We had an all-hands meeting for all the BMS people in Fort Wayne yesterday where our section chief, branch leader, third-level-VP, whatever flew in from Massachusetts, or Texas, or wherever our division is headquartered this week, and briefed us on our 2002 financials and plans for 2003. There was a Q&A afterwards, and I'd just asked a question (no problem doing that, unlike this day) and the Boss was just starting to answer when flower_goddess paged me with the 'call home now' code. So there I was, standing with a wireless mike in my hand in front of about 500 people, while the Boss was going on with his three-minute answer to what should have been a ten-second question. What to do? I couldn't just walk away to call home--that would have been a definite Career-Limiting Move. So I had to sweat it out, waiting for either the Boss to finish his answer (so I could gracefully exit) or flower_goddess to page me with the "drop whatever the $%&# you're doing and call home right $%&#ing NOW!" code (at which point I would have walked, on the basis that work consequences pale in comparison to flower_goddess consequences).
Meanwhile, somebody's cell phone rang. The guy looked at it and left the meeting area (lucky bastard). Ten seconds later, somebody else's cell phone rang, and he left the meeting area. Suddenly, all I could think about was "Oh, shit, what building just got blown up?" Mercifully, about this time, the Boss finished his answer, or at least just stopped talking--I couldn't tell, as I was having difficulty focusing--so I nodded gratefully, handed the mike to one of the communications support guys (hi Jerry!), and left. In retrospect, that probably looked bad enough--"Oh sure, Carter gets his answer and bails". So I found a phone and called flower_goddess, expecting her first words to be "Turn on CNN!" Turns out the bookstore had called and said they couldn't find my textbook used and would new be OK?
Well, at least she didn't use the "call home right $%&#ing NOW!" code...