Tannoys

Tom De Marco and Tim Lister in their book Peopleware attack the use of Tannoy announcements because they interrupt the work of , say 100 people, for the benefit of one person, I agree but....

THERE IS MORE THAN ONE WAY TO SKIN A TANNOY!

I worked in a company who thought it was more important to locate someone than not to disturb people while they were trying to work, which brings us to another law;;

THORPE'S LAW OF LOUD ANNOUNCEMENTS

The law states that the number of people disturbed by an announcement is inversely proportional to the seniority of the person being paged; that is, the person who causes the maximum disturbance is the janitor! Why not buy him a pager.

I solved the problem as it affected my team. One Saturday when we were working I took a screwdriver, wire cutters and a step ladder in to work (I could have asked the janitor for these items but no one could ever find him), took the loudspeaker that was in our area out of the ceiling, disconnected the wires and the replaced it to cheers from the rest of the team. No one, other than us, ever discovered that it had been disconnected, but we smiled every time we heard the muffled sounds of loudspeaker messages coming from other parts of the building. This the kind of guerrilla warfare that teams often engage in to get their own way.