Quote:
Originally Posted by Dillbert  once upon a time, there was no such thing as a cell phone.
emergencies pre-date cell phones.
Question: how did we survive?
and if you think back, once upon a time it was the idiot twit with the bleeping pager..... |
Unfortunately or fortunately, this is no longer a viable answer. For example, the university where I work requires -- yes, requires -- that all students, faculty, and staff have email and use it. They send certain kinds of information only through that medium, as part of paper-usage reduction and of course for their own convenience. If you say, "gee, we survived just fine without email in the past," that makes no difference: you are required to have email.
They do not yet require cell phones, but I could easily see them doing so in the near future. If there is a serious emergency, they want to be able to get in touch with you quickly, and cell phones are a convenient way to do this.
My point is that many emergency contact services now assume cell phone access. The fact that they didn't in the past doesn't change matters.