Were you camped??!!

[susandennis]

I was on a conference call a bit ago and when I hung up the phone rang instantly.  I answered it and found out it was my favorite client and I said 'were you camped??'.  I flashed us both back to the 80's...

IBM put in a new phone system in the plant where I worked and the new system had some sweet features. 

One was camping.  If you called an extension that was busy, you got to pick 'leave a voice mail or camp'.  If you picked 'camp', you got a choice of hang on or call back.  If you picked hang on, you would just wait - like on hold - and the minute the person you were trying to call hung up, their phone rang and there you were.  OR you could select call back and the minute the person you were trying to call hung up, both of your phones would ring and you'd be connected. 

It was a very cool system.  But, then of course, it took no time to get the camping cultists.  There was a faint beep on some phones and a physical light on others to tell you that someone was camped.

So, you'd end up at the end of conversations with something like this:

"so, how's the dog?  the kids?  how was lunch?"
"you've got someone camped that you're trying to dodge, right?"
"well, maybe a little bit"

It was funny.  Or you'd get camp escapees.  They'd hang up and run.  They got bad raps fast. 

I'm sure the feature is still around somewhere but I've never come across it since. 

Comments

[geordie.livejournal.com]

We had all that too, didn't use it all that much since most of us were in one big open plan office. We also had "call back when available", if you had a call that timed out you could enter a code and it would call you the next time they used their phone. We also had call-forward and follow-me so you could send your phone somewhere else or tell it where you had gone. Our favorite was group-pickup, we all knew everyone's extension, even though they were in sight, so if someone hesitated a second before they answered their phone someone else would grab it with group pickup and play secretary in unlikely ever-so-english accents. Just to add confusion, we were trained not to answer the phone by name, the caller should know who they were talking to, so all we ever said on picking up the phone was "Yes?".

[yesthatjill.livejournal.com]

IBM had campers when I was there ('94-'97). Sadly, my boss was one of them. She was a call-backer, so we knew that if she was hanging 'round the office, she'd been camping a call.