Back when I first started in my industry, a friend of mine from uni landed a job at my company, too. The place was four levels with an atrium in the middle. I was on the third floor, and [Friend] was on the first floor, but I could see him from my desk. He didn’t know this yet, and he didn’t know where I was seated.
I let him get settled in for the morning, and then I anonymously messaged him through our internal messaging system.
Me: “[Friend], meet me at my office immediately.”
I watched as he looked around the office, slightly panicked.
Friend: “Sorry, who is this? And can I ask where your office is?”
Me: “Now, [Friend], I don’t have time for this.”
He started to look really panicked. Then, he got up and walked into the atrium and stood turning round in circles, looking at the offices. I felt bad about it then and waved down to him.
Me: “Now, [Friend]!”
Being the good-hearted guy he was, he laughed and mouthed, “C**t,” and I went back to work giggling.
A few days later, I started hearing a very occasional and very high-pitched “eeee”-like beep in the office I shared with two others. It was VERY subtle — almost out of our hearing spectrum, to the point where I wasn’t sure if I was hearing it.
But once I did accept that I really was hearing it, it became more and more noticeable with each beep, and more and more irritating. The timing was unpredictable — sometimes ten minutes between beeps, thirty minutes between, two minutes, an hour, etc. — so I let it go for quite a while before I started to accept that I might be going mad and asked the others if they heard it. They both looked almost relieved and said they did, and it was driving them mad, too.
So, we started looking around the office, pulling shelves apart, emptying drawers, and pulling pictures down. I even sat outside the office for a few hours to make sure it wasn’t coming from outside. (It wasn’t.)
Read this on Not Always Right:
Back when I first started in my industry, a friend of mine from uni landed a job at my company, too. The place was four levels with an atrium in the middle. I was on the third floor, and [Friend] was on the first floor, but I could see him from my desk. He didn’t know this yet, and he didn’t know where I was seated.
I let him get settled in for the morning, and then I anonymously messaged him through our internal messaging system.
Me: “[Friend], meet me at my office immediately.”
I watched as he looked around the office, slightly panicked.
Friend: “Sorry, who is this? And can I ask where your office is?”
Me: “Now, [Friend], I don’t have time for this.”
He started to look really panicked. Then, he got up and walked into the atrium and stood turning round in circles, looking at the offices. I felt bad about it then and waved down to him.
Me: “Now, [Friend]!”
Being the good-hearted guy he was, he laughed and mouthed, “C**t,” and I went back to work giggling.
A few days later, I started hearing a very occasional and very high-pitched “eeee”-like beep in the office I shared with two others. It was VERY subtle — almost out of our hearing spectrum, to the point where I wasn’t sure if I was hearing it.
But once I did accept that I really was hearing it, it became more and more noticeable with each beep, and more and more irritating. The timing was unpredictable — sometimes ten minutes between beeps, thirty minutes between, two minutes, an hour, etc. — so I let it go for quite a while before I started to accept that I might be going mad and asked the others if they heard it. They both looked almost relieved and said they did, and it was driving them mad, too.
So, we started looking around the office, pulling shelves apart, emptying drawers, and pulling pictures down. I even sat outside the office for a few hours to make sure it wasn’t coming from outside. (It wasn’t.)
Contd