Looking for a way to inject a little fun into your workday? Try this game I call "Hello? Is Anyone There?" Here's how it went down at my office the other day.
Many of us in my department have offices along the same hallway. One of my co-workers -- let's call her "Jill" -- has the office two doors down from me. Jill is alternately the flightiest and the smartest woman I know. Because she would eat me alive if I tried to go head to head with her on strategy or project management, I take great delight in exposing her clueless side.
About mid-morning on Tuesday, I heard the clop-clop-clop of Jill's shoes in the hallway. After she'd gotten about 3 or 4 feet from her office, her phone rang. CLOP-CLOP-CLOP-CLOP sounded as she double-timed her way back to answer it, arriving a few seconds too late.
"Darnit! I hate it when people hang up before I can get to it," I heard her say to no one in particular.
At that moment, a lightbulb went off in my head.
So I waited for the next opportunity, which came about 20 minutes later. Clop-clop-clop -- Jill left her desk again. As soon as I heard her heels strike the hallway, I dialed Jill's extension. After the first ring, I heard the rapid CLOP-CLOP-CLOP-CLOP. Then I quickly hung up before she got within reach of the receiver.
"Ugh! Again?!" she cried out.
And again later that hour, upon the sound of her footsteps, I dialed the four numbers to her office, giggling to myself.
"Hello? Hello?" Jill called into the phone, obviously irritated. "This thing isn't working," she asserted, sure this was another failure of office technology.
Throughout the course of the day, I dialed Jill's extension numerous times -- on at least half of which I heard her fruitlessly running back to pick it up and growling at the dead air that greeted her. This was too much fun to keep to myself, so I let a few people in on the gag and even got the boss to fabricate a reason to summon Jill so I could dial her back again.
Now, the success of this ruse was based on my correct assumption that Jill was oblivious to the fact that there is a LOG button on the phone. At the end of the day, when I decided to 'fess up, I was nice enough to show her the log feature, displaying my own extension on her call log 16 times!
After calling me a few expletives, Jill, always a good sport, laughed and vowed her revenge. I'll keep my eyes open -- as I'm plotting my next move.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
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2 comments:
Jill has signed up for a cooking class - first meal prepared; frog legs.
Amy, Amy, Amy! You haven't changed much since you were about 10 when you told Ang to look down the shower drain because there was a puppy stuck in it. As soon as your BABY sister got down on her hands and knees to find the poor helpless puppy stuck in the drain, you turned the water on her!!!!! What a pain you are! :)
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