She's Not Here

Telephones, as it turns out, have ringers for a reason. Who knew?!

My phone at work rang four times today, which may be a new record. I don't only tell you this so you'll be consumed with jealousy, though let's be honest: you are. No, I tell you this in order to illustrate a particular fact about the phone at my "new" job; namely, that it hardly ever rings.

Ha!

I get calls once a week or so. About half of them are from my boss, the panicmongering supervisor, who - lovely and talented though she is - has stated on more than one occasion that she hates typing. Doesn't like email, doesn't like documentation, doesn't like, oh, you know, anything that might involve typing. Or the computer in general. Or walking fifty feet to where her employees sit. Whatever.

Of the remaining phone calls I receive, maybe 1/3 are from friends and 1/3 are from actual work-related contacts who might have actual work-related questions they hope to ask me, and - as if that weren't ambitious enough - hope to receive answers. Answers! Who do they think I am, God???

I mean, useful answers.

Well, leaving such crackpots aside, we're still left with 1/3 of the non-boss-related calls, which means 1/3 of 1/2, or, um, 1/6. It's been a while since I took a math class. Let me tell you about 1/6 of the calls I receive.

1/6 of the calls I receive are actually for the woman who had the number before I did. She retired before I started working there. Kind of a while, actually; come to think of it, she might have retired during the Reagan administration. But that's not important. What's important is that she still gets a fair number of phone calls on a regular, if not daily, basis; and that these phone calls do not appear to be work-related.

These are robocalls. I answer them, and there's a long pause and some clicking. Someone with a flat, vaguely hostile voice comes on the other end and asks to speak with a woman whose last name he (or she) cannot pronounce properly. Bet you a dollar they're collection agents.

And you can hire them to collect that dollar, because damned if I have a clue how to get them to stop calling. Whenever they ask for her I explain - and politely, because I'm like that - that she actually retired some years ago. And many of them are instantly and humbly apologetic. "Oh! Is this a business number? I'm so sorry to bother you!" Then they hang up, quickly, presumably laboring under the delusion that I will discern their identity from my handy-dandy caller ID and dispatch Legal on their ass.

Apparently my predecessor never mentioned who she was working for.

(Slightly ironic note: Above picture was taken with my cell phone)

Wisely, too, because I can't imagine she'd have gotten much in the way of loans if she'd been clear on this issue. I expect that now she's living off in the Cayman Islands somewhere, laughing through champagne bubbles at the image (if ever it occurs to her) of some faceless government shill forced to play receptionist to her never-ending scams.

More power to her. I'll buy the panicmonger a nice set of semaphore flags for Christmas and call it quits.