Conference Calls are Awesome

Working in a large international company with offices everywhere and people telecommuting means that I participate in a lot of conference calls. I mean I have at least one or two a day. It's how we work. Some of these are actually productive meetings where we are getting stuff done and others are more lecture style where we just listen to stuff. Since I attend these meetings from my desk and my computer I tend to come in and out of the conversation and what is going on because I start working or looking up stuff on the internet. So, that being said, I'm currently on a conference call. Amy suggested that I blog about this call. It took less than a second to realize that that would be a fantastic idea because this has got to be the worst call ever. (Leslie, I'd mention your name if you ever emailed me)

So, today's conference call is in preparation for our big Marketing Summit being held next week in Houston. No, I'm not excited about spending three days in Houston next week, yuck! I'm also not excited for this meeting because it is not going to be productive or give me opportunity to actually get work done. This is the second of two calls preparing for this upcoming summit.

Background: at our national sales meeting in January the CMO announced that we would be having a large marketing meeting as a training/reward/collaboration event in March in Houston. All of us who were there (okay all is probably wrong but the 5 people that I was standing near and know) thought this was the stupidest thing ever. Who wants to go to Houston. Plus, we got the inside scoop that this meeting was going to be held in Houston at the Hilton Americas Hotel because the company is trying to avoid a cancellation fee for another conference that was supposed to be there.

So, a few weeks later we get information about this upcoming meeting. We have to register to go and schedule our travel with the travel agency. Apart from the Houston complaint, the first complaint surfaces: we have to have roommates at the hotel! Lame!!! Marketing never has roommates. Oh well, what do you do? So, in "preparation" for the summit (we've recently re-org'd the marketing department and there has never been this type of conference in the past, however it isn't that difficult to figure out that you should make sure you are scheduled to go to a meeting) we had a conference call about a month ago. The real purpose of this call was to glam up Houston and explain why we are sharing rooms and spending three days there. A complete waste of time. However, wildly entertaining. One person who was obviously upset about having to share rooms said something to this effect: if this is supposed to be a nice, relaxing summit for us why do we have to wake up to having a stranger in our room. Seriously? I thought. Don't you have friends that you work with that you can shack up with for the night? I'm not happy about having to share a room, but pick your battles man! Pick your battles! So lame. All he did was embarrass himself. There were several other equally dumb questions asked on this first call; it was like these people had never traveled before, ever! I realize that not everyone in the company has to travel as much as I do, but c'mon, don't you vacation or read the newspaper?

The first call was an embarrassment to humanity. People should not be allowed to be that dumb. Also, I shouldn't have to waste an hour of my time listening to how great and how much fun I'm going to have in Houston. We have to be there; that should be reason enough.

Imagine my surprise when I receive a meeting notice for a second conference call to prepare for the upcoming Marketing Summit. Really? What did we not cover on the first call? What can we possibly learn? I'm thinking that they are announcing that we have to prepare all of these presentations and forecasts in new templates because that is what I've been doing everyday for the past two weeks--another rant and story all its self. So, I accept the meeting and join the call today.

The first meeting was bad, but this meeting was a giant joke! Seriously! The point of this call was to answer any questions about traveling or the upcoming meeting. I'm not kidding. Of the three of you who read this blog, how many of you don't know how to travel on airplanes? How many of you don't know how to read the big sign that someone is holding that says your company's name on it when you get your bags from baggage claim? How many of you don't know how to check in to a hotel? If you raised your hands to any of these, don't tell me because I will mock and torment you for the next month or so.

Questions asked on today's call:
I didn't get a paper ticket, how do I check in at the airport?
Will there be hair dryers in the room?
How do I check in my baggage?
Can we bring any liquids on the plane?
Do I have to have a credit card when I check into my room?

I took 32 minutes out of my busy day to listen to this. Of course I was doing other things in the meantime like emailing my roommate at the meeting and asking if this was really happening or if I was just having one of the most hilarious dreams I've ever had. Unfortunately, this is my life.

Another wonderful thing that always happens on these types of conference calls. The same people who don't know how to travel do not know how to use their telephones either. How difficult is it to hit mute? Not very. Now, if you are on your cell phone, I can understand that the feature may be more difficult to find so, the teleconference program we uses has a mute code built right into the system. It's announced on practically every call to encourage people to put their phone on mute so we don't have to listen to their background noise that impedes the actual presenter. However, there are still people that just can't figure it out. Today, for instance one guy asked, "Am I on mute?" Someone responded no. Then he said, "What about now?" This question was repeated about 5 times with brief pauses between each one. It was like that stupid Verizon commercial. We have had the person whispering to someone else because they didn't want everyone to hear. Put your phone on mute, damnit!

Okay, so, this is a snapshot in my work life! Enjoy. Oh, just so you know, everyone in the marketing team was on this call (about 200 people) including the CMO and several way up there vice presidents. So, if I were stupid and didn't know the answer to some of these questions, there is no way in hell I would ask it on a call that my boss's boss's boss was on...google it!