Mr. Me

A little glimpse of me.

Speaker Phone Abuse

· by Mr. Me · General

Some friendly advice:

If you're going to put EVERY SINGLE CALL YOU GET on speaker phone, please do the world a favor and close your office door. If you don't have an office, then don't put calls on speaker phone unless they're work-related AND you have more than one person that needs to hear/participate in the call.

If you don't do this, sooner or later, someone is going to say something that will cause general ridicule throughout the office.

Someone with an office near my cubicle does this. He never picks up his telephone handset. He always uses the speaker phone. This morning, it led to many snickers and smatterings of laughter from nearby cubicles as he took a phone call that went something like this:

Office Guy: Hi.

Angry-sounding Lady: WHERE IS THE GAMEBOY?

OG: What? (Editorial: This wasn't a "What? I didn't hear you ." Because the entire office heard her. This was a "I'll say 'What?' so that I have a moment to think about why I'm getting yelled at.")

AL: WHERE DID YOU PUT THE GAMEBOY?!?!?!

OG: I don't know where it is.

AL: HE DIDN'T PLAY GAMEBOY ALL DAY YESTERDAY. WHERE IS THE GAMEBOY?

OG: I hid it. (Snickers and chuckles from nearby cubicles)

AL: WHERE?

OG: He's still not allowed to play it.

AL: BUT HE DIDN'T PLAY IT ALL DAY YESTERDAY!!!! WHERE IS IT??

OG: (Describes where he hid it)

AL: THAT WAS VERY RUDE. (General laughter from the cubicle farm)

OG: What? (See editorial above.)

AL: THAT WAS VERY RUDE. GOODBYE. (No more laughter. There is no angry lady voice to cover it)

Smart thing #1 that should have been done, but wasn't: He should have picked up the handset.

Smart thing #2 that should have been done, but wasn't: After hearing an angry voice on the other side of the conversation, he should have picked up the handset.

Smart thing #3 that should be done, but won't be: He should learn to pick up the handset.

Smart thing #4 that should be done, but won't be: He should invest in a hands-free headset.

Any of those things could have saved him from the ridicule that he received today, but will probably never know about. Maybe nothing would have saved him from the abuse dished out by the angry-sounding lady, but picking up the handset would have kept that abuse from being speaker phone abuse.