Warning: The Phone Will Ring in 2 Seconds

For the last week I’ve had my robotic phone system here in the office set up so that when a call comes in for me (meaning that a caller follows the “Press 1 for Peter” instruction), an iChat box pops up on my desktop with the CallerID information.

About 2 seconds later, the telephone rings beside me.

All technogeek preening aside, I’m surprised by how pleasant it is to have a 2-second warning of an incoming call. It lets me quickly shift out of work-focus mode into pleasant telephone conversation mode.

For gory technical details, see here.