The Case of the Silent Cell Phone

Xinh's post about the problems her parents (her father in particular) are having with their new cell phones reminded me of an incident at work last week.

One of the ladies was having a problem not hearing her cell phone ring. Her and another coworker had been calling it all morning but it hadn't rung once, so the coworker brought it to me to figure it out.

I went into the Settings and turned up the ring volume, then my coworker tried calling the Silent Cell Phone from her own cell phone.

It didn't ring.

I went back into the Settings. Yes, Ringer Volume was on loud.

I turned on Vibrate.

My coworker called the Silent Cell Phone again, but it remained silent, and it didn't vibrate.

I asked my coworker if the call went through, or if it just went straight into voicemail.

She informed me that she'd hung up as soon as she saw the Silent Cell Phone wasn't ringing.

I took the piece of paper on which the owner of the Silent Cell Phone had written down her number, and I called it from my work phone.

I put the call on speaker so we sat there listening to the phone on the other end ring...but the Silent Cell Phone remained silent.

Then the ringing on my phone stopped, and a voice came out of the speaker.

A little old lady's voice.

"Hello?"

I grabbed my phone's receiver. "Hi. Is this 555-1234?"

"Yes," said the little old lady.

"It is? Then I must have been given the wrong number. I'm terribly sorry to have bothered you."

I hung up and looked at my coworker.

She looked at me.

Then we both looked at the slip of paper in my hand with the wrong phone number written on it.

All morning my coworkers had been calling the little old lady at 555-1234, then hanging up on her.

We used the Silent Cell Phone to call my desk phone. My Caller ID showed the number to be 555-1243. I called that number. The Silent Cell Phone was no longer silent.

We then proceeded to call my first coworker all sorts of names.
I think Doofus was one of the nicer ones ;)