The other day, I arrived at work in the morning like I usually do. I began going about my business as I usually do. Then the phone rang.

I looked over at the caller-ID screen to see who it was. Imagine my surprise when I saw the name of the #1 big head managing founding name partner of the firm!*

I wondered why he would be calling me, and slowly reached for the phone. Imagine my surprise when, after only one ring, the call disconnected before I could pick up the handset!

That was odd, I thought, and again went about my business. But imagine my surprise when, not five minutes later, the exact same thing happened! Big Name Partner called, the phone rang once, and then he hung up before I could pick up the phone.

Why was Big Name Partner prank calling me?

Now, my next item of business for the day was to go downstairs to meet some of the new first-year associates. I arrived, and who do you suppose was there meeting and greeting everyone but Big Name Partner himself! He was over on the other side of the room, so I asked someone closer to me how long he had been there. After all, he had just done his bit of foolery not five minutes earlier.

"About fifteen minutes," the guy said.

Imagine my surprise! If Big Name Partner has been here for fifteen minutes, I wondered, has someone been breaking into his office to use his phone for nefarious purposes?

I didn't get a chance to talk to Big Name Partner myself before he left (and doubt I would have brought up the phone deal even if I did), and after a while I went back to my office too. And what do you think happened?

Yep, he prank called me again.

I began searching in my head for possible explanations. The best one (and the most plausible, given the firm's prank call culture) was that the problem had something to do with the fact that the phone system had just been updated a day or two earlier. Perhaps this was just some technical glitch. But in that case, why did I seem to be the only one bearing the brunt of Big Name Partner's practical jokes?

I called the guy who's supposed to be in charge of the phone system. Imagine my surprise when the person who answered was the lady in charge of managing the paralegals. She has nothing to do with the phone systems, but she's answering the phone guy's phone, so maybe she knows something. I explained my problem to her and she said she would take it up with the phone guy and see if there was an explanation.

Well, after I placed that phone call, the prank calls stopped. And a couple of hours later, I finally received an explanation from one of the phone guy's underlings. See, the update of the phone system had caused the problem. It seems Big Name Partner has a special speed dial unit on his phone, and one of the numbers he had saved in it, for someone out of town, happened to begin with the same four numbers that make up my phone extension. The update had somehow stopped his speed dial from making those calls outside calls, and had instead called my extension when Big Name Partner tried to speed-dial his contact. He saw that he was calling me, realized that wasn't what he wanted, and hung up. I don't know if Big Name Partner himself also alerted the phone staff to the problem, but imagine his surprise when he's trying to call some big important person far away and he gets the lowly associate down the hall (yes, I'm down the hall from him).

Eventually, it was all cleared up, and I haven't heard from Big Name Partner since. But I'll always be able to brag about the time when I was on Big Name Partner's speed dial.

* I work for a law firm that, like every other law firm in the world, is named after the last names of its founding partners.** My firm is young enough that they're still around.

** Just once, I'd like to see a law firm NOT named after the last names of founding partners, but rather some sort of trademark name, like "AccuLaw" or "The Bankruptcy Specialists" or "On Your Side."