My job is not stressful, I would say, just demanding. I answer the phone for a brokerage house on Wall Street. I enjoy my job, but I was having a problem keeping up with the volume of calls that come across my desk everyday. My supervisor noticed that I was having problems and suggested that they could provide me with a headset, if I thought it might help. I figured it would be worth a shot, so I asked for one. The day I got it, I was almost instantly in heaven. I had two hands free to write memorandums, input data, and handle the transfer of incoming calls. This headset was corded, but the cord to the phone was sufficiently long enough to not be in my way. My day flew by and I was impressed at how valuable a piece of equipment the headset had already become. It was lightweight, out of my face and easy to wear...so easy, in fact, that by the end of the first day, I forgot I had it on. On the train ride home, I thought I noticed a few people staring at me. I chalked it up to paranoia and lost myself in a book I brought to read. I have a fairly long commute, so I am usually able to get in a few chapters on the way to my apartment. I normally find it easy to get absorbed into my reading, but today was different. I felt like all eyes were on me. By the time my stop came around, I was sufficiently creped out and ready to unwind in the comfort of my own home. When I entered through the door to my apartment, my wife was in the kitchen. She came out to say "Hi" and started laughing at me. Of course, my reaction of, "What?" only made her laugh harder. She managed to control herself long enough to say, "Ground control to Major Tom...come in, Major Tom". Then it hit me. I had been wearing this headset, with the cord dangling behind me into obscurity, the entire way home.
