Friday, September 15, 2006

Speakerphone Addict No Match for Crafty Colleague









Thelonious Atkins gracing arm of chair a couple of weeks ago or so.

Here is yet another coworker story. I have a neighbor, not seen but heard, who works for another group. Sometimes when he is on the phone, he uses his speakerphone rather than using his headset, which means the other person can be heard loud and clear, which would be fine if that person were there in person, but the tinny amplification is quite annoying.

I went over and asked him to please use his headset and he agreed. A couple of weeks later, I had to ask him the same thing. This time he glared at me.

Lately there has been a tremendous amount of speakerphoning and it became clear that he has a buddy who comes over and also needs to hear whomever is one the phone. However, presumably the buddy has a cube somewhere or other and could call into a telephone conference line and use NetMeeting to see what’s on my neighbor’s PC, as the civilized do.

I was working myself into a thing over it (as always, prodded along by the thought that he should not be doing this), but feared to mention it to him again. I told a coworker of mine about it and she suggested talking to him one more time and offered to accompany me. Brilliant idea!

After he got off the phone (and it really was loud; I could hear it over at my coworker’s palatial cube, which is not near mine), I strolled over there with my coworker in tow and said exactly the same thing I would have said if she hadn’t been there, namely that I didn’t want to be in a fight, but that the speakerphone was driving me crazy and perhaps he could, if possible, use his headset, and if he needed to collaborate with someone else, perhaps NetMeeting would be an option?

He looked rather alarmed to see there were two of us and he didn’t glare at me this time; maybe he thought my coworker was someone he should be scared of, or maybe he assumed he was bothering at least two people.

That was a great idea on my coworker’s part: subtle, yet with a certain psychological force. We shall see if it does the trick.

Today I stayed home from work with Thelonious. She was quite lethargic all day. She can’t have eaten more than a quarter-ounce of food, if that, but she licked up some gravy. TMI alert: There is now blood in her poop, which apparently is not that uncommon for cats, but it doesn’t seem like it can be a good thing.

I’m thinking that I will be calling the euthanasia doctor on Monday. If so, that means she has had her last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and soon her last Friday.

I took away one of the kinds of food that is out and washed the bowl. Then I realized I was washing her little white Melmac bowl for probably the last time and burst into tears.

How many times have I heard her eating chow out of that bowl, that faint clattering sound in the next room? I estimate twelve thousand times, but it still seems way too soon not to hear it again.

My Marine friend sent out a rather vitriolic essay on illegal immigrants the other day. I replied saying that many illegal immigrants pay taxes, that they do crap work that we don’t want to do, and that I don’t really care what side of an arbitrary line someone is standing on. I said as far as I’m concerned, anyone who has managed to make it here should be given citizenship. I especially think that after reading Enrique’s Journey.

He wrote back requesting my source material. I told him to Google “illegal immigrants taxes.” Today I found I’d gotten four emails from him on this topic, and just as I was noting that, I received yet another, titled something like, “One more supporting document.” Then I’m afraid I lost my temper and wrote back and told him not to email me again, period.

(Not long ago, he sent out an essay that turned out not to be written by the person it was attributed to. I pointed that out, and he went more or less completely off, so there has unfortunately been a bit of ill feeling recently, though he apologized after that; he said he’d been having a bad hair day, which I thought was rather charming.)

I regretted my outburst right away and wrote again to say that I’d actually love to receive any note from him just to me and to keep in touch, but that I didn’t want to be on his distribution list, and I didn’t want to receive two or more emails in a row on the same subject because then it no longer feels like a back-and-forth discussion but like lecturing or browbeating, which are not welcome.

I had somewhat appreciated the chance to see what’s on the other side’s mind, but if we’re going to get in an argument if I dare to air my views in return, then this is not so good.

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