Occupational hazards at my workplace.

Glen Farley, left, and I await the start of another high school event we're calling.

I enjoy announcing high school sports for local cable TV, but none of the organizations for which I work offer me hazard pay. And maybe they should.

Here's why.

Not long ago, I was sitting in the press box at King Philip's Arnold Macktaz Field, minding my own business and enjoying the nice weather. I had just finished setting up the control panel that makes the magic happen through our microphones, and was simply awaiting the arrival of my color commentator and cameraman to begin our coverage of a field hockey game that was about a half-hour away from starting.

As I sat there contemplating life in my golden years, one of the young lasses from the KP field hockey team entered the press box and hooked up her iPhone to the amplifier at the far end of the box that controls the loudspeakers on the roof. Like just about everywhere else I go these days, the youngsters play quite an eclectic selection of current music ... and usually crank it up to ear-shattering volume so they can go through their pre-game rituals immersed in the anthems of their youth.

Now, if I had been sitting outside the press box, I probably would have been writhing in pain over this assault on my eardrums. The music isn't to my tastes (there's no Sinatra included), and it's just way too loud. I don't have a decibel meter, but if I did, I think it might register something close to the Logan Airport tarmac at peak departure time.

But as I was sitting inside the press box, I was offered some protection from the direct assault upon my senses. So I just chilled as best I could and continued pondering the human condition. After all, it's the kids' show. They don't need for me to be doing my grumpy-old-man thing while they're trying to have fun being young.

After a few minutes, I was stirred from my self-imposed torpor by someone shouting at me.

"Is this it," asked a red-faced man that entered the press box in somewhat of a huff. "Is this where the music is coming from??" He was pointing at the mixing board that is the property of North Attleborough Community Television.

"Uhhh, no, there no music coming from this," I said somewhat dumbfoundedly. It takes a few minutes for the hard drive of my aging mind to kick in once I enter one of my contemplative states.

"Well, goddammit, where is it coming from," the gentleman continued. "Are you the one that's controlling this goddam loud music???"

I looked in the man's eyes, and it was suddenly clear to me that unless I offered a much better answer, this fellow might pick up the $600 mixing board and heave it out of the press box window. So I explained, in calm tones (as best I could over the din of music coming out of the speakers), that the mixing board was how North TV provided sound to the pictures he would see on his TV, and that it had nothing at all to do with what was going out over the loudspeakers.

The gentleman seemed to accept my explanation, and thus he calmed down a little and explained his presence. It seems he was a resident of a house on a neighboring street, and he had been frustrated by the increasing loudness of the music blaring out of the press box speakers for some time now. And he basically was mad as hell and he wasn't going to take it anymore.

He asked me where the music was coming from, and I thought it was prudent to feign ignorance of the situation. I told him that it was best if he talked to Gary Brown, the KP athletic director, whom I was certain was someplace nearby ... probably in the gym, where the KP volleyball team was playing at the same time as the scheduled field hockey game. I didn't want to tell the guy that the iPhone sitting at the other end of the press box was the culprit, lest he be tempted to grab it and start stomping it into smithereens, leaving some poor girl out of an expensive piece of technology for which her parents would probably have to assume the cost.

The gentleman took my advice and left the press box to search for the athletic director. Breathing a sigh of relief, I waited until he disappeared from view before I strolled over to the iPhone and tapped the volume button down a few notches.

In a few minutes, Gary Brown arrived at the press box. "Thanks," he said in a wry tone, an indication that it might not have been his first choice to deal with an enraged neighbor at that particular moment. But he adjusted the controls on the amplifier (which was below the tabletop and thus hidden from view), the sound lessened, and apparently that was sufficient to placate all parties concerned.

It's not that I didn't have some measure of sympathy for the gentleman. I did. No one really wants a peaceful afternoon disrupted by loud noise coming from nearby. Maybe the poor guy worked nights and was trying to get his sleep in the daytime.

But I was also reminded of an old saying: "Let the Buyer Beware." Anyone in that particular area of Wrentham that moved into a house any time after 1957 (when King Philip Regional High School opened) probably should have known there was a high school next door, and that high schools create traffic and noise.

It's just like the folks on North Street in Foxboro that recently bought a house there and then were shocked to find that their weekends in the fall were ruined by large crowds, fireworks, music noise and impenetrable traffic because of the presence of a 68,000-seat stadium just a few football fields away. Surprise, surprise! If you've moved there at any time since 1971 (when Schaefer Stadium opened) and didn't know there was a huge stadium there, that's on you.

But that's not my worry. My only worry was protecting North TV's mixing board -- with my life, if necessary. Mission accomplished.