[Nate the Great]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/headph...040100314.html

A discussion of the pros and cons of allowing headphones and music in open offices.

PNQ: Why hasn't someone invented a telephone that interacts with the computer playing the music? Let me explain:

1. An employee is listening to music while they work.
2. The supervisor needs to talk to them.
3. In the current system they'd have to walk over to the individual desk or yell across the room.
4. What if there was a module attached to each computer and set of headphones? Boss wants to talk to Employee X at Desk Y. They press a button that pauses the music at Desk Y and then routes the interoffice phone call through to the employee through the same phone call.

Can you imagine it? You're listening to music, then hear a tone as the music pauses that tells you someone wants to talk to you. You talk, then when your boss hangs up the music comes back automatically at the same point when it went away.