The hazards of stale directory data…

(To be fair, the vignette below was the result of stale “Telephone number written on a sticky note with ‘IT’ next to it”, but the principle remains the same.)

Got home from brunch today and heard my cell phone ringing as I walked in the door.

“This is Laura.”

“Hi this is <didn’t catch the name> from Parking.”

“’I’m sorry, who?”

“<still didn’t catch the name>, from University of Pennsylvania Parking?”

(At this point, <didn’t catch the name> has that sound to his voice like he’s expecting me to know [a] who he is, and [b] why he’s calling. At this point in the conversation, I cannot claim knowledge of either of these things.)

“Yes?”

“Yeah, I’m having a problem with one of these computer servers?”

(Suddenly the mental light bulb goes *ding*)

“Are you aware that I haven’t worked for the University of Pennsylvania in 4 years?”

“Huh?”

“I said, I haven’t worked for Penn Business Services since 2005.”

“Oh. I have your number written down as ‘IT’. Sorry.”

I’m actually now tempted to fire off an email to my old director there, since obviously he’s got an outage going on and someone who doesn’t know how to report it.

And because I’m a nice person and really like my old boss, I think I’ll go and do just that.