A few years back I was working for a toy company. I constructed their webpage, maintained their email, Internet servers, firewall and had a few other miscellaneous responsibilities. I had the title of “Webmaster.” (As a side note can I just say this is a really goofy title for someone with such technical expertise?)

My position with this company (let’s call them “Toy Mangers Inc.”) was in the Systems department right alongside the guys who maintained the servers, ran network and phone cabling and that sort of stuff.

Being in Systems had its benefits. I worked with a great bunch of guys and in working with them, I learned as much about servers and networking as I did about my own job. I guess the major drawback was that the department was horribly understaffed and all in all, we were often treated just a little better than the janitors.

With this in mind, we didn’t have an office. Our department was a small cluster of desks sitting on the perimeter of a giant room that housed the company’s sales department. Between the close proximity of thirty or forty other desks, jabbering and yelling sales people and a constant stream of people walking through the area — it’s really amazing that anyone got any work done. I rarely did.

And there were other distractions. One of our VP’s had a habit of yelling and screaming — sometimes over the office intercom and sometimes just at the top of his lungs. People wandered around the office visiting and chatting quite a bit. Nerf arrows, boomerangs and Frisbees were often in flight across the room – more times than not targeted right at your head. There was always something going on. You’d be able to concentrate for all of two minutes before something would grab or steal your attention from your work.

So anyway, sometime in my first year at Toy Manglers I really got upset about the frequent distractions and the fact that I was getting very little done. And finally I resorted to coming in on weekends when no one was there.

It was amazing how much I could get done. Late on Sunday night when no one was in the office, I could get about three full work days of programming done in about six hours! For awhile I was incredibly productive – and happy.

This worked out great for a few months until our company ended up doing the toys for the big summer blockbuster movie of the year. Our toys came with a special “bonus accessory” that, let us say, ‘required some assembly.’ The instructions included with the toy were – I have to admit – absolutely worthless. But that was ok, because someone higher-up had decided to include the company’s toll free number in the packaging with the statement, “Give us a call if you have any questions.”

The toys sold like crazy and as any idiot might guess, the phones started ringing off the hook day and night. They rang so much in fact that it overloaded our phone system. Calls from the operator’s switchboard up front started spilling over onto desks all over the office. It was mayhem.

The phones became a brand new distraction — especially on Sunday nights when I was all alone in the office trying to get work done. Kids from all over the world had gone out over the weekend, spent their allowance on the toy hit of the summer. And then when their toys’ “bonus accessory” didn’t work right, they called the 1-800 number.

The once quiet Sunday nights at Toy Manglers were no more. It was insane. First a phone on the desk to my left would start ringing, then the one to my right. Then MY phone would start ringing. The operator’s switchboard up front sounded like Beethoven’s 5th in a blender. It was hard to think straight with the distraction of all the ringing phones. (Even when I went home at night, I’d hear ghost phones ringing in my head.)

This went on for a few weeks. We complained and a new phone system was installed but before long the problem cropped up again.

And then one night I was working late, frantically trying to program some webpages that just had to be up the next day. The phones were ringing like crazy.

And I started freaking out.

These kids were stopping me from getting my work done! These little punks sitting in their bunk beds on their matching “GI Joe” sheets with their Spiderman phone in hand – they were the enemy. It was 9 PM on a Sunday night and god dammit, they should be in bed!!

“Give us a call if you have any questions”???!!! Every kid has questions for Christ’s sake! Have you ever met a kid who didn’t? Didn’t someone realize that before they printed our phone number on the stupid package??! Why doesn’t Toy Manglers have an answering service take these calls??! Why isn’t there customer service staff working nights and weekends??!

I sat in front of my computer brooding for a full half hour during which time I got nothing done. I got up and made a run to snack machines, I grabbed a soda, came back to my desk and the phones all over the room were ringing. I’d had enough.

I walked over to one of the ringing phones and hit the speakerphone button. Click.

Silence.. and then.

“Uh, hullo?” some really young kid says. I don’t say anything.

“I think someone answered the phone… hullo? hullo? Is anyone there?”

“Toy Manglers, can I help you?” I say finally with a heavy sigh of exasperation.

“Ummmmm… Uhhhhh… I bought a Super Alien Squealing Science Warrior and I can’t get… ummmmm. Uhhhh… and he won’t.”

“Excuse me,” I interrupt. “Toy Manglers is closed right now. It’s Sunday night and like most places, we’re closed for the weekend. You’ll have to call back during normal business hours.” Why am I trying to reason with this kid?

“Well, I just wanted to know…. Ummmmm…. Uhhhhhhhh. How to get this… to work right.”

“I’m sorry kid, I’m just the janitor,” I lie. “I don’t know how the toys work. You’ll have to call back tomorrow.”

“Oh, Ok. Bye.”

I repeated this with other phones across the office with similar results. All the calls were from kids who couldn’t get their toy’s “bonus accessory” to work. I kept answering the phone, explaining that the place was closed and they’d have to call back.

In retrospect, I think I was operating under the delusion that it was the same twenty kids calling over and over and over. But it wasn’t. It was thousands of them. The more I answered the phone, the more it rang.

You know, I should have just gone home. I should have resigned myself to the fact that Sunday nights were no longer a nice quiet time to get a lot of work done. But I didn’t.

I ran around the office and grabbed every toy I could find that made noise. I gathered up an “ape man” that screamed like Tarzan. I grabbed a Buzz Lightyear with “real-voice action.” I grabbed a Super Screeching Alien Madman — and anything else I could find that had a sound chip in it and ran back to my desk.

I took the Screeching Alien Madman Commander, set it next to one of the ringing phones and hit the speakerphone button. Then I pressed the button on the toy that made it scream…

Click..

“Rooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrr!!!!!! ROAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! RRRoooooaaaaahhhhhH!!!” the alien screeched into the phone.

I can hear the kid breathing on the other end of the phone but he doesn’t say anything. This wasn’t what he was expecting. He was waiting for that polite operator to answer the phone, “Toy Manglers, can I help you?” Except that’s not what happened.

“Rooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrr!!!!!! ROAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! RRRoooooaaaaahhhhhH!!!”

He listened to the alien roar for a few more seconds and then he hung up. Hey! That worked pretty well! I set up the toys at the next phone and hit the speakphone button again.

Click..

“Rooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrr!!!!!! ROAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! RRRoooooaaaaahhhhhH!!!”

Once again I can hear a kid breathing on the other end of the phone. I imagine him sitting there on his bed or on the living room couch with the phone to ear and his eyes open twice as large as usual. Did he just hear that right…?

“Rooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrr!!!!!! ROAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! RRRoooooaaaaahhhhhH!!!” the alien screams again.

“Ummmmm…. Uhhhhhhhh. Mom?” I can hear him trying to get his mother’s attention in the background. “Mom, a monster answered the phone.”

“What?” I hear a women say.

“A monster answered the phone,” the kids says again.

I hang up and almost fall to the floor laughing. I’m nearly in tears I’m laughing so hard by the time I answer the next call. This time I grab Buzz Lightyear.

Click.

I press the button on Buzz’s back. “I’m Buzz Lightyear!!!” Buzz yells into the phone to the caller. “I come in peace!”

Silence.

“I’m Buzz Lighyear!!!” the toy says again.

“It’s Buzz Lightyear!!!” a kid says in wonderment. “Buzz Lightyear is on the phone!” he says to some brother or sister in the background.

I hang up.

I couldn’t stop laughing. But I had to be quiet if this little toys answering the phone gig was going to work. So I covered my mouth and laughed and wheezed quietly in the background as the toys talked to the callers.

Pretty soon I had a little play going on with the toys. I’d hit the button on the speaker phone and…

Click.

“Rooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrr!!!!!! ROAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! RRRoooooaaaaahhhhhH!!!”

“I’m Buzz Lightyear!!! I come in peace!”

“Rooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrr!!!!!! ROAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! RRRoooooaaaaahhhhhH!!!”

“I’m Buzz Lightyear!!! I come in peace!”

“Rooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrr!!!!!! ROAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! RRRoooooaaaaahhhhhH!!!”

Then I’d hang up.

Some of the kids would try to talk to the toys.

“You’re not Buzz Lightyear!” they’d say.

Then would click the sound button and Buzz would reply. “I’m Buzz Lightyear!”

“No yooour’re noooot,” the kids would argue.

“I come in peace!” Buzz would insist.

Heh, I guess there really isn’t any ending to this story other than to say that answering the phone with toys kept me entertained for about an hour or so on that Sunday night. It put all the noisy ringing phones that were keeping me from getting any work done into a much more humorous light.

There was absolutely no harm in it. Oridinarily no one would answer the phones on a Sunday night. But that night about every 100th kid calling the Toy Manglers company had their call answered by a real live toy. I only wish I could have heard the stories they told to their parents, brothers and sisters or the kids at school the next day.

“I called Toy Mangers last night and ummm, toys were answering the phone.”