Ajaib Bhadare, Cerent’s co-founder and vice-president of engineering, recalls its usefulness to quickly reach colleagues, “When we wanted to talk to each other, all of us, you, me, Corker, Terry [1], it was hard to try and find somebody in their office or find them in a conference room, so you might be talking to somebody on the phone and walking past them in the hallway. But you didn’t stop and say, okay now I’ve seen you, I’m going to talk to you for real face-to-face. You used to continue to talk on the phone. That was the best way of communication. It was a fast time, a fast pace.”
Ajaib concurs, “I remember walking past Corker, with me and him taking with each other, not knowing where we are in the building. We just continued talking on the phone, going wherever we were going.”
Indeed, maybe that’s why many people refer to cell phones as “mobiles” [2]. You’re on the go with them. Except now, with the advent of the smartphone, we can use text to rapidly communicate without needing to talk.
The texting tool was not available for widespread use during the late 1990s [3], so pagers were used to provide a form of texting connectivity, a technology that rapidly became obsolete. As cell phones became widespread short message service (SMS), or texting, found its footing during 2002.
Getting Facetime
Ajaib recalls that Carl Russo was a very busy guy as Cerent’s CEO. And getting “face time” had nothing to do with Apple’s popular Face Time app. Ajaib acknowledged this difficulty, “Yeah, his time was valuable. He was talking to customers, investors, engineers, all at the same time. He was probably the best at multi-tasking.”
Carl was a whirlwind of productivity activity. Ajaib adds, “Either he was busy or he liked to act like he was the king, the ruler, the almighty. And when you’re talking to him, and if he needed to go the bathroom, he would just drag you in there with him, and while he’s peeing, you’re standing there talking to him.”
It’s representative of the kind of person Carl was. No second could go unused. Even relieving oneself provided an opportunity for dialogue. “Carl was so hard to get,” Ajaib recalls, “they’d walk with him into the bathroom, just to get their two minutes with him.”
And then, after their business was done, they moved on to their next round of meetings, with cell phones glued to their ears.
[1] “You” is Rob Koslowsky, Cerent’s marketing director, “Corker” is Tom Corker, Cerent’s vice-president, product marketing, and “Terry” is Terry Brown, Cerent’s vice-president, sales, marketing, and customer service.