I hate dialing 9 to get an outside line

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

At least on our internal system at work. I've dialed 911 twice in the past 6 months now. The buttons on my phone are a bit hard to press so when I dial... 9-1-510 (area code), sometimes the 5 doesn't press and I get totally screwed.

To make matters worse it's impulse when you misdial to hang up, and so now the dispatch is trying to figure out what happened. I caught it just in time this morning when I dialed for the operator and told our front desk that there was nothing wrong. Better to just stay on the line and say that it's an error.

Odd because at my last work, they told us to dial 911 you have to dial 9-911. Same with the lab I worked at for grad school.

 

[JulesMaximus]

First world problems...

 

[Juddog]

Request a new phone.

 

[Demo24]

My phone use to auto dial 9 when I lifted the receiver, but they adjusted some stuff a few weeks ago and it no longer does that

I still hate trying to figure out when I need to dial 1 or not, wish that would just work regardless.

 

[Vdubchaos]

Really? Your life is that pathetic and you are THAT lazy that you have a problem with dialing 9.

AND posting on the internet about it?

I feel VERY sorry for you sir.

 

[Kaido]

Yeah, we have that happen all the time. And we have like 150+ people here, so the 911 operator will call back to our main line and ask what's going on and we have no idea

 

[gorcorps]

we have to dial 9911 just so such things don't happen

 

[RedRooster]

Sounds like you need a dialing wand.
But mistaken 911s would be a pain, agreed.

 

[Brovane]

This was a big issue at my work when we switched to a Cisco IPT system. The old Analog Nortel system was slow enough that if you made a mistake you could hang up real quick before the call connected. With a IPT system the connection happened so fast and then people would just hang up. Anyway for a while we made a move to 9911 and the safety people didn't like this. So eventually we moved to dial 8 for a outside line and the problem is fixed now.

 

[DesiPower]

Cell Phones ftw, Desk phones need to stop...

 

[DAGTA]

We switched to dialing 8 for an outside line specifically to stop the accidental 911 calls.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

well apparently it is a problem... accidental 911 calls. Either make it 8, or 7 or some other numbers or make it 9-911.

i mean yeah it isn't a huge deal, but still annoying.

My phone use to auto dial 9 when I lifted the receiver, but they adjusted some stuff a few weeks ago and it no longer does that

I still hate trying to figure out when I need to dial 1 or not, wish that would just work regardless.

i need to figure out how to do the auto dial 9 lol... that would be neat.

Cell Phones ftw, Desk phones need to stop...

much easier to use my headset at work, and land line calls sound far better in terms of quality. Even holding the handset is easier than using a cell phone because at least I can jam my shoulder to hold the phone... well it's 10x easier on a desk phone than a cell phone

 

[Capt Caveman]

We switched to dialing 8 for an outside line specifically to stop the accidental 911 calls.

Same here.

OP - pretty lame vent

 

[Dirigible]

I dial the 9, then the 1, then start thinking. Maybe I SHOULD dial another 1. "Help! I'm trapped in a cubicle and it totally fucking sucks! Get me out of here!!!!"

 

[crabbyman]

This was a big issue at my work when we switched to a Cisco IPT system. The old Analog Nortel system was slow enough that if you made a mistake you could hang up real quick before the call connected. With a IPT system the connection happened so fast and then people would just hang up.

Same thing here. We have maybe 100 workers in the building and we did the same switch.

They finally changed something to keep that from happening as frequently.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Until cell phone sound reasonable, I say keep the desk phones around (as long as they are voip)

 

[PowerYoga]

This was a big issue at my work when we switched to a Cisco IPT system. The old Analog Nortel system was slow enough that if you made a mistake you could hang up real quick before the call connected. With a IPT system the connection happened so fast and then people would just hang up. Anyway for a while we made a move to 9911 and the safety people didn't like this. So eventually we moved to dial 8 for a outside line and the problem is fixed now.

same. We changed 9 to 8 because we get about 10 calls every month and they charge the company for misusing 911.

 

[Fritzo]

same. We changed 9 to 8 because we get about 10 calls every month and they charge the company for misusing 911.

Same here

 

[andylawcc]

what? our company uses 9 too but this NEVER happened, and we have some pretty technologically-challenged ppl here.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That happened to me once, it was the weirdest thing. Interestingly, if you actually do want to dial 911 you still have to dial 9 to get an outside line, then dial 911. Same with 0 for operator etc... Of course I'm sure it can be programmed differently in the PBX. I think if there's noise on the line it might "skip" if you hold the button too long and register as 2 digits. So you press 9 but it goes in as 2 9's. That's my guess. When it happened to me it happened to somebody else within that same time period. They never really figured out the cause because it never happened again. The cops had to show up and search the whole building lol. Standard procedure.

Working for the phone company, and dealing with both PBX and landlines, it's easy to mess up and not dial 9 when needed or vise versa, without thinking. What gets interesting is doing "headset" test's on a customer's line. Even though I am calling a number that's local to where I am, if that customer is not local, then that call is actually originating from that town, so I have to be sure to dial the 1 for long distance, but not 9, because it's not a PBX, even though I'm using a PBX phone.

A few years ago there was also a change where even local numbers require the area code. Took a while to get used to that one! Even now I sometimes forget.

Another interesting thing, when a customer's line is in trouble, usually a partial short, the line will actually dial 911. The dispatchers will get a call that's just a bunch of noise then hangs up.

 

[andylawcc]

wait, don't you need to be diailing 9911, in order for it to happen?

 

[SpunkyJones]

wait, don't you need to be diailing 9911, in order for it to happen?

Depends how the pbx is set, if done properly it would respond to both 911 and 9911.

 

[rcpratt]

9-11 doesn't dial 911 at my work. I tried.