Only works squatting, not standing.
You must never travel, deliver a research paper, have an important meeting, pick someone up from a red eye on the train or plane, or never catch a train or bus to work first thing in the morning. The power goes out (and then back on) in my city at least once every few months. Once every few months being wildly late for class (in the past) or work (now) seems pretty unacceptable to me. Or forgetting my mom or boyfriend at the airport because I didn’t have a battery alarm clock.
Where the hell do you live that your power goes out constantly?
You must get your electrical power from Comcast. My cable internet was like that.
Any always in the wee hours of the night?!?!
If my boss was unreasonable about me being a little late following a power outage I think I’d start shopping for another job post haste.
Once every few months? What kind of primitive power network are you on?
For class? That’s not dire enough for me to set up redundant systems.
Work? If there’s an actual power failure, a lot of people are likely to be late and is not considered unacceptable, in the manner of auto breakdown, accidents, or public transportation failure.
Train or bus? Public transportation is notoriously unreliable and people who use it routinely arrive a little late. When there’s an actual breakdown in transportation, lateness is not considered unreasonable.
An important meeting, an airport pickup? Those events are so rare that it’s highly unlikely that they would coincide with a power failure. Your mom or your brother wouldn’t call you from the airport if for some reason you hadn’t shown up?
Expecting someone to set up a redundant or failsafe alarm as a matter of routine is unreasonable, unless you’re providing some kind of critical or emergency services, for which lateness could be a matter of life or death.
Redundant? I’m saying use a cell phone or battery alarm. It’s 2010; you don’t need the rooster to get you up anymore. I only expect somone to set it up because an old cellphone is literally $10 on ebay; the same price or less than a cheapass plug-in from Wal-Mart. So yeah, I expect it. The “my alarm didn’t go off” excuse is null and void. Unless, of course, you set it for PM.
I’m talking about the power going out and back on. I’m on Pittsburgh primitive power grid, though the blackouts in LA a few years ago were so much worse.
This to me is an insanely simple problem remedied by a cheap solution. Battery powered or cell phone alarms are as failsafe as you can get.
snickers yep. I count the days to FIOS freedom.
And you don’t need to set up unreasonable expectations for the world around you.
Oh, really? So, that’s an acceptable excuse then? You got it.
A mature person wouldn’t require people to come up with detailed excuses. People get late. It’s life. It happens. Live with it.
Professions that absolutely need people there on time, no excuses – fire services, or the U.S. Army – take the step of housing personnel in a place where they can get them up when they need to. If you ain’t them, it’s time for you to relax your sphincter.
W
With some phones the alarm will still go off as normal even if you have it on silent/vibrate.
I use my cellphone (a “dumb” phone, as my friends joke 
) as an alarm clock, and leave it on the nightstand a foot or two from my head. It’s never failed yet to wake me.
To avoid the dead-battery issue, I plug it in to charge as I sleep if the battery indicator is at two bars or has been at three bars for a good while.
At home, I also set the timer on my television to turn on at (hopefully!) the same time as I’ve set my cellphone. It’s not so much a back-up to waking me as to keeping me awake: since the television is in the living room, I have to get out of bed to either shut it off or watch it :D, by which time going back to bed is more trouble than its worth.
I think you forgot the part about me getting off your lawn :rolleyes:
Seriously though, this is a simple fix. That meeting, for instance. 5 people showed up instead of 6. Business was conducted, whereas if we all used plug in alarm clocks/roosters, nobody would have showed up and it would have been a complete waste of time that we’d have to makeup somehow. There’s no point in clinging to the past if there are extremely cheap and easy alternatives to ensure that you’re always up.
There is a problem when your work supervisor starts making decisions about your personal life and what devices you choose to use at home.
Lighten up, Francis. I don’t know if you heard, but many people even date and marry their coworkers. You have to tell HR when you’re having a baby - a decidedly personal thing. You have to tell HR when you’re having surgery and have to miss several days. I dunno where the hell you’ve worked, but I’ve had coworkers and bosses and other department heads tell me about their personal lives on a regular basis. Often unsolicited, but that’s a part of life. Many bosses do comment on people’s personal lives, properly and improperly. He was lightheartedly joking. He wasn’t going to fire her for not having a 21st century alarm.
It’s never proper for a boss to comment on someone’s personal life unsolicited. And the function of HR is markedly different from that of a supervisor and it applies only when someone is claiming benefits.
The problem is probably one of the following:
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The phone has lousy speakers.
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The menu of ringtones/alarms doesn’t include any sufficiently loud/penetrating sounds.
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He’s a deep sleeper.
If it’s case 2, the solution is to load some better sounds (assuming the phone allows you to use custom sound files). I use either a Classic Trek red-alert siren (loud) or a Kimmunicator ringtone (penetrating), cranked up a bit using a bit of dynamic compression and amplification.
(Also, the Windows Mobile alarm function bites; I use SPB time instead.)
Mine does. I’m pretty sure that it will even go off if the phone is technically switched off.
Where on earth do you plug in a rooster?
i was thinking a hen, but i guess that wouldn’t work either.
You obviously need to visit Western PA.
Not when you put it that way, I don’t.
I use mine and it works great. It’s quiet enough that I hear it and wake right up, but it’s not loud enough to disturb my husband.