Dial 9 for the Outside World…(only)

pitviper

[PHONE RINGS]

Frantic Caller: “every time that I try to call Rosa’s extension @ x office the police show up”
“it only happens from my phone; Pam can call her with no problems”

me: “hmm, that’s odd – can you walk me through how you are placing the call?”

Frantic Caller: “well, I dial a 9, then the extension 1100…”

chmorin

pitviper wrote: »

[PHONE RINGS]

Frantic Caller: “every time that I try to call Rosa’s extension @ x office the police show up”
“it only happens from my phone; Pam can call her with no problems”

me: “hmm, that’s odd – can you walk me through how you are placing the call?”

Frantic Caller: “well, I dial a 9, then the extension 1100…”

It was only a matter of time before this happened. Made me smile!

peanutnoggin

pitviper wrote: »

[PHONE RINGS]

Frantic Caller: “every time that I try to call Rosa’s extension @ x office the police show up”
“it only happens from my phone; Pam can call her with no problems”

me: “hmm, that’s odd – can you walk me through how you are placing the call?”

Frantic Caller: “well, I dial a 9, then the extension 1100…”

HAHA!! I haven't had a laugh like this in a while! That is awesome!!

-Peanut

pitviper

I guess the moral of the story is…Pam has a much higher IQ! (that and an access code of “8” would have been nice).

peanutnoggin

Yeah, but with an access code of 8, you wouldn't have funnies such as this... BTW... did the police show up at her desk on more than one occasion? If so, that story just got that much funnier!!! HAHA.

-Peanut

pitviper

peanutnoggin wrote: »

BTW... did the police show up at her desk on more than one occasion? If so, that story just got that much funnier!!! HAHA.

-Peanut

Yes, 5 times in a week – the office started getting charged a fee of something like $300 per incident, after the 3rd time. If the site was closer I would have snagged a pic of the call log – I walked the office manager through checking the offending phone after-hours and she found ALL of the calls.

At least the person was honest – I sometimes get the “all I did was hit the voicemail button and the cops showed up” story which always leads to me having to explaining to 15 people why its a physical impossibility!

chmorin

pitviper wrote: »

At least the person was honest – I sometimes get the “all I did was hit the voicemail button and the cops showed up” story which always leads to me having to explaining to 15 people why its a physical impossibility!

I had a similar case like that when a phone in a public area was 'automatically and continually calling the police'. There was no way in the configuration that that phone would just magically dial the number. It was just not set up that way, period. And it didn't, I tested it. The police tested it, but they still claim the phone was malfunctioning.

Couldn't possibly be someone playing a joke and calling 911 on a public phone. No, not possible.

Flyingput

hahahaahha

We dial 9 for any outside number, too. If some1 is calling a long distance number, he/she has to dial 9 1 Nxx Nxx XXXX. Of course 911 route patterns all have that <Urgent routing> check box checked.

oops, fat finger, a user presses 1 twice times. 911 is sent out. Usually he/she realizes it immediately and guess what? They hang up right away. Actually this is the worst case. Our local police station can't figure out what's going on. So they have to come to our front door. You can imagine how they feel after a couple of such fake alerts...

We try to educate our employees NOT to hang up if they dial 911. Just tell the police it's a mistake or everything is OK. FAILED. I guess it's human's nature to hang it up right away to stop that 911 call. Unfortunately, IP phones are wayyyyyyy faster than people.

At the beginning I had to explain the situation to police officers whenever they were at the front door. Some understood (one even mentioned using 8 as the outside code to avoid 911 fat fingers) but some were really mad. Finally our local police stop coming out for our 911 calls unless some one stays on the line and asks for urgent help.

peanutnoggin

Flyingput wrote: »

hahahaahha

We dial 9 for any outside number, too. If some1 is calling a long distance number, he/she has to dial 9 1 Nxx Nxx XXXX. Of course 911 route patterns all have that <Urgent routing> check box checked.

oops, fat finger, a user presses 1 twice times. 911 is sent out. Usually he/she realizes it immediately and guess what? They hang up right away. Actually this is the worst case. Our local police station can't figure out what's going on. So they have to come to our front door. You can imagine how they feel after a couple of such fake alerts...

We try to educate our employees NOT to hang up if they dial 911. Just tell the police it's a mistake or everything is OK. FAILED. I guess it's human's nature to hang it up right away to stop that 911 call. Unfortunately, IP phones are wayyyyyyy faster than people.

At the beginning I had to explain the situation to police officers whenever they were at the front door. Some understood (one even mentioned using 8 as the outside code to avoid 911 fat fingers) but some were really mad. Finally our local police stop coming out for our 911 calls unless some one stays on the line and asks for urgent help.

I guess its the old case of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"!!

-Peanut

chmorin

peanutnoggin wrote: »

I guess its the old case of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"!!

-Peanut

Which worries me, because the boy getting eaten is the equivalent of a harmful lawsuit in this case.

pitviper

Not sure if it's state dependent - but around there they are required to respond even if you tell them the call was in error. I agree though - sounds like a nasty lawsuit in the event of a real emergency.

GT-Rob

Flyingput wrote: »

hahahaahha

We dial 9 for any outside number, too. If some1 is calling a long distance number, he/she has to dial 9 1 Nxx Nxx XXXX. Of course 911 route patterns all have that <Urgent routing> check box checked.

oops, fat finger, a user presses 1 twice times. 911 is sent out. Usually he/she realizes it immediately and guess what? They hang up right away. Actually this is the worst case. Our local police station can't figure out what's going on. So they have to come to our front door. You can imagine how they feel after a couple of such fake alerts...

We try to educate our employees NOT to hang up if they dial 911. Just tell the police it's a mistake or everything is OK. FAILED. I guess it's human's nature to hang it up right away to stop that 911 call. Unfortunately, IP phones are wayyyyyyy faster than people.

At the beginning I had to explain the situation to police officers whenever they were at the front door. Some understood (one even mentioned using 8 as the outside code to avoid 911 fat fingers) but some were really mad. Finally our local police stop coming out for our 911 calls unless some one stays on the line and asks for urgent help.

This is actually pretty common in North America, when you think in a large company the sequence 9-1 could be dialed hundreds of times a day, its only a matter of time before someone hits it twice

For that reason, we use 5 to get out. Some companies don't have this option though, if you are using 1-8 already for extensions, 9 but be the only option. Im sure the local emergency services love it though!

Trifidw

GT-Rob wrote: »

This is actually pretty common in North America, when you think in a large company the sequence 9-1 could be dialed hundreds of times a day, its only a matter of time before someone hits it twice

For that reason, we use 5 to get out. Some companies don't have this option though, if you are using 1-8 already for extensions, 9 but be the only option. Im sure the local emergency services love it though!

Could also avoid using extensions starting with 1. A lot of people are used to using 9 for external lines.

MentholMoose

Heh nice topic. I saw a ticket once where someone requested that the 9-1-1 auto-complete be disabled or at least extended, since it kept calling 9-1-1 before they could finish dialing the numbers after pressing 9 and 1. The voice team's response was very diplomatic, just saying there was no such feature, and please stop dialing 9-1-1.

GT-Rob

Trifidw wrote: »

Could also avoid using extensions starting with 1. A lot of people are used to using 9 for external lines.

Im pretty sure we do (would have to double check), but its actually long distance calling that does it, since in north america +1 is our national code.


So 9, 1-555.555.5555 can easily be hit as 9, 1-1 doh my fat fingers called the fire department. :P

Trifidw

GT-Rob wrote: »

Im pretty sure we do (would have to double check), but its actually long distance calling that does it, since in north america +1 is our national code.


So 9, 1-555.555.5555 can easily be hit as 9, 1-1 doh my fat fingers called the fire department. :P

Ah, didn't realise that. Think I'd also look at changing the dial external line digit too in that case.

Since first posting in this thread someone dialled 999 right in front of me! "do you work with the phone system? These beeps sound really harsh to my ear on this phone. Look!" *user dials loads of 9's* me face palms... lol.

chmorin

Trifidw wrote: »

Ah, didn't realise that. Think I'd also look at changing the dial external line digit too in that case.

Since first posting in this thread someone dialled 999 right in front of me! "do you work with the phone system? These beeps sound really harsh to my ear on this phone. Look!" *user dials loads of 9's* me face palms... lol.

Did you show her the volume button?

I would seriously face palm too if someone approached me with that.

Trifidw

chmorin wrote: »

Did you show her the volume button?

I would seriously face palm too if someone approached me with that.

Nods. It was at full volume so I turned it down to the same level the 'good phone' was at in front of her but wasn't satisfied. I went through the settings until she turned away and turned it down loads. "what ever you did has made it much better!"

Does everyone in IT try and separate them selves from end users as much as possible? I'm usually the contact second line (who deal with computers only and are customer facing) go to for things network based.