Yesterday was an amusing first for me. While I was on the phone for work, discussing with my colleague Bob the various options for some of the electronics in our newest product, Buster the rooster began crowing. When I told Bob what it was, he said "oh, good, I was hoping that wasn't you making those sounds."
Now, ordinarily, one does not associate crowing roosters with high-tech electronics design. Then again, one ordinarily imagines roosters crowing "at the break of dawn" (as the Dylan song goes), but I can assure you that is not Buster's strong point. The other day when I went to let the chickens out at about 8am, they looked more sleepy than I was. In contrast, 3:30 in the afternoon seemed to Buster like a fine time for crowing. Perhaps he had just found a particularly nice roost, as he did the other day with the stack of locust poles that Laura is planning to use for her garden gate. At the end of the call, Bob suggested that I ought to go out and "give that rooster a piece of my mind."
At first, I guess I was a bit embarrassed by having sounds normally associated with farmyards in the background of my work phone call. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like someone else's problem... probably society's at large. The fact is, Buster interrupts me far less often, and rather more pleasantly, than the telemarketers and salespeople who have now been instructed to call at the most awful times in hopes of actually getting you to answer the phone. There are plenty of times when I've lost my train of thought in the midst of some tricky software development work because FedEx is banging on the door, or someone needs help logging into Outlook. (Which, by the way, is
not part of my job description.)
All in all, I think I prefer a crowing rooster and some cackling guinea hens. Considering how much more efficiently I can work from home, my boss probably does too.
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