Army phones

The Army's got an antiquated phone system.

Our office phone system can't be used to call "long distance" phone numbers, such as a person's cell phone, if it's not in the 254 area code. If you want to call a person's "non-254" cell phone, you have to use your own cell phone.

In addition, the offices in the motor pools don't have any phones at all. If you want to call anywhere, it's going to have to be via personal cell phone.

Since we either 1.) have no office phone or 2.) can't use our phones to call the rising number of people with non-local phone numbers, we end up using our personal cell phones *a lot*. A private company requiring the same flexibility from an employee would probably issue a cell phone, but for us that's reserved only for company commanders and first sergeants.

It's kind of irritating to have to up my cell phone plan because the Army's too cheap to upgrade its communications setup, but that's just the way it is.

Army: love it or leave it.