Phone Surreality
The extension to my office phone is 121. Which means that anyone in the office who forgets to dial 9 to get out and is calling a Manhattan number gets me instead. (1-212...).
Recently a whole new problem has begun. the company that provides our phone must have some master switchboard in their office that routes calls to all of their clients, so that people who forget that pesky 9 get me... even if they are in a completely different office building on the other side of town.
The really interesting part is that if you dial an extension directly on the system the phone on the other side doesn't ring. A voice just pops out of the speaker phone.
So a few weeks ago a voice from my phone says "Hello?" After a few minutes of surreal conversation we discover that she was at a doctor's office on the upper east side, and had been trying to call a patient to confirm an appointment. She thought I had simultaneously called her and she had just picked up the phone before it rang, to find me there.
And so it goes. Law offices, a pizza place, a magazine. Once or twice a week someone new and weird pops out of my speaker phone, always confused as to what is happening and why they aren't speaking to the person whose number they thought they had dialed.
They've offered a few times to change my extension to eliminate the problem. (It never happens to anyone else in my office.) But I've decided to keep it. It kind of adds a little spice to my week.
Just keepin' it surreal, y'know?
Recently a whole new problem has begun. the company that provides our phone must have some master switchboard in their office that routes calls to all of their clients, so that people who forget that pesky 9 get me... even if they are in a completely different office building on the other side of town.
The really interesting part is that if you dial an extension directly on the system the phone on the other side doesn't ring. A voice just pops out of the speaker phone.
So a few weeks ago a voice from my phone says "Hello?" After a few minutes of surreal conversation we discover that she was at a doctor's office on the upper east side, and had been trying to call a patient to confirm an appointment. She thought I had simultaneously called her and she had just picked up the phone before it rang, to find me there.
And so it goes. Law offices, a pizza place, a magazine. Once or twice a week someone new and weird pops out of my speaker phone, always confused as to what is happening and why they aren't speaking to the person whose number they thought they had dialed.
They've offered a few times to change my extension to eliminate the problem. (It never happens to anyone else in my office.) But I've decided to keep it. It kind of adds a little spice to my week.
Just keepin' it surreal, y'know?
I think that is the coolest thing.
Imagine the posts.
WHO CALLED TODAY?
It sorta makes NYC seem just a little bit smaller.