Calling my office

The best phone call I ever got here (excluding the ones offering me roles I want) was for one of our engineers. The call bounced from her voicemail to the front desk and I answered.

"Is X in today? I keep getting her voicemail."
"I'm sorry, sir, she's on a different floor than me, I really don't know."
"Oh. That's too bad. This is her parole officer." (Engineer X is about as likely to have a parole officer as I am to have a sky diving instructor.)
"Sir, I can't tell you how very sorry I am right now what we don't have an all-office paging system."

Really improved my day.

Then there are the folks who don't improve my day by calling here. Here's how not to be one of them:

1. Don't call here because our number showed up on your caller ID. We have over 100 people here. I have no idea who called you. And it was probably a wrong number anyway. Just move on.

2. Don't call here from the drive-through and expect me to hold while you finish placing your order. (I wish I was making that one up. Especially as it has happened more than once.)

3. Don't call here and when I answer ask "Is this Y?" Y being some member of management or some other staffer who earns three times what I do and is unlikely - at best - to be answering the phone.

4. Don't call here and give me a long intro paragraph on who you are and why you I are calling. I largely don't need to know. I want to know who you are calling, so that I can put you through and take the next call.

And if you are an automatic dialer for a telemarker or a telemarketer pretending to be the guy who services the copier, then just don't call here.