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Where Has Your Cell Phone Been?
"Incident 1: A group of us were standing around the front desk after a meeting. The VP walks up (management are supplied with phones as well in case client calls get escalated) and someone says, 'I tried calling you last night but you weren't answering your cell phone.' The VP replies 'Yeah, my dog ate it!' Everyone laughed thinking it was a modern day take on the 'my dog ate my homework' story. Everyone laughed even harder when he reached into his pocket and pulled out a Ziploc bag full of small pieces of electronics and black plastic, handed it to the administrative assistant at the desk and said 'Please order me a new one.' His German Shepard saw the phone sitting on the coffee table and thought it would make a good chew toy.
Incident 2: While waiting for an important call from a client, one of the support guys was carrying the cell phone with him absolutely everywhere. The team leader knew this, and while he was on the phone with another client (on a speakerphone), he was surprised to see this support person come rushing into his cubicle without the cell phone. The team leader looked curiously at the support guy wondering what was going on and got a mumbled response:
'I flmsdd shll fdn dbn tlt.'
'You what?'
'I flushed the cell phone down the toilet!'
A burst of laughter came from the other end of the speakerphone, and the client says 'I think I'll call back later, it sounds like you've got your own problems.'
'How the h**l did you flush the cell phone down the toilet?', the team leader continues.
'Well, I was waiting for that important call to come in, and I had to go to the bathroom so I took the phone with me. When I finished, I stood up and flushed the toilet and heard a "plop". Looking down all I could see was the phone (a StarTac) swirling lower and lower in the bowl, then it was gone.'
The burst of laughter from the surrounding people was nothing compared to the laughter a few minutes later when the support person was crouched with his head over the toilet listening for the phone while the team leader dialed the number. Not being able to hear anything they counted the phone lost, and put in a requisition for a new one.
A couple of weeks later, no one was really surprised when a plumber had to be called in because one of the toilets kept backing up. Half an hour later the plumber left, leaving a tightly sealed bag containing a now black and brown cell phone at the front desk. The phone was proudly(?) displayed in the support person's office for several weeks afterward until one extremely brave co-worker took the phone home, and after a very thorough drying, cleaning and sterilization, replaced the battery and brought the once again working phone back to the office! . . . of course everyone still refused to use it."
Most of my phones end up in the lake. Fisrt time it was in my pocket when I fell overboard. The canoe was unstable, I realized it was going and jumped before the entire canoe went.. Overall I lost less than if the contents of the canoe went down, but the phone didn't survive.
Next one I put in a ziplock bag in the waterproof compartment of my jetski, but when I arrived at my destination the phone was wet. Never worked again.
Yeah I've seen the sites on how to care for a phone that falls overboard, but they didn't work, at least not for me.
I used to have a Nokia 8290. TINY little phone. I came home from work to change clothes becaus I had been climbing around on rooftops setting up a 802.11b building to building wireless network. So I was in a rush to change/shower and get back to work. I threw me dirty clothes in the dryer and left to work. Once I got back to work and went to search for my cellphone because I used it to keep all my contacts, I realized it was missing. Then I realized where it was! It was probably mid spin cycle at home! So I left work and rushed home to see if I could save the phone. It was SOAKED, but very clean now. I took the thing apart.. every little peice. dried them off with a towel and let them lay on the counter top for a few days.. I put the sim card in my backup phone, a Nokia 3390, and it worked just fine.. I hated that 3390! There is no "Decline call" option when someone is calling you.. All you can do is turn off the phone! Anyways.. 3 days later I reassembled the 8290, swaped the sim card back into it.. and it worked just fine. Very clean too. This was 2 years ago and the phone is still in operation. A friend of mine has it now.
Microsoft Windows runs on stress and frustration.
I worked as a consultant for a big big big bank. I was nominally in a team of 4 people--one was busy being a manager, one didn't do f***-all, one was usually too busy with wife & kids (ok I accept that one) and one preferred to spend his time playing with new tech. So, being the only contractor, it fell to me to get shit done.
Even though we had an on-call rota system, where our landline hotline number was forwarded to the company cell of whoever was on call that week, I inevitably ended up being called in, often very drunk, to fix problems that weren't my problem. Firewall issue? Call the firewall guys. Database issue? Call the firewall guys. Company web server dead? Call the firewall guys. Aunt Edna's refrigerator won't defrost? Call the firewall guys.
It got to the point where my colleagues would forward calls from the company's _customers_ to me. Once, on top of a very very high mountain, once on another continent, once while getting busy (no I didn't pick it up, but as a helpful tip, always turn off the mobile when you're with your girlfriend. Few things are more of a mood-killer than 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' as a Nokia ringtone when things get hot and heavy.)
So, finally, one day, I managed to get reservations at the most difficult-to-get-into restaurant in town, and just as we'd ordered our drinks, the fucking phone rings. Support issue from one of the unix idiots, and I'm not even on call. All the other guys are several hundred miles away and can't dial in (including the EOC.) So, I take a few deep breaths, tell the maitre d' we'd be back, and THROW THE FUCKING PHONE AS HARD AS I CAN AND STEP ON IT AND JUMP AND SCREAM INSULTS AT IT argh argh argh! You know the feeling, when things like that just sort of come to a head? That's the one.
Official version, "a cab ran over it." Despite the footprints on what was left of the display. Nobody ever asked about it, since that would have cost them a lot of goodwill from the only guy willing to drive crosstown at 3 a.m. after several pints to fix their trading system, while not on the call rota.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
In the nearby large city, I heard they were having some problems with this. Apparently young couples with cellphones would experiment with the vibe feature, but some actually have the cellphone vibrate itself out of reach.
Buzzz...oh...oH...OH...pop and it's gone
Several embarrassed females/couples ended up in hospitals to have a doctor remove "lost" cellphones.
has to share a cell phone? I was kind of with you when you talked about tech people, but a company where a VP has to share a phone is... well, let's just hope your check clears next week.
Seriously... I work in the Auto industry, as a Quality Engineer (basically, a customer support bitch who has some specific skills). My customer is General Motors, several plants in the Detroit area. The company I went to told me that they would not be issuing me a cell phone or pager nor reimbursing me for my Nextel because it is not "economically value added." Needless to say, once a week or so, I get a nasty voicemail on my office phone asking why the hell I don't have a cell phone because they have a line stoppage and no one to contact--my boss (management gets the phones) turns his off after work.
Needless to say, I forward those voicemails to him!
The higher, the fewer.