The Emerald Rose

    As I recently wrote,  my company moved to new offices, second story, no elevator (already have a couple of Directors from different Associations saying, “can you bring the stuff down to me if I call you when I get in the parking lot?”)

    Anyway, since we moved in about two or three weeks ago we finally have space between us, I have an office with a door and two windows overlooking the parking lot, BUT I can see the Bay about a quarter of a mile away, so what the hell, corner office overlooking the Bay, …not bad.

   It’s been relatively quiet since we moved, by that I mean telephones have been quiet, cell phones are quiet, faxes are quiet, and even e-mail has gone from 80 to 100 a day down to about 20 (I keep sending myself test messages it’s so unusual!) Anyhow I found out the other day one of the reasons it’s been so bloody quiet, cell phone reception is worse than bad!

   I had been out most of the morning and was on my cell a lot so when I came back to the office I put the faithful Blackberry on it’s cradle and plugged it in to recharge while I worked. After a while I happened to laen back in my chair and noticed the screen on the B’berry showed a call coming in. Usually it plays my Fugue in D as a tone, but it didn’t, I waited, figuring the screen was just faster than the tone (speed of light vs. speed of sound and all that other scientific junk) and then the phone call dropped off the screen! What the…?  A minute of so later I get the tone for a voice mail message being left for me. (While I may sound like a techno-geek,…well it ain’t so Joe!) My forst though was that I stupidly pushed a key combination and set off some kind of an instruction or such telling the phone don’t ring any more. I checked all the settings, the volume, the ring tone activated, the in holster out of holster settings the vibrate the loud, well every setting I could find and they were all in place (Guess I need the B’berry geek squad to jump in!) But as one last ditch effort I called my cell from my landline just to see what callers were getting. It rang twice, then poof went to voice mail, and I didn’t set it up to do that! Now an even bigger “What the…????” And then I saw it only one measely bar of signal. That was it, weak signal strength. And then the bar disappeared, no signal strength! I picked up the phone and BAM! get five bars strength back instantly. ( “Well Holmes, we will have to employ some deductive reasoning here Old Chap.”)

     “Hey David, you getting good signal strength on your cell phone?” (no intercoms on our phone system so I gotta yell to the guy in the next office,…but that’s another story for later!)

     “Yeah, mine are good”, comes back the reply. “Thanks,…mine sucks.”

    I pick up the cell and sart to move away from my desk,BAM five bars are back! I move back to my desk, and they disappear again. Now I’m really confused, and I’ve got a meeting in five minutes so I’ll have to get back to it later. I thunder down the stairs, out to my car and as I’m starting the engine light bulbs go flashing in my brain,…IT’S A METAL BUILDING OUR OFFICE IS IN!  Well so’s my car and my signal is good in the car. But the car has lots of window glass, all I’ve got are a couple of little windows in my office.

      Later when I get back I start studying the building, then I remembered the Air Conditioning guy saying it was all built of 12″ studs with sheet metal over them, and no insulation (Shit, no wonder I am melting just sitting at my desk!) So I’m inside a big tin box,….no wonder no one calls, they can’t get through! (Well is that realllly so bad for my mental health?)

    But I call my cell phone carrier just to be sure and that it’s not a hardware problem, and of course I get one of the Indoneasan help centers and this guy is trying to tell me about recent outbreaks of Solar Flares. Well as long as it’s not my phone now I can get back to work.

    Oooh! And about the office phones with no intercoms, the bookeeper got a brainwave and went around and installed AOL Instant Messenger on all the phones. So now the receptionist answers the phone, determines who the call is for, puts it on hold and then sends an “instant message” to whomever it’s for. They read the IM, pick up the phone,….or not if they are not in the office at all. Some how I could handle the “TOM, IT”S FOR YOU ON LINE 2”, but then again we are in a new Century where life is easier through electronic progress. 🙂

     Time to shower, shave, and go spend a couple of bucks on something, I got a spending urge, not a big one, but like a damn mesquito bite size,….I better scratch it before it gets bigger.

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