I wish I had the Fake-A-Call app during my 16 years as a Chicago journalist, when 90 percent of my meetings were held by managers trying to look and feel important but only “managing” to waste time.
Fake-A-Call is a devious iPhone app that makes your phone ring and a voice appear as if manna had rained down from Bail-Me-Out Heaven.
While it can’t call in sick for you, Fake-A-Call obediently chimes at a preselected time or on command. Your phone rings and the caller’s picture pops up. (You preselect the pictures and it’s easy.) Then the incoming voice gives you the perfect entrée to say, “Excuse me, … It’s my wife, and it’s urgent.” Fake-A-Call has voice presets or lets you record someone, perhaps your wife, for authentic fakeness.
Now, then: Have I used this app? On whom?
I’d rather not say; you never know who’s reading. But I’ll admit this: I wouldn’t hesitate to use it in a pinch. Not that I like lying, but that concern is trumped by the cloddish clowning of time wasters. And my time—yours, too—is valuable. That’s what makes Fake-A-Call, at 99 cents, such a sweet deal.
