One of the things an entrepreneur is supposed to need is a way for people to reach you when you're away from the office. There must be a million devices available to accomplish this, and each one offers a unique set of challenges. Consider the vexing choice of pagers.

I'm currently shopping around for a new company to answer my calls and page me with an alphanumeric message. My current provider -- one of only two on Long Island, the New York region where I live -- lacks a few things, not the least of which is the ability to interact with callers. Not knowing that a service answers our main number when everyone is away from the office, clients or would-be customers are usually thrown by someone saying "your message" as soon as the phone is answered. And God help the individual who asks for me or anyone else in the office. The operators cannot handle this question, and things usually turn ugly.

It gets funnier when I call the service: "Hi. This is George Giokas. I'm checking on some lost messages." In the background, I hear the operator typing my words verbatim. "No," I say. "You don't understand. I don't want this message sent. I'm the owner of the company, and I just want to check my messages." Too late. The words I just uttered appear on my pager. Eventually, there is a meeting of the minds. I penetrate the thick wall of procedure, and common sense wins.

Shopping for communications options, I'm bombarded with so many plans that I would need a flip chart, a dozen black markers, and a weekend retreat to a conference center to sort them out amid the babble of message-industry jargon: "We can offer you voice only or voice-to-fax or voice-to-alpha or voice-to-digital. For a few bucks more, you can have voice-to-live-operator-to-pager or just a box or straight digital. You can either have a toll-free number or a local one. Whaddya think?" Huh?

Then there are other devices that are supposed to eliminate the need for a pager. My cell phone and PalmPilot supposedly can do what a pager does. This is troubling, because I know I'm spending needless money on overlapping technologies that promise to make me the most accessible person on earth. By the time I figure out all this mobile gear, some new gadget will come along that will render everything I have useless.

I'm coming around to the point of view of my technophobic friend, Bob. He still considers his answering machine at home state-of-the-art and swears by it. Although he's also the owner of a small business, it doesn't bother him that he's not accessible at all times. "If they want to get me, they'll get me," he says. Yeah, I can live with that.

George Giokas is the president and CEO of StaffWriters Plus, a specialty agency that places writers in temporary and permanent positions with corporate and other employers. It also provides editorial consulting work. His database includes 2,500 writers and editors specializing in more than 60 categories. His Web site is located at www.staffwriters.com, and you can E-mail him at george@staffwriters.com.