That one sound you never want to hear...

[Shangri-laschild]

UK version is

"State 0"

or a funny beeping noise followed by an open mic, which is the emergency button being pressed.

Equally as bad

That emergency button is new for us so it keeps getting accidently hit which I prefer to any other reasons for getting hit. And State O would be Code 1 here.

[cinema guy]

you don't want to hear the phrase, "Carbon condition."

Because that's the way you yell "fire" without freaking all the patrons out.

You can't say 'Fire!' over the radio at the cinema, so we us 'Mr Alert' instead.

Similarly 'Mr Stome' is for a bomb threat. I don't know what happens if anyone named Stone ever phones up.

[Fenrus]

That emergency button is new for us so it keeps getting accidently hit which I prefer to any other reasons for getting hit. And State O would be Code 1 here.

The Emergency Button's been around for my agency, but it's always pressed accidently, or by kids playing with daddy/mommy's radio...

Our code 1 is either "10-33" or "9-1" depending on whether they were trained in 10 code or 9 code in the beginning (we've got an agency that still uses 9 code here... I make fun of them..)

[KMMCurly]

I got this one the other night while taking care of my cousins. While babysitting, the last thing you want to hear is the kids yelling at each other... and then a dead silence.

[Princess-Snake]

I got this one the other night while taking care of my cousins. While babysitting, the last thing you want to hear is the kids yelling at each other... and then a dead silence.

Were the kids okay?

[crazylegs]

That emergency button is new for us so it keeps getting accidently hit

We still get accidental activations, both in vehicle sets and PRs, around 98% are accidental, depending on
a) how quiet it is
b) how evil the control room staff are feeling
They'll keep it cycling (7 secs open mic 7 secs off, repeat) so you can hear the slightly panicked wailings of someone trying to cancel the button!

[Sharsarannon]

Ker-plop! Glug-glug glug..
Which means a bottle of something just fell over and spilled. Art supplies and carpet do not mix. I am getting office plastic for the floor.

[jfreak125]

WHen working at warehouse store.... Crunch followed by swearing and fire alarm..... or Fire alarm and fire pump running.... usually means someone nailed a sprinkler head.... and you get to stay late to help clean up....

[lordlundar]

When working as a computer technician, you don't want to hear "POW!", "FZZT!" or "BANG!" That typically means there is now a crater on a board where a component was, usually a capacitor or diode, depending on the volume.

When working in retail, you don't want to hear me laughing maniacally. That typically means I have an instrument of destruction in my hands and a REALLY "fun" idea on my mind.

[KMMCurly]

Were the kids okay?

Oh yeah, they where fine! They were just arguing over some toy and yanking on it and it came apart in thier hands, causing one hell of a mess and the guilty silence.
The looks on thier faces were actually kinda cute after the whole 'oh my gawd, this is gonna take forever to clean up!' moment

[Arm]

I don't really have any *great* ones from my more recent contracting experiences...

...but back when I was in the Army, there were some good ones.
"Good initiative. Bad judgement," was a favorite of mine, when we were in Basic. It generally preceded a truly inventive chewing out and/or some sort of punitive detail or corrective training. But with an opener like that, it's hard not to say, "awww, yeah, ya got me...."
"...until *I* get tired!" - frequently used to end an order to begin some sort of punitive detail, often in combination with the above. For example, "Good initiative, bad judgement, recruit. Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly. Or perhaps you simply have a hearing problem. Why don't I use the big lips?" [Drill Sergeant proceeds to cross his arms in front of his face, and act as if they're a giant mouth as he continues] "CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW, RECRUIT?" [puts his arms down] "Squat-thrust until *I* get tired."

Fortunately I mostly got to see that applied to other recruits, or was only included when the group as a whole had screwed up. I had all the social graces of an automaton, so I was never really inventive/imaginative enough to get in trouble on my own. I understood going in that I was to do as I was told, and generally tended to do so to the best of my abilities. The concept that someone might enlist and somehow think that this basic guideline DIDN'T apply to them was totally alien to me... but then I met the rest of my platoon. I wound up doing more PT for their dumb asses...

One good one I heard when I was out of training and working in a NOC, though... was my own phone number. I just did not ever like hearing that.
See, we had the last of a specific comm system. Apparently, this was the last one in service in the Army, which is why I'm not naming it. It had this irritating alarm that would sound when it got messages. Messages that nobody ever picked up, because, as old as this POS was, it was now only a backup. I was working one day, and it was doing its thing... and then about half-way through my shift, it stopped doing its thing. Its hard drive had gone farming- the heads had touched down, made contact, dug a trench, had an error, packed it in, pushed up daisies, bought the farm, etc.
So I had to rebuild it. But of course... the disks were corrupted- it was based on an old 486 DX, which meant its software was kept on floppies, and it booted from DOS 6.0.... NOT DOS 6.2... which we had the install disks for. And the actual program itself, well, those floppies had long since gone to the great computer cabinet in the sky. The backup hard drives were corrupted. I had the good fortune of finding a spare set of backups hidden under the floor tiles awaiting destruction, but they weren't full backups...
I was calling EVERYONE for support. The manufacturer, other units, supervisors, hell, if I'd had a oija board and medium I'd've called the spirits. But every single person I spoke to all had the same litany:

"Yeah, well, we don't use/support/sell/deal with that any more. But hey! There's this one unit you could get in touch with- they still use it! Here's there number! (reads off my phone number)"

13 hours of fun, some of it in MOPP gear, but I did eventually get it fixed. Long enough after my shift had ended that I was able to get about four hours of sleep and then come back on shift.

Any time someone gives you your own phone number for support, you're in for a really FUN time.