Shh...

Sometimes silence is the way to go. Just keeping your mouth shut. Not saying a word is the best course. Silence really is golden.

For those of you that know me well you are thinking, what? You never met a silence you didn't shatter!

Okay, sure, I'm a bit of a talker. I'm a very loud laugher. I share my opinion freely.

But sometimes...sometimes it's just better to sip your tea quietly.

When we first moved back to Oregon from Colorado Springs the ad agency I worked for moved into a smaller office, there were only four of us in the office full time. There was a small conference room, a lobby type area, and then the actual office space, three closed offices and an open area. The lease also came with three parking passes. So I gave the closed office to our media director and took the parking space.

As we got a few more people we carved out space for them. The lobby area got a desk that doubled as a reception desk and ad assistant space. The open area was creatively carved to fit a couple more desks and still give us some pretend feeling of personal space. Once we realized our next step was putting someone in the conference room we moved to a bigger space, but for awhile it worked.

When I came back to the agency I told them I was going to work only the hours Katie was in school. I didn't need to work more than that, I had been planning on going part time somewhere before going back to the agency, but I would give them full time hours, just my hours. I got there before everyone else and left early. Wrapping up calls or paperwork at home if needed. This worked well for awhile but eventually my hours stretched, because capitalism. I still tried to only be in the office the hours Katie was in school but there was more laptop work, and coming in one day over the weekend work.

So, anyway, back to the smaller office. When I would get in my routine was to pop my voicemail on speaker and listen to my messages while I opened up the office. It was a small enough space I could hear them clearly from everywhere but the conference room. And even in there I could sort of hear them, technically you could hear someone on speakerphone out in the hallway. I would hit play, and go about opening blinds and pulling faxes (yes, it was a while ago) and getting my own space ready for the day.

One morning in the middle of my opening routine I hear a new message start, "Hey, baby, I miss you." I didn't recognize the voice and was a bit confused and then...well the caller demonstrated how much they missed whoever it was they were calling for. It took me a second to understand what I was hearing then I raced back to my desk to disconnect the speaker phone. What the fuck? I mean, sort of literally, what the fuck? I did not listen to the end of the call, but the time stamp said it was a three minute message so... Deleted and went on my way.

Right after, and I mean within a minute or so, of stopping the speaker phone and deleting everything everyone else started to show up. The agency head and our creative director came in at the same time, they had been at a breakfast meeting and they brought me a donut. I made a joke about it must mean that they got the client and that I was going to have more work to do. Our creative director said I was being cynical and maybe they just missed me. Which made me choke and laugh, considering. They just thought I was being even more cynical by laughing at the thought.

Then our junior ad exec and our even more junior part time receptionist part time junior assistant came in. Our junior junior was a little rough around the edges. She'd been out the night before with her girlfriends. Since then she and her husband, boyfriend at the time, have found Jesus and gotten sober. No more late night party fest for her.

Everyone gets settled for the day and then I get an email message from our junior junior. Did I get a weird phone message? Oh, honey, don't...don't tell me anything. Just let's pretend that nothing ever happened. No messages no...just no.

So our phone tree was set up that if you didn't know someone's extension you could enter the first three letters of their last name and get their voicemail. Seems as though boyfriend, back home visiting family, got that messed up and entered the first three letters of her first name. And as he had been drinking and was doing "other things" he didn't really pay attention to the outgoing message before leaving his own. She figured it out when he said he'd left her a special message (and warned her not to put it on speaker phone) and there was nothing there.

I did not need to know if was from him. Not at all. I would have never said a word. Would have assumed it was a really odd mix-up or odd duck way of doing an obscene phone call. No caller ID at that time so I would have never known. I cannot say I wouldn't have figured it out at some point, the last name first name mix up had happened before, but I wouldn't have said a WORD about it.

Because silence is golden.

Why am I telling you this story now? Well two reasons, one, it's really funny in it's own way, and I don't think I've ever told anyone before. And two our junior junior is now the primary of her own agency and they send out this really cute newsletter. I'm on the list because I've always been supportive of my girls when they leave the nest, and I am so proud of her and all that she's accomplished. Well today was a "Get to Know Us!" section and it was the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to you at work.

The story she told did not even hold a candle to the real story. But I guess "the time my boyfriend masturbated in a phone message meant for me that actually went to my lead" is not exactly the image she wants to project. Sober and Jesus and head of her own place and all that.

But silence is golden and I am not going to correct her.

But it is a funny story.

Now that I never have to make eye contact with him again.