Things to do when you're bored at work

Every day at 1 o'clock, our receptionist takes her lunch break. During this time, I play secretary. No, Administrative Assistant. No, Office Administrative Telecommunications Specialist. Yeah... that's the one.

Once in a while, somebody mistakes our phone line for a fax line and leaves their fax machine to redial every few minutes. Please don't do this. Today's lunch hour played out something like this:

1:04 PM:
*Phone rings*
Me: "Hello [company name]"
Other end of the line: "EEEEEE, EEEEEE, BOOO, bip, BOOOO" (fax machine sounds)
Me: (loudly) "THIS IS NOT A FAX LINE"
(I do this because the person sending the fax can usually hear it on the fax speaker)

This repeats at 1:06, 1:09, 1:15 and 1:22.

It has become obvious nobody's supervising the fax machine on the other end. The only way to end this, it seems, is to try to negotiate some kind of compromise between the fax machine and myself. The first step: Establish communication.

So at 1:25 the phone rings and I start yelling into the receiver:

"EEEEEEEEEE, BOOOOOOOOOOOOO, KKHHHHRRRRR"

*pause*

"KKHHHHHRRR"

It's around this point that my co-workers start poking their heads into my office. I casually dismiss them with the universal "One sec, I'm on the phone" hand gesture.

I then continue with intermittent "KKHHHHHRRRR" sounds.

Unfortunately, this does not work and the calls keep coming. On the plus side, I have extended my personal bubble by a few feet.