Conference Calls, Multi-Tasking and Acronyms

Technology has given us many things, but one of the most dreaded is the conference call. This is the evil offspring of the traditional meeting, which use to happen once or twice a week, but now can fill the entire day.

But when do you get actual work done, if Outlook has allowed your day to be scheduled out. Well, during these meetings. Sharing ones attention is easily done when sitting in an office or cube with a headset on listening to someone drone on and on for hours. The techno term for this is “multi-tasking” and was probably developed during a conference call to politely describe this lack of attention.

When someone says during a call, when asked a question, “Sorry I didn’t catch that, I was multi-tasking”, it as a rule means:

- I was talking to some else, about something more interesting.

- I am checking email, hoping to see if there is something more interesting.

- I am instant messaging with someone creating a rumor that will definitely be more interesting.

- etc.

The point is they/we are screwing off. People can be amazing, they will refuse to be bored when given a choice.

Now sometimes people are doing real work that benefits their employer, while multi-tasking, but mostly I think not.

I mentioned instant messaging above as one of the organizational efficiency sappers. I have heard that its use during a meeting or conference call can create something called a “multi-dimensional” meeting.

What this means is that the meeting is happening on multiple levels, beyond just the one where a person is speaking and maybe listened to. In it purest form the instant messaging meeting level would be discussing some nuance of the speaker’s remarks, but mostly it’s about; what a nimrod the speaker is, or how their head should be removed from a nether region orifice. Thought sometimes the very astute players of this game (and yes it is a game) will be cutting their own plan to solve the problem, frequently contrary to that of the speakers. Of course, when agreement is reached, no one knows what plan was agreed to. This means another meeting will need to be scheduled to decide on what was decided at the last one. It can be amazing to hear people recite the outcomes because, it sounds like they were at two different meetings.

Go figure?

I have actually heard of this multi-dimensional meeting concept being institutionalized by projecting the instant messages on a wall or group instant message box during the meeting.

This by and large goes over great when asking questions about the subject. Inevitably though someone will type something into the wrong instant messaging box and then the speaker’s nimrod status gets projected for all to see.

You may ask be asking, “The wrong instant messaging box?”, and yes, to play this game right, you need to have multiple instant message conversations going on at any one time.

I have to admit I do a lot of multi-tasking during conference calls. I have also been known to catch up on things, like sleep. Usually the snoring on my un-muted line is a giveaway.

But conference calls can provide some of the best entertainment around, e.g. the barking dog being told to shut the f__k-up, the child asking for something embarrassing, but by far the best is the un-muted headset health break. What makes this one even better is when the offending party on being notified of the sound effects, automatically and politely, says “sorry, my bad” (where did this term come from?), then flushes the toilet. The voice is frequently recognized, but if not (or even if) an instant message storm is generated, especially by multi-taskers to find out what just happened, who it was, and the appropriate changes to their nimrod status.

This is so much better then the “toilet paper hanging out of the pants” gaffe, because you don’t have to see it to enjoy it. Sometimes though the mental picture one gets can be pretty disturbing.

I have actually been on a call where we heard one side of a urinal conversation before the perpetrator realizes they were sharing. This type of snafu can also happen at conferences when a speaker forgets to turn off their wireless microphone after leaving the stage.

Even though this is mostly a guy thing, I am thankful to not have played witness to any more earthy movements. I have to admit thought that when someone is talking on their cell phone in the reading room, I go out of my way to be “noticeable”, for whomever they are talking.

Conference calling though has allowed entire companies to have massive real-time meetings. These are regularly highlighted during the inevitable Q&A session, by someone asking about a personal issue concerning their paycheck withholding or a health issue, accompanied by a company-wide “gopher dance”, as people popup in their cubes, peering at their peers, over the wall, and mouthing “can you believe this shit”. This can also happen when the CEO is asked about any impending right-sizing (layoffs) activities and they dance their dance.

Another pet peeve during these calls is the use of acronyms without an explanation. It becomes especially troubling when someone steps on someone else’s acronym by reusing it before a suitable period has elapsed. I think there should be a worldwide registry of acronyms, just like web addresses. I think the charging of an appropriate fee for the registration of an acronym may in fact reduce the acronym overhead we are forced to deal with daily.

More often then not the purpose of a conference call is to go over why project or plan won’t get done when it was promised. This results in the dreaded splitting of the project into phases. Phasing or phases are euphuisms for “I didn’t get it done, so give me another chance, but let me save face by calling it Phase 2”. A follow-on phase generally follows something called a “Phase 1 Non-Operational Release”. Non-operational is another euphuism for, “We did some work, and ahh…, we want credit for it, but, ahh…, it doesn’t do squat”. This as a rule goes hand in hand with what is called the “limited introduction” and its accompanying swivel seat (manual) processes. This if you looked back on it, was what the project was about solving in the first place. But hey, everyone can show something has been kind of done, or not, and get a good annual review with its merit increase and bonus.