About ten days ago I came into the office to find the object pictured below plonked on my desk. No memo, no emails, no explanation, no nothing.



It says "Cisco IP phone" on it, so I guess it must be an IP phone. I have no idea what it does. My normal phone was untouched and working just as normal, so I just left it at that.

A few days later an email came from the IT department says that IP phones have been installed and they will be ready for use on July 28th.

Couple more days later, another email says training sessions will be organized for staff on how to use the IP phones.

Today, a circular on the training sessions. They have organized about ten of them. Guess how long each session is. Guess. Take a W-I-L-D guess.

An hour?

Ninety minutes?

Two hours?

No.

Five hours.

F-I-V-E hours!

Does it really take five hours to learn how to use a phone? It's not like we are neanderthals making the quantum leap from bashing each other on the head with a dead animal as a means of communication to IP phones.

I must admit I am intrigued. Have I missed something? Surely these "sessions" must be covers for something much more fun yet unspeakable like ... I don't know ... "pot" luck? Orgies? NDS gaming sessions? I nearly signed up. Nearly.