Following the departure of Mr Speakerphone and numerous others around the floor, the new blood has started to arrive. As yesterday morning one bloke had already positioned himself in the office next to my desk. No sooner had I arrived than I found him starting up a speakerphone conversation with someone to find a meeting room.
With his office door open.
Uh uh. No way. I’m not going through this again.
So I got up and went to close his door. He was just finishing. I explained to him that it was loud, that I could hear the entire conversation. He seemed to accept that with good grace, and I hope he’ll keep it in mind the next time he wants to have a chat with somebody and not have to hold the phone, and I won’t have to quote the Occupational Health and Safety rules at him.
Why do people have this fascination with speakerphone conversations anyway? Almost every time it’s not like they’re urgently doing something else and need their hands free – they’re usually sitting right in front of the phone, hands in front of them, talking into it. I mean, I could understand it if he were busy typing something, mousing around some important spreadsheet, or calling a phone sex line, but he wasn’t.
Today more people flooded in. One woman arrived with all her stuff – computer, phone, headset, books… very serious and business-like… until she unpacked four cuddly toys to sit on the shelf above her desk.
Meanwhile in television land…
Nostalgia goes prime time. From September the ABC will be returning Doctor Who to our screens, 6pm Monday to Thursday. If they’d team it up with The Goodies again it would be just like when I was a kid.
Now, cynics might say it’s part of the Howard government’s campaign to chop the ABC’s budget so it can barely afford anything else, and push us back to the fifties. I suppose returning a 1963 vintage TV show to prime time will get us a fair way there. For me, I’ll just enjoy the memories. My kids will no doubt enjoy it too – and finally some of their friends will understand what they are on about when talking about regeneration, Daleks and the TARDIS… if the ABC publicity department play this right, a new wave of Dalekmaniacould take over the school grounds of Australia by late September. But I do fear for one aspect of their education, with the scrapping of Behind The News.
