Orange County Register

This isn’t a joke. Someone actually came up with the idea that office cubicle dwellers need a doorbell. (Perhaps to ignore visitors we want to avoid?)

That someone is Mike Mussoline, who lives in Rancho Santa Margarita. He invented the Cubicaller, a doorbell that attaches to your cubicle entry and offers about a dozen different ring tones, including the classic ‘Ding Dong.’

I set one up in my own cubicle and entertained my neighbors with the various sounds, which include chirping, quacking and meowing. But no woofs, ruffs or bow wows! What about a tone for dog lovers?

“Heh heh, great question considering I have 2 pugs at home :),” Mike e-mailed me back. “I had someone else make the sound chip for me since the development tools were too expensive. When I sent him the original sounds, there were no “fun” sounds, just ring-tone sounds. He threw in the duck and bird sounds from his recording collection, which I liked and we ended up keeping.”

Maybe a dog will show up in Cubicaller, version 2.

Mike, by the way, is a software engineer for a semiconductor company in Irvine. This is his first and only invention, so far. His new company, by the way, is called Ring Ding Electronics. Cubicaller came from 10 years working in a cubicle, he said. He tells us his story:

“Over the past 10 years in a cubicle, I typically have my back to the cubicle entrance. I’ve seen all kinds of different ways for people to get my attention in the cubicle. Some more annoying than others.

The idea for the Cubicaller really started to take hold when one of my office workers kept saying “ding-dong” when he came to my cubicle. After that, I kept blabbing about the idea of a cubicle doorbell, mostly to my wife. After getting sick of talking about it, and people hearing about it, I decided to actually go ahead with the idea. About 1 1/2 years later (now), I finally made my first production run and recently debuted online.”

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