The Ringer

What do you do when you have a boss who is offended by noise? I mean reeeally offended.... Every cough, sneeze, throat clearing and cell phone not on vibrate just sends him into a fit where someone (usually me) will suffer dearly for his discomfort. I would say that to avoid the ensuing rage, you would want to try to watch for any conceivable noise maker within earshot of the overly sensitive tyrant. You would want to search out and find these offenders and quiet them.

That is, if you were not on borrowed time.

Having said all of that, I give you.....The Ringer.

Look at the picture with the red arrow. That button is the notorious "ringer" button. Each and every work phone has one.
Push once for a quieted ringer, the standard and preferred office ringer.
Push twice for a loud home phone volume ringer, a bit uncomfortable in a quiet office and louder than preferred via company guidelines.
Push three times for an uncomfortably loud ringer that will make everyone "prarie-dog" over the cubicles to try to discern who is the rude asshole who doesn't get it, that this is an office.
So you are saying push three times?
I would agree with you except for one thing......

There is a FOURTH setting.

Push four times and you are the recipient of a near air-raid siren volume ringer that can be heard from outside of the building. God knows why that setting exists except for possibly the trading floor on Wall Street in a bull market, mid-day you may have wanted to receive an order.
(No, the earpiece does not follow suit in volume increments, I already investigated that angle.)

So how to implement?

Turning up "his" volume is way too predictable, and too easily remedied. No, thats not what we are looking for. We are looking for a Manchurian Candidate; someone who is oblivious to the fact they are an offender until its too late. When you are the second person at work in the morning and the first person is your friend, the world is your oyster. I have a sea of waiting phones, all set to "ringer one" ; just waiting for their chance to alert the cubicle slave that a voice communication transmission is waiting for them to accept in a non offending manner. So do you pay back those who are most deserving? Do you set them ALL to ringer 4? The answer is no.
Why you may ask?
Simple. Because the fun will be over all too soon. By selecting 3 phones at random, the fun can and will continue like little trip-wire grenades all over the cube farm. This fun will not be discovered for days, the agony to Mr. sensitive ears will go on for days or weeks and no one will be the wiser. OH, the memos and reminders will be created to silence loud phones, but it will do no good, and the offensive behavior will go on and on. His ears will bleed and his rage will grow at random times during the day. He can't believe that no one is taking his memo seriously! A simple request that cannot be followed by the damned untermench! OH the GOD DAMN annoyance! My poor poor sensitive ears! Its not poor management, its all the stupid people under me! AAAAAHHHHHH I hate you all! BASTARDS!

Take comfort knowing we are already on day three.