Those of us stuck without landlines found them useful to phone down to Isengard to enquire the time of meetings we suspected we might have agreed to, and text colleagues updates on the location of last warm water lurking in a hydroboil for a desperate cup of plastic coffee.
The radio function also allowed some contact with the outside world, with "up to the minute" news broadcasts from local radio stations allowing us access to the spin doctors from Eskom and the City Council and anyone else who had something vacuous to say on the matter.
Holding a cellphone to one's ear also became a useful means of avoiding eye-contact with manic colleagues desperate to know when this was all going to go away, while grabbing the opportunity to tell you just how awful it all was, how the contents of their fridge were rotting as you spoke, and god only knows how they were going to cook supper for their extended family who were arriving that evening from Uzbhekistan.
Cell numbers also became a hot commodity. The cell number for the ED: P&S was trading for more than that of the EDICT; while those of local links in the chain like the keeper of the keys were the top sellers. All over Campus, bins are overflowing with discarded SIMS as people discard discovered cell numbers and resort to new PAYG SIMS in a desperate bid for anonymity.
And then there were those who "lost" their phones...