Fail Safe Phone jacks

This is NOT part of Exploris - but worthwhile never the less. Talking with another CARQUEST jobber and I mention I called him and no one answered ... it turns out the store was without power and as such the phone system doesn't work ... hmm ... so I told him about what we did our our three stores --

Our lines come in to the building to the phone equipment area --at this point you should have a FAIL SAFE PHONE JACK for EACH LINE ... you can plug a cheap analogue phone into this jack ( $12 at wal-mart ) - this allows you to know if any problem is between your store and the street - in which case the phone company is responsible - any problem after this point is usually your responsibility.

SO -- have someone extend these fail safe jacks DOWN TO THE COUNTER AREA and buy a cheapy phone - plug in on the first power outage.

NOTE -- these jacks bypass all the features of the in-house system. BUT --they let you keep answering your phone when the power is out .... drop by to see it in action for the past 20 years ...a tip that should be shared.