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Being That Guy

I was That Guy today at work. I feel shame.

I had an online/teleconference (Microsoft NetMeeting for the visuals, and a phone dial-in for the audio) to attend today. I usually don’t do these — most of the time, I go to meetings in person or there’s a group of us in a conference room all teleconferencing.

So I log in, dial in, and start listening via speakerphone. It goes for a while, and it’s kind of boring, so I’m only sort of paying attention. A co-worker comes to my cube and starts chitchatting — and then I hear from the phone, “Someone needs to mute their phone, please.”

I turn and glance at my phone, and see a solid arrow next to the mute button — meaning (or so I think) that the phone is muted. Coincidence, I tell myself — I’m muted, and I remember hitting mute when I dialed in, anyway. It must be someone else that just happened to be having a conversation at the same time. The co-worker and I continue our conversation after the brief timeout.

But it happens again — another request for silence. This time, the co-worker shrugs and wanders off after finishing what he was saying. A bit confused, I wander to a nearby cube.

“Hey, when your phone is muted, you get a solid arrow next to that button on the phone, right?”

“No… you get a blinking arrow.”

Oops.

Tue May 24th, 2005 4:52 pm

Filed under Life

9 comments

  1. Mal said:
    May 25th, 2005 1:51 pm

    Oo, way to be.

  2. Andrew said:
    May 25th, 2005 1:59 pm

    thanks. I do what I can.

  3. Kaitlin said:
    May 26th, 2005 8:41 am

    To be fair, neither of those–blinking or solid arrow–are obvious, at least from your description.

    And now you know.

    Putz! <3

  4. Kaitlin said:
    May 26th, 2005 8:45 am

    Wait a minute. Did that just turn my double-hyphen-to-create-a-dash into a hyphen? Makes it read weird. Frown!

  5. Kaitlin said:
    May 26th, 2005 8:47 am

    SIGH That’s a poor excuse for an em-dash.

  6. James said:
    May 27th, 2005 8:15 pm

    Nice Andy. I guess it could have gone worse though.

  7. Andrew said:
    May 29th, 2005 11:55 pm

    Kaitlin — Sorry, that’s the markup software I have installed… sorry it’s not agreeing with you :( but if it makes you feel better, I understand what you said! :)

    James — Yeah, I could have been saying something really stupid… which would not be at all out of character

  8. Rob said:
    June 17th, 2005 2:48 pm

    I’m gratified that someone else out there knows what an em dash is. It warms my heart.

  9. Andrew said:
    June 17th, 2005 2:59 pm

    The emdash, always the bastard in typography… I’m trying to be more consistent with emdashing when I code newsletters (if I do a straight copy/paste, it never comes out right, usually because it didn’t get to me right) — in no small part because of your influence, Rob!

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