Chain Of Events

Yesterday afternoon, my co-workers shared a mighty laugh at my expense. I figure, you might as well also.

Unfortunate Event #1
It all started with Gentleman Caller "Primera". Primera called because he was having trouble previewing changes on our web site. The changes involved over 100 Megabytes of music and video files, which I manually copied to our test site. That was when I learned that Primera was "previewing" on the live site. At this point, there really should have been a small lecture on the meaning of the word "Preview", but I just didn't have it in me. I got to manually copy the 100 Megabytes of goodies again, this time to the live site.

Total Call Time: at least a half hour

Unfortunate Event #2
Gentleman Caller "Segundas" called within seconds of me hanging up from Primera's adventure. Segundas was trying to figure out a tricky network issue that is affecting a web page I made. The fun part was in trying to explain the issue to him. Segundas would say, "So what you're saying is, when you [do this, do that], then [boom]." And I'd say, "No, what I said was that [step one, step two], then [boom]." This would be followed by, "Oh... so what you're saying is...". And again I'd say, "No, what I *said* was...". This pattern never really changed.

Total Call Time: 20 minutes or so

Brief Sidebar
Within a few minutes, my phone rang again. I didn't answer it. As soon as it stopped, Farmer's phone started ringing. Farmer picked up. "Yeah, Jeff's here, he's just ignoring his phone. He'll pick up this time." As my phone started to ring again, Farmer told me, "It's Tercius."

This time I picked up. Tercius said hi, and I said, "How do you like my caller ID?" The response was gales of laughter, from Farmer and from Tercius. This leads to...

Unfortunate Event #3
Gentleman Caller "Tercius", obviously, had a crisis that only I could solve. The problem would involve way too many technical details to outline here. Suffice to say, it was an aggravating challenge, and I wasn't really in the mood for one of those. Tercius, at least, was sympathetic to my plight.

Total Call Time: 20 minutes or so

Another Brief Sidebar
At this point, I turned to Farmer and Big Dawg, pointed dramatically at my office phone and announced, "I will not answer this phone again today." The echos of my statement had not even begun to die away when my cell phone started to ring.

Unfortunate Event #4
My cell phone's caller ID told me it was Gentleman Caller "Cuartos". Cuartos, a recent former employee, had a reputation of dropping annoying projects on us unexpectedly. To get a call from him was often not considered to be a good thing. I'm on friendly terms with Cuartos, but I was not in a friendly mood.

I wept loudly and openly. I can't really sanitize and summarize the call, because I was pretty manic by that point. The Golfer came out of his office to see what the laughing and wailing was all about. Almost in tears, Big Dawg pointed at me and proclaimed, "Cuartos just called him!"

Cuartos' reputation is mighty. We nearly lost the Golfer to an intense bout of laughter. Heck, for that matter, we nearly lost *me* to an intense bout of despair. I wound up collapsed in a heap on the floor, without the will to move.

Total Call Time: 10 minutes or so

Well, that's my story. I could have just said "Phones Stink", but that wouldn't have been as fun. :)