I Love Technology

Not too long ago, at my place of employment, the powers that be decided that we shall all have new telephones.

VOIP telephones. That is, phones that use the internet for transmission and reception of voice. The idea is that these new phones can do all sorts of things the old technology can’t do.

Personally, I was good with the old technology. There’s a lot to be said for the old technology. It worked. It was solid and reliable. It was made of iron and copper and Bakelite and cloth and it was substantial. I have a few of those old phones at home in my collection; they would have made a great weapon against, say, a would-be home invader. Try clobbering a burglar with a modern portable phone and see which of the two collapse.

And they didn’t require a PIN. A Personal Identification Number. For accessing one’s voice mail or configuring the phone.

These new VOIP phones need a PIN.

Really? Do I really need that much protection? Am I really in danger of some malicious entity sneaking in to my office and checking my voicemail? Or worse, changing the default menu language? Just picture the evil genius at work: “Bwah ha ha! I shall modify his outgoing message! With that, I shall conquer all!”

So I live with a phone that requires a PIN.

Only, I don’t know what the PIN is.

I don’t think I ever did. Since they announced the new phone roll-out, there had been emails. Lots of emails. Warning of the impending phone upgrade. For several weeks.

From previous experience, I know not to delete these emails. I have a special folder for saving corporate emails like this.

So when I got into a situation recently where I actually needed my pin to get into the phone’s highly complex inner workings, I could not find it. I searched these emails, looking for keywords such as “phone” and “voip” and “pin” and “how the heck do I check my voice messages”. I did find emails containing the advance warnings, emails providing the user’s guide, emails providing information about who to contact for further info.

But no PIN.

The reason I needed my pin was to get into the voicemail system and hopefully extinguish the phone’s RED WARNING LIGHT. It had been on for several days. I had thought this meant that I had a voicemail I hadn’t listened to, because usually after I get a voicemail and it comes on, then I listen to the voicemail and the light goes off.

You’re probably thinking: “If you don’t have your PIN, how do you get your voicemail?”

Good question, you! Because this new technology provides a cool additional feature, which I actually like: it sends voicemails to my email in a playable audio format, so I can listen to them via my laptop. Awesome! (It also has another feature where it attempts to translate the words into print, something it cannot do with any accuracy. My wife loves to play with this feature, leaving messages in which she recites nursury rhymes, songs from the ’80s or speaks in French. The thing tries to translate into meaningful English but gets off in the weeds in no time, leaving me a “preview” of nothing more than gibberish. Some day I may post about that.)

So for the most part, I haven’t needed my phone’s PIN. Everything I really need phone-wise I can get to without it.

Except for this stupid red light that won’t go away.

For three days this light glared at me, warning me of some unknown but obviously very serious electronic danger. The display on the phone merely said “You have voicemail.”

No, I clearly do NOT have voicemail. I have listened to my voicemail (as I recall, it was my wife and Michael, alternately reciting “eeny meeny miny mo” – which came out in the printed preview as “Hey any info tech” in case you’re interested). So Mr. Phone, you are mistaken. Now please put your light out. The end.

Yesterday I’d had enough. I asked our admin about it. She’s the one who knows about all this stuff. The one I go to when there’s an office issue that I cannot resolve.

“How do I find my PIN?” I asked.

“You got an email when they first came out,” she said calmly.

“Uh… I checked all those emails. I didn’t find one.”

“Well, you did.”

Thank you.

“What can I do?”

“Call the support center.”

So I called the support center.

I’m always hesitant to do this. A few years ago, our company decided that it would outsource our support group. We don’t have a support group here in the building anymore. We don’t have a support group in this city, state or country. I believe the support group is either in Mexico or India. Or somewhere between the two. Mexindia maybe.

After waiting on hold for approximately 30 minutes (but not a bad 30 minutes – they had the most soothing, soul-refreshing music on hold that I have ever listened to), a man came on to ask my issue. I don’t remember what he said his name was, but it did not match his accent in the slightest. He might as well have called himself Peggy.

“Vat keean eh du for yu?”

“I don’t know my PIN.”

“Vat Peen?”

“The one for my phone.”

“Chu min, for accessing voicemel or menu options or vat?”

“Voicemail, I guess. Whatever it’s asking for when I log in. I need to turn off the red light.”

“Oh! De red light ees on! Is probably error messuch.”

“Error message? It says I have voicemail.”

“Nuh, nuh. Eees error messuch. Yu can cleer dees by dihulink vun vun vun.”

“Okay…”

“Chust put me on hold, heng up und dihul vun vun vun. Den get me back on und let me know.”

“Okay.” I press the hold button, start a new call, and dial “1 1 1″

Bink! The light goes out. Hurray! No more spurious alarm!

After pressing a few more buttons, I got the guy back on line.

“Okay, that worked! The red light is off!”

“Gret. Dat cleerd out duh error messuch. Is der enyting else I kun help chu vit?”

“No, that’s all,” I said.

“Okay. Tank chu for callink!”

Click.

And that was it.

The error light is out! I can get on with my day, free from the accusatory red glare.

But I still don’t know my PIN. Probably just as well.