think texting people by regular cell causes much medical equipment interference, does it? Plus it is fairly cheap too---I don't see what's wrong with that either. Sending a voicemail does cause some expense though and sometimes drops calls with some carriers, but still a viable plan. Most cells have the capability that when you dial into voicemail you can send a 'numeric page', so that is also an option.

This is not so effective, but I've seen people go on a pager website or even cellphone text website that can text to pagers or cells and type in their text messages like that, but that's only if you have the time to do that--sometimes you really don't have that kind of time to log in and type, but I've seen people do it.

That will be the day when the ultimate paging system is developed where everyone is allowed to use it.

 

[Winged Scapula]

IMHO those wireless phones the nurses and ED have are not good options for residents.

I don't know about you, but I was never sitting around waiting for pages/calls. At least if I missed a page because I was in the OR, doing a procedure, talking on the phone, speaking with a patient, etc. I could retrieve it easily and call back. A phone requires immediate answering or a complicated procedure to retrieve calls. THAT would take a lot more time than simply pressing a single button on the pager.

I cannot say I've ever had much trouble finding a phone to return a page although it is frustrating to return a page and find no one claiming to have called you...the wireless phones would eliminate that.

And as mentioned above, the benefit of the pagers is group pages, such as for trauma or code blue calls. I'm not sure if the wireless phones allow for that especially if the user were on the phone. The issue with cell phones is not really equipment interference; that has never been shown to be a problem with newer generation phones. The real issue is dropped calls and lack of reception. There are *many* dead areas in the hospital - anyplace in Rad Onc with lead lined doors, down in the basement near Rads, Path and Medical Records, etc. None of the cells and carriers I've used over the years has been anything close to reliable inside the hospital, so it is simply not an option to have a system that requires users to stand by a window, outside on the patio or may miss or drop important calls. This is not you gabbing with your GF about your Friday night plans; you might actually miss a "life or death" phone call. Besides, our ED used those wireless phones and frankly, when they weren't answered (which was frequent) they were useless. No record of my call, no return call...so I spent my valuable time trying to figure out who paged me.

The pager system is not broke, and there are plenty of reasons to continue its use, why are some of us contemplating another system which is not as convenient and has lots of problems?

 

[Ludicolo]

The pager system is not broke, and there are plenty of reasons to continue its use, why are some of us contemplating another system which is not as convenient and has lots of problems?

Perhaps this is a form of "reverse technophobia". The young'uns today are so into their i-phones and other new-fangled technology that when they see something as archaic as a pager they freak out.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Perhaps this is a form of "reverse technophobia". The young'uns today are so into their i-phones and other new-fangled technology that when they see something as archaic as a pager they freak out.

You are probably right. Having to actually pick up a phone (with a cord NO LESS) boggles their mind!

 

[turquoiseblue]

Having to find a phone in some cases is really tough and can cost a patient's life and additionally have to wait the time of someone to answer a page to get back to you, especially in a code situation, so that would be the benefit of being able to use a non-interference cells in a hospital. Then again i guess they call codes over head, but some don't hear the overhead call.

On the other hand a pager gives you the freedom to ignore.which I'm sure a lot of people may need to do because they are busy doing other things.

The one thing I hate though, is having to look for a phone to call someone in an emergency, wishing I could use my cell, because sometimes a phone is nowhere to be found. I guess some people do use their cells anyways though.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Having to find a phone in some cases is really tough and can cost a patient's life and additionally have to wait the time of someone to answer a page to get back to you, especially in a code situation, so that would be the benefit of being able to use a non-interference cells in a hospital. Then again i guess they call codes over head, but some don't hear the overhead call.

On the other hand a pager gives you the freedom to ignore.which I'm sure a lot of people may need to do because they are busy doing other things.

The one thing I hate though, is having to look for a phone to call someone in an emergency, wishing I could use my cell, because sometimes a phone is nowhere to be found. I guess some people do use their cells anyways though.

There is no good evidence that modern cell phones interfer significantly with medical equipment. In the October 2005 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, it was reported that the cellular telephones tested did not interfere with medical devices that were more than three feet away. In the study, 44 percent of the devices recorded some interference from the cellular telephones but the vast majority of this interference should not have had any significance for the patient. The farthest distance away that a device was affected was 32 inches. Most interference occurred with devices that display electrocardiographic (ECG) or electroencephalographic (EEG) waveforms and involved noise interference. http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/inside.asp?AID=1017&UID=

So unless you are sitting on top of the patient's ventilator or other monitor, it should be safe to use your cellular in the hospital and most hospitals have lifted their cell phone bans.

I think you may not be familiar with code paging or it was exceedingly different in your hospital several years ago. When a code or other emergency exists, most hospitals use overhead pages, a specific number which specifies an emergency or send a simultaneous page out to all team members. This resolves the issue of paging someone and not having them respond, or having you attempt to return the page and not getting an answer. I have never known a good nurse to page only one team member in a true emergency and not try someone else if the page wasn't returned stat. It would be a bit concerning if your patient was coding and the nurses paged you and only you and waited for you to return a page. This is also a problem with cell phones; if you don't answer they have to call someone else. And that is why the use of pagers continues.

I use my cell phone in the hospital all the time to return calls and if your hospital has a ban against it, you might want to refer them to the above and other more recent studies which have shown no significant interference. Again, I am not sure why you couldn't find a phone in the hospital to call back from; mine have always an abundance of them. I might have to go to the next nurses station, but I cannot say that I've ever had a problem not finding a phone in an emergency (as its always an option to ask someone if you can use the phone for an emergency).

I agree I hate the overhead paging system as I can rarely, if ever, understand what they are saying and this has been true in every hospital I've worked in.

 

[turquoiseblue]

Thanks for that info. It would be nice to take the guilt off in using cellphones.

 

[BogglestheMind]

The old voice pagers were more cumbersome, but good for a few laughs, like paging "Car 54", as well as funny fake pages such as alerting everyone that the cafeteria had flooded

 

[f_w]

VHF/UHF radios used by security personnel DO interfere with medical equipment. I remember an article that looked at typical microwave cellphones, the only way interference could be generated was by placing the phone directly onto a monitor. The VHF/UHF radios otoh could switch some older types of IV pumps into safety mode (pump stops pumping, clamps the tubing and alarms) from several feet away.

A student of mine was an engineer before going to medschool. One of his jobs was to test the influence of defibrillators on aircraft avionics. Apparently discharging a defibrillator can reset some navigational equipment on board of helicopters. So they generally try to avoid shocking people while flying in instrument meteorological conditions (--> inadequate visibility to know which side is up without flight instruments).

 

[elwademd]

other than the dead zone areas, which every hospital seems to have, i wonder if continuing the current paging system is a medico-legal issue. at my hospital, you can call the operator and he/she can quickly check what pages you've received (example: discrepancy between the nurse who has claimed to page you 10 times over the last hour and yourself). i'm sure it's that way elsewhere as well. in a sense, there's a paging log that can be referred to if need be. not sure if that's the reason.

for myself and other residents, we just text each other messages via cell phones, and the paging system is for everyone else.

 

[Winged Scapula]

other than the dead zone areas, which every hospital seems to have, i wonder if continuing the current paging system is a medico-legal issue. at my hospital, you can call the operator and he/she can quickly check what pages you've received (example: discrepancy between the nurse who has claimed to page you 10 times over the last hour and yourself). i'm sure it's that way elsewhere as well. in a sense, there's a paging log that can be referred to if need be. not sure if that's the reason.

Yes, that has been key in some "discussions" between nursing and housestaff. They seem to forget that we can check these things.

 

[gutonc]

I cannot say I've ever had much trouble finding a phone to return a page although it is frustrating to return a page and find no one claiming to have called you...the wireless phones would eliminate that.

You'd think that would be the case but you'd be wrong. The floor RNs at our VA carry spectralink phones but about 75% of the time when they page you they put the nursing station # as the callback #, even though the phones all have a unique extension. I usually call back and say "tell whoever paged to Dr. Gutonc to page again w/ the right #" and hang up.

At our university hospital, phones are at a premium for reasons I don't quite understand. But on every floor, it turns out that there's a lounge/office/equip/monitoring room that has 10-20 wireless phones that are meant for MD use. Nobody will tell you where these phones are though.

 

[Winged Scapula]

You'd think that would be the case but you'd be wrong. The floor RNs at our VA carry spectralink phones but about 75% of the time when they page you they put the nursing station # as the callback #, even though the phones all have a unique extension. I usually call back and say "tell whoever paged to Dr. Gutonc to page again w/ the right #" and hang up.

Frustrating indeed. What I meant was that if residents carried wireless phones (which was being proposed above) that there would be no returning a page to find no one claiming they called you if you picked it up when it rang.

I feel your pain re: the floor nurses. It happened all the time in our ED...IF they put in their unique extension, they wouldn't answer. If they put in the ED extension, they weren't around when I called back. It was very painful.

At our university hospital, phones are at a premium for reasons I don't quite understand. But on every floor, it turns out that there's a lounge/office/equip/monitoring room that has 10-20 wireless phones that are meant for MD use. Nobody will tell you where these phones are though.

Interesting. In my hospital, there were always two wall extensions in every hallway, all the patient rooms had phones, and of course, there were several at the nursing station and in the "corners/back rooms/cubbies" where we gathered to work on charts. The only time I had trouble finding a phone was on the Medicine floors if only because there were about a thousand fleas all over, using all the phones. Took me less time to walk down a couple of floors to surgery and use the phones there. Either we had more or we used them less.

 

[f_w]

If found alphanumeric pagers to be the most useful. If you can't say it in 250 characters, it's probably not important.

A text page from the lab 'critical value, Pt Mills, Gary K=5.9, callback required x6996' tells you all you need to know. You return the call when you have time which allows the lab-drone to enter 'dr f_w notified' into his call-log.

I worked at a place with the spectralink phones. In theory, it allows you to get hold of the person taking care of your patient. In reality, the RN who's spectralink number you got as the patients 'primary RN' is either 'on break' or whoever picks up 'just came on shift' and can't tell you what's going on either.

 

[TheWowEffect]

It appears that the OP got so overwhelmed with the typical SDN enthusiastic response to his question about pagers that he simply disappeared from this thread

 

[Winged Scapula]

It appears that the OP got so overwhelmed with the typical SDN enthusiastic response to his question about pagers that he simply disappeared from this thread

At least we're still on topic...most of the time by this many responses we are talking about something totally random!

BTW, OPs disappearing is one of my SDN pet peeves.

 

[elwademd]

If found alphanumeric pagers to be the most useful. If you can't say it in 250 characters, it's probably not important.

agreed.

A text page from the lab 'critical value, Pt Mills, Gary K=5.9, callback required x6996' tells you all you need to know. You return the call when you have time which allows the lab-drone to enter 'dr f_w notified' into his call-log.

that sounds great. funny though, the hospital i'm at claimed doing texting patient names is a hipaa violation!

I worked at a place with the spectralink phones. In theory, it allows you to get hold of the person taking care of your patient. In reality, the RN who's spectralink number you got as the patients 'primary RN' is either 'on break' or whoever picks up 'just came on shift' and can't tell you what's going on either.

apparently the nurses at your institution rotate at mine!

i think one of the worst things is being paged by the floor you're currently on, and they still don't know who paged you!

 

[Flopotomist]

BTW, OPs disappearing is one of my SDN pet peeves.

Yeah.. it is almost as annoying as when people change their screen names (ducking for cover)

 

[turquoiseblue]

logging pages..or just logging in general...nice concept.
hate how some claim they called and you never see their page..and sometimes ur pager dies on you...how else r u going to trace those calls if there's no logging system?
sometimes cell phones can drop pages, calls, or voicemails though...and you never get them....seen that happen plenty of times...even on good phones like smartphones..or maybe especially the smartphones...plus there are areas of the hospital where you just dont get good enough reception...battery life is much less...you have to always recharge..sometimes there's no plug around.
Cell phones r nice to have around to use, but i guess pagers are the most foolproof and reliable--the backup-plan and the gold standard if all else fails.

 

[Ludicolo]

Yeah.. it is almost as annoying as when people change their screen names (ducking for cover)

Cheap shot!

 

[f_w]

that sounds great. funny though, the hospital i'm at claimed doing texting patient names is a hipaa violation!

Anytime I try to kill something in a hospital committee, I claim it's a HIPAA violation. Unless the other side is very committed to the cause and gets an opinion from corporate legal that it is NOT, the issue usually goes away. (hipaa is the lazy hospital administrative midlevels managers universal tool to quash any proposal that requires him or her to do work).

If text-paging onto a hospital issued (logged audited) pager is a hipaa violation, how is giving the information to anyone who calls back after a page not a violation ?

 

[Dr. Wexler]

Are pagers really better, or is the current popularity of pagers merely a historical accident resulting from pagers preceeding cellphones? If cellphone were around and widely used in hospitals for decades, and then a telecom company came out with a newfangled "pager" would it be warmly recieved? "You want me to go find a phone every time someone wants to talk to me?" "There's not voicemail so they can't leave a message?"

It's hard to say because the system has been set up as a pager-based on. It is hard to imagine how different things might be if the system has been set up to be cell-phone based.

 

[3dtp]

VHF/UHF radios used by security personnel DO interfere with medical equipment. I remember an article that looked at typical microwave cellphones, the only way interference could be generated was by placing the phone directly onto a monitor. The VHF/UHF radios otoh could switch some older types of IV pumps into safety mode (pump stops pumping, clamps the tubing and alarms) from several feet away.

A student of mine was an engineer before going to medschool. One of his jobs was to test the influence of defibrillators on aircraft avionics. Apparently discharging a defibrillator can reset some navigational equipment on board of helicopters. So they generally try to avoid shocking people while flying in instrument meteorological conditions (--> inadequate visibility to know which side is up without flight instruments).

Absolutely not! Landis at the U Michigan tested various model defibrillators going back as far as the mid 1980s on their Bell 430s and found no interference with avionics in inflight and simulated testing. I am intimately familiar with avionics from my former life, any equipment that may be interfered with likely still has vacuum tubes in it and I haven't flown an aircraft in the last 15 years that has had that equipment. As a point of interest, most of the restrictions on in-flight/critical phase use of personal electronic devices comes from the days of HF-Omnirange navigation equipment which has not been used for at least 40 years. Avionics is far more likely to interfere with itself than exogenous equipment on board. AED/defibs have been tested and have not been shown to interfere with ILS/Glideslope/Localizers/Radioaltimeters to an extent that would interfere with even Cat II approaches, let alone en route navigation systems. I can think of no TSO'd device that can be reset by RFI. See SFAR 106 and AC91.21.1b and TSO C97b

The biggest reason to avoid defib in IMC is more likely it's generally a little rougher in the clouds so the turbulence in confined space may shock someone bouncing around who accidently brushes against the patient. But that is not a strong contra-indication in a life-saving procedure. As PIC of lifeguard flights, I have no qualms about defib in flight PRN.

Other studies have examined cell phones and other technology and found similar results. VOR receivers, radioaltimeters, ILS and Glideslope receivers are unaffected by the spurious and direct emissions of most personal electronic devices, as are modern GPS units, as far as we know.

We routinely radiate patients on vents, infusion pumps and with IAED/pacers. While we try to avoid direct radiation fields to the pacers, there is scatter radiation as well as spurious emission from the linac. I have yet to see an infusion pump problem/resent from a radiation treatment.

 

[3dtp]

Anytime I try to kill something in a hospital committee, I claim it's a HIPAA violation. Unless the other side is very committed to the cause and gets an opinion from corporate legal that it is NOT, the issue usually goes away. (hipaa is the lazy hospital administrative midlevels managers universal tool to quash any proposal that requires him or her to do work).

If text-paging onto a hospital issued (logged audited) pager is a hipaa violation, how is giving the information to anyone who calls back after a page not a violation ?

Hmmmm....wanna ask the mayor of Detroit that one?

 

[Winged Scapula]

Yeah.. it is almost as annoying as when people change their screen names (ducking for cover)

Let's see when you're an attending and everyone knows who you are, if you still feel comfortable posting "out in the open" on SDN.

 

[Winged Scapula]

logging pages..or just logging in general...nice concept.
hate how some claim they called and you never see their page..and sometimes ur pager dies on you...how else r u going to trace those calls if there's no logging system?

Every hospital has a system in which all calls through the system are logged. So if you are making harassing phone calls to the nurses station, they can document those as easily as they can document when a nurse says she paged # X 15 times and you never answered.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Are pagers really better, or is the current popularity of pagers merely a historical accident resulting from pagers preceeding cellphones? If cellphone were around and widely used in hospitals for decades, and then a telecom company came out with a newfangled "pager" would it be warmly recieved? "You want me to go find a phone every time someone wants to talk to me?" "There's not voicemail so they can't leave a message?"

It's hard to say because the system has been set up as a pager-based on. It is hard to imagine how different things might be if the system has been set up to be cell-phone based.

You may be right that it is simply tradition - we know how hide bound medicine is.

But I think it clear that pagers offer certain advantages that cells do not currently. If they can devise a cell which does not drop calls, which is accessible in all areas of the hospital, which can send multiple pages to teams at the same time and for which checking messages is much quicker, then I'm sold.

 

[roja]

My pager looks nice in the drawer.

 

[f_w]

If they can devise a cell which does not drop calls, which is accessible in all areas of the hospital, which can send multiple pages to teams at the same time and for which checking messages is much quicker, then I'm sold.

It's called a NexTel

Used to have one for private use. It does pretty much everything you have in your RFP there, I hated to give it up after I moved to a corner of the country they don't cover.

 

[deleted109597]

I will break someones fingers if they try to put a vocera on me. Those are the most annoying f'ing things. "Call ______." "Did you say 'cambodia?'" "No dammit".
The problem with cell phones is that you will give the nurses another leg up to be on your level. We have held them down by making them page us, and wait for the return. If they get even more instant gratification, they'll just go ahead and start making the decisions for us.
I would only go for it if the paging function on my phone were different from the speaking function, with a completely different number.

As an aside, when your hospital doesn't have their own pagers, and you have to go to the local "Page-Mart", it is very funny. You walk in, the door bell rings. You are instantly the most out of place person in the room. You see a selection of pagers on a background of crushed velvet. There are usually other pawn type items around as well, ours had gold chains.

 

[Flopotomist]

Let's see when you're an attending and everyone knows who you are, if you still feel comfortable posting "out in the open" on SDN.

OOOH.. does this mean those of us who remember your former SN have blackmail material? Send cookies or your darkest secrets shall be revealed. And none of those cookies that sneak raisins in trying to fool you into thinking they are chocolate chips. I hate chocolate chip imposters.

 

[Winged Scapula]

OOOH.. does this mean those of us who remember your former SN have blackmail material? Send cookies or your darkest secrets shall be revealed. And none of those cookies that sneak raisins in trying to fool you into thinking they are chocolate chips. I hate chocolate chip imposters.

Funny thing, I am honestly eating hot chocolate chip cookies (all Tollhouse chips, no raisins, nuts or anything else) right out of the oven while I read this! Then again, given my love of things chocolate, I'm not sure why I think this is some random event.

But sorry, you cannot blackmail me when there are probably 15K other users who also know the information. I cannot be assured that the other 14,999 users wouldn't spill it once I plied you with chocolate chip cookies.

 

[3dtp]

It's called a NexTel

Used to have one for private use. It does pretty much everything you have in your RFP there, I hated to give it up after I moved to a corner of the country they don't cover.

Love, I mean really love my NexTel. Even the Sprint buyout couldn't kill it!