Hello Lazy Bum

I was sitting at the Sister's table in the ward, conducting term ending examination of undergraduate students. The Sister was away doing work in the ward. The intercom rang. “Hello,” said a woman's voice. “Is it ward 14?” “Yes,” I said. “Please tell me ward 14A's number” said the voice. Telephones are often time wasters. No matter how important the work you are doing, you tend to pick up the phone because it could be something important. But to ring up a busy ward just to ask intercom number of another ward was a bit too much. It wasn't as if she had called help desk or the telephone operator. “Who is it?” I asked politely. “I am a staff nurse” said the voice. “This is not the operator” I firmly told her. Why don't you look up the telephone numbers' list instead of disturbing people working somewhere else?” She put the phone down without even a “sorry”. I know I should not get irritated by small, silly things like people hanging up without even a “sorry” when they have troubled me unnecessarily. But I need to work on that some more. In the meantime I am wondering if I should have given her a number that just does not exist on our intercom list just to get even. But I had no way of knowing that she would be the type to hang up without an apology. When the Sister of the ward returned, I told her what had happened. She said this was a routine. Many people called her to get intercom number of ward 14A. I could have done even better, if I had thought about it. All intercom numbers are 4 digit numbers. Those for the wards have 71 in the beginning, and the ward number after that. For example, number of ward 14 is 7114. They put up some wards without distinct two digit numbers of their own, such as 14A and 15A. Then the formula of 71 followed by the ward's number could not be applied. Then they gave numbers from a list of available numbers to these wards. I wish I told the caller the intercom number of ward 14A was 7114A, instead of telling her to check the intercom list.