Wednesday, March 28, 2007
New phones in the office. We all had to sit through a meeting where a phone guy showed us how to use the new phones. I immediately forgot most of what I learned.
Like a cell phone, you can change the ring tones on these phones. There are choices like Classic Ring 1, Classic Ring 2, Clock Shop, Jamaica.
Meyer set his ring tone to Saxophone 2, so when he gets a call it lets out a sultry wa-wa-wa-wa sound that makes everyone laugh. He picks up the phone and says, "Well hellllloooo there." This is invariably followed by a pause and then, "No, it's nothing... it's just my phone. The ring makes a sound that... nevermind."
We don't have a receptionist here, so when someone (like Peapod) buzzes to be let in the building it makes all the phones in the office ring. Before, it wasn't a big deal because we all had the same ring, but now it sets off a startling chorus of different novelty rings coming from every corner of the office. It reminds me of the end of the movie 'Lawnmower Man' when every phone in the world starts ringing at the same time.
It took me a while to figure it out, but I've set my phone to go directly to voice mail.
While anyone could answer the questions we got, it was basically a system for busting people. "I got a call from a customer today. Why weren't you at your desk?"
One of my worst days was when every single person in my office except for me and another short-term hire got to go to a White Sox game, courtesy of GE. She was working in another section entirely, and we never spoke except in passing.
At one point, with the office empty, and no customers calling, I sneaked downstairs for a coffee. I came back and went back to work. After a couple of hours, I was ready to leave for the day, and dialed my voicemail line to see if there were any messages.
There were around 15 messages. It was definitely in the teens somewhere. I'd received one call that shut off my phone, and then proceeded to keep forwarding the call. Eventually, every single phone TIP Intermodal had been turned off, and no one, not even managers, would hear their phones ring if they didn't turn their system back on manually the next Monday.
Fortunately, GE's IT department was upgrading servers and swapping out old PCs for shiny new Dells, so it was written off as a "computer thing."
A few days later, I got my own office, which had no window and I shared with around 300,000 intermodal chassis vehicle registrations.
: 10:15 PM, March 29, 2007<< Home
