Monday, June 16, 2008
Do you hate conference calls?
If conference calls bum you out, then you may enjoy this blog by a friend of mine. He only blogs when he's on a conference call, which is far too infrequently in my book. Here's a few choice excerpts:
June 27, 2007
So you’re a busy person, right?
Barely getting through each day with 90% of your “to do” undone?
Do you clients think you’re moody, difficult, on the edge?
Maybe what you need to do is sit on the phone with a bunch of other stressed out people for 2 or 3 hours. Maybe some of those poeple could be eating during the call. Maybe most of them could be on speaker phone.
I freakin’ Hate Conference Calls.
August 31, 2007
So here is my question — what’s with these conference call centers where you have to talk to a person to “login” to the call. “Hi, what is your conference call number? How do you spell your first and last name?” Why is there a person involved in this? Why can’t you type your conference ID? How much does that person make a day? Do they make more than me? What do they do all day when people aren’t logining into their call?
Why would a firm choose to use a staffed conference center? Wouldn’t it be about a million times more expensive than an un-staffed conference center?
Man, what a freakin’ waste. If I had that job, I’d smoke more pot than a freaking baggage handler.
January 23, 2008
I’ve got a new pet peeve…
“Hey, we’re setting up a call for Tuesday at 2pm, are you available?”
“No, alas, I’m not.”
“When are you available?”
OK, I realize that it’s not a perfect world, and human communication is inherently flawed, but how can anyone answer that question? “Oh, right, here’s my complete schedule in perpetuity! I hope, looking forward, that you can find a time for us to have a conference call!!! That’s a dream come true!”
Or even worse, if you say “I’m never available,” then you’ve played your hand, you’ve revealed that you hate conference calls, or even worse, maybe you were too busy to take on the project in the first place. Then you really look like a winner.
But maybe it’s all in my head. If you said “I’m sorry, I can never do a call,” would you really get fired? Would they say “Man, we love that nitwit, but we can’t use him anymore, he can never make the conference calls. And he makes fun of us on his blog. What a freakin’ jerk.”
1 Comments:
By 
Simon Kenton, at
Tue Jun 17, 10:07:00 AM:
Reminds me of the old new yorker cartoon - two of the Powers are scheduling a meeting, looking at their calendars:
"How about never? Does never work for you?"
