A little discretion goes a long way in a shared office space, but not everyone gets the memo.

One worker’s annoying habit of oversharing on speakerphone would soon lead to a hilarious event that taught him the value of maintaining your privacy.

You’ll want to read on for this one!

You live by the speakerphone, you are shamed by the speakerphone.

I worked in a cubicle farm.

There were four rows of four cubicles.

There was one coworker who never used the handset on his phone; every call he made or received was on speaker.

Many people tried to put a stop to this behavior, but nothing would get through to him.

He also tended to shout into it, even though it wasn’t necessary to raise his voice to be picked up by the microphone.

There had been a few complaints from some of us to him, but he ignored them.

When he took a personal call about a medical appointment, one coworker had an idea.

One Monday morning, he called a doctor’s office to report that he was having urinary troubles.

He made an appointment for the next morning at 9:00.

Then, he called our boss to say he’d be coming in late tomorrow.

All of this was broadcast via his speaker and loud voice.

So he puts his plan into action.

I talked my wife into calling his extension the next morning while he was at the doctor’s office to leave a message using a script I wrote out for her.

She did and left the message on his voicemail after blocking her caller ID.

When he arrived at the office after the doctor’s appointment, he started listening to his voicemail messages on speaker.

The first was work-related, but the second was the one my wife left for him.

And the result was spectacular.

It said something like this:

“Mr. Smith, this is Jane from Dr. Smith’s office. We need you to come back here today, if possible. You were supposed to give us a urine sample, not [another bodily fluid] sample.”

He quickly punched the end call button, but it was too late.

The rest of the office sure got a kick out of this.

The whole cube farm erupted in laughter.

He knew that it had to be one of us but didn’t recognize the voice.

He never used the speakerphone again.

He may have hung up the call, but the damage was already done.

Reddit is sure to get a kick out of this one!

Some especially selfish coworkers don’t seem to care about anyone else but themselves.

This commenter waged a similar speakerphone-based revenge on their friend.

Talk about inappropriate workplace listening.

If the call isn’t for everyone, then it doesn’t need to be on speaker!

From that day forward, his conversations stayed between him and the receiver — just as they should be.

One prank and one very red face later, the office finally got the silence it deserved.

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.