Comment by ThinkBeat

I do miss books.

For a while I was a contractor at a hush hush place. We had extremely limited internet access and even stronger rules not to use it. No cellphones, no Wi-Fi, no BYOD.

It was like going back to the good old days with books. We were given the opportunity to order books.

I adapted the best of our team but probably only because I am old.

We had one good old fashioned corded phone, which was for internal calls only. It was not hooked up to anything "outside".

We were given a number that our nearest could call in on.

The number should be connected to some semi anonymous front desk somewhere.

It was to be used (only) in an emergency (they emphasized that)

The routine would be that a member security detail would come to notify the relevant person, escort that person to a room with a phone, that the front desk could route the call to. Someone might or might not be listening in.

As far as I know nobody tried it.

I dont know if the routine is still the same now. I would guess that younger developers would have a much harder time adjusting now than back then.