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Conference (and video) calls

As there's a fans forum conference call (FFCC) taking place right now, it might be interesting to see if anyone has any tales of how conference calls or video conferencing has gone wrong.  

Conference calls often have a dull and painful process you have to go through prior to connecting, whereby you are asked to record your name, by means of introduction and for the organiser to be able to do a roll-call afterwards by playing back the participant list.  That was too dull and boring for me.  So, I always used to introduce myself as someone else.  A childish and pointless process, but I used to enjoy saying clearly, when asked by the electronic system for my name, "Stan Laurel", "Archbishop Desmond Tutu", "Prince Arthur Nzeribe", "Canaan Banana", etc...  Until, one time, I dialled into a C-level call, in order to present my latest project to the international board of the company I was working in and, as I connected, having gone through the process of giving a false name, an alert played to all participants, in an electronic voice: "Attention please, "the late Arthur Askey" has just joined the call". 

What conference calling shenanigans can other Lifers share? 

Comments

  • Been on a couple where I've heard participants snoring. Called one out once by asking him a question, no answer, tried again, no answer. Was 3 in the morning where he was so I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise but he didn't stay on the project long. I often used to do them in my undercrackers or dressing gown - embarrassing when you realise it's a video conference:-)

  • Been on a couple where I've heard participants snoring. Called one out once by asking him a question, no answer, tried again, no answer. Was 3 in the morning where he was so I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise but he didn't stay on the project long. I often used to do them in my undercrackers or dressing gown - embarrassing when you realise it's a video conference:-)

    Good thing you werent knocking one out to a bit of porn then
  • Forgot I was due to be on an afternoon call with boss / whole team after a very long lunch. He called to ask if I was dialing in, which I then did. Told everyone I was in a Costa to account for the noise, and bullshitted my drunken way through. 

    you had to be there....
  • I regularly have one to one Skype video calls. When we have more than two of us on the call we go audio only. It was mentioned to me late into a long call with a few other people that I may not want to be sitting there picking my nose,,,as I'd left the video on foolishly! Ooops. 
  • One of my mates told me some stories about his ex boss - who was a bit of a Berk - and conference calls.

    On one call he blurted something out about them considering shutting one of the offices and making the people there redundant, not realising that those people were all on the call.

    Another time they dialled in and he starts by saying "Hello".

    Hello was the reply.

    Who's that? he said.

    Who's that? came the reply.

    My mate cracked up and had to tell him that he was talking to his own echo.


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