Overheard in SSF

Coming out of the men's room at the office, I passed the little alcove where a door leads to the fire stair. Standing in this alcove was one of the women who works here, standing with her face turned away from passers-by, saying urgently into a cell phone:

"It could happen anywhere!"

What small potential tragedy was she relaying, I wondered. But I went on and overheard nothing more. There are many little alcoves in our office where we seek privacy to deal with the outside world. No longer taking personal calls on our desk phones, because our cubicles offer only a little visual privacy but no audial privacy, we take our cell phones away to these little corners and vacant conference rooms, there to have furtive conversations with spouses, kindergarten teachers, doctors' offices, or the company we're secretly interviewing at.

I once shared a large office with three other people in the days before everyone had a cell phone. One of my co-workers received regular calls from her child's preschool. Once she picked up the phone for one such call, listened for a moment, and then asked: "Was it projectile?"

technorati: overheard