Listen, once you’ve worked for enough of your life, you know that you’re going to be dealt all sorts of coworkers.

Generally, if you keep your head down, the bad ones will leave you alone.

Sometimes, though, they’ll latch onto literally anything to try to get you into trouble.

This woman got a new phone, and because she’s not tech savvy, asked the store rep to set her daily alarms.

A few years ago I got a new phone. I let the vendor set all of the notifications since I wasn’t and still am not really into phones – talking or texting – and it seemed easier to let him do it.

At the time I had a desk job and I would set my alarm to go off to remind me to do some walking during my breaks.

Otherwise I would sit all day and have noodle legs while trying to get home at the end of the day.

She realized her error when “Reveille” nearly scared her and a coworker out of their wits.

So the day after I bought my phone I go to work. Morning break I remembered without needing the alarm so I shut it down before it could sound off.

Lunch comes and goes. So then it gets to be late afternoon.

My Office Partner and I are in our after lunch slow down. Not quite sleepy, but less than alert.

Then my phone alarm goes off.

After Office Partner and I peeled ourselves off the ceiling I frantically pawed at the phone for awhile before finding the shut off for the alarm.

The vendor had set all the notifications to Reveille. You know, the Army wake up trumpet song…

I apologized to my Office Partner over and over again “WTF Condessa? TF?”

And let him watch while I figured out how to change all of the notification settings to something less … alarming.

She changed the sound, figuring crickets couldn’t freak anyone out.

I set it to crickets. I thought the sound was annoying enough to get me up and walking and nobody is afraid of crickets so I was safe there.

Or so I thought.

Office Partner and I got a kick out of telling that story every chance we got and it always got a laugh. Until…

Which turned out to be wrong when her ringtone went off in a crowded elevator.

One Friday evening I was leaving late, In the elevator with some other stragglers and I get one of my rare texts.

Granted it sounded really loud in that tiny elevator but I was shocked to see mean girl sneers on everyone’s faces.

One of the ladies says, “That’s your ringtone?”

“Yes.” and I tell the story of how it came to be the default and end with “because nobody is afraid of crickets.”

More sneers and a sulky, “some people are afraid of crickets,” from the back.

The women on their with her quickly turned into a mob.

Then the one who spoke up, I guess she was the leader or whatever begins to tell me how to change the volume and ringtone so as not to upset others.

I’m not a phone person so I would have been fine with that. The problem was that she added condescending to the sneer.

That opened it up for the rest of the women to ramp up the sneers and condescending remarks.

I basically shut down at that point because watching a bunch of 30 somethings turn into high school mean girls was freaking me out.

Over a ringtone.

And even reported her to her boss.

Monday morning rolls around and I get called into my supervisor’s office. She looked very, very embarrassed. So embarrassed that it took her a few tries to get out what she had to say.

Apparently the mean girls had complained to their boss about my vile ringtone and insisted that she do something about it. She complained to my boss.

And my boss had lower seniority…She basically apologized for making me change my ringtone.

So, “Reveille” it was, for all time.

So I went back to my office and told Office Partner the whole story.

We stared at each other for a few moments before we started laughing. “I know what you are going to do, Condessa, go for it.”

Then I changed all of the notifications back to Reveille.

Let’s find out what Reddit has to say about this!

The top comment says they are juvenile in more ways than one.

This person says it’s none of their business.

That would be one way to get your point across.

It’s an accessibility issue.

Apparently this is a thing.

I am a “silent or vibrate only” cell phone person.

I highly recommend this way of life.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.