Announcing Visitors

On the local news Web site this morning is an article on workplace etiquette titled, "Announcing Visitors." When I read the title, I had an instant flashback to college and our quaint traditions in announcing visitors to dorm residents.

The dorms - single-sex, of course, as it was a single-sex institution - had a desk downstairs, called the "bell desk," at which visitors to the dorm would ask for a specific resident. The student sitting at the desk (on "bell duty") would look up the resident's room number and get a code from the list. She would turn to an antiquated intercom system, find the switch with the corresponding code and flip it. She would then press a "speak" button and announce the resident's name into the microphone in the switch panel.

Up in halls of the dorm, the speaker closest to the resident's room would transmit the call from the front desk. When you heard your name, you would open the door to your room and respond, "Yes, bells."

How the person at the desk spoke next would tell the resident the gender and relative quantity of persons downstairs waiting for the resident.

If the desk monitor said, ""You have a visitor," there was a single female downstairs. If the desk monitor said, "You have visitors," it was more than one female.

If the desk monitor said, "You have a caller," there was a single male downstairs. If the desk monitor said, "You have callers," it was more than one male.

If the desk monitor said, "You have guests," it was a mixed (or sometimes unidentifiable) gender group. "Guest" or "guests" was also sometimes used to identify parental units, though more often the desk monitor would say "parents." Neither was official lingo, however.

On Friday and Saturday nights, a "caller" announced for a resident often elicited whoops and commentary as the announcement was made. The caller at the bell desk could hear this response through the speaker. Persons on bell duty with swift reflexes to turn off the speaker as soon as the announcement was made were appreciated.

As far as I know, the bell desk system is still in place.