What Do You Do During Conference Calls?
from the too-easy... dept
John writes in with confirmation of what most people already knew. For years people joke about how telecommuters can work in their pajamas (or, um, less than that), as long as they have a nice shirt on for video conferences. Of course, if there's no video involved, why bother at all? A new study shows that many people don't pay attention to what's happening during conference calls - and, in fact, many "weren't fully dressed" (though, that seems to be most popular in Hong Kong). As for what people are doing during conference calls, it seems to vary by geography. The Brits are doodling (I do this all the time), the Germans are surfing the web, and here in the US, we're talking to someone else entirely.
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I usually do the obvious thing...
Thank god for speaker phone and mute!
I have two conference calls a week. 1 usually lasts an hour or better and the other anyhwere from 10 to 40 minutes. At a bare minimum, I will fill out my electronic timecard during this period. When fully disengauged by uninteresting topics that don't directly involve me (10 other sites conferenced in at the same time), I return calls, catch up on voice mail, write letters, program and do daily system administrative tasks.
Of course, there's always the smart-ass that googles for solutions to problems other people bring up during the call. That's alway fun, but I usually have too much work to get done.
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I had a co-worker....
Depending on who you ask, this can range from downright unromantic to kinky. His wife didn't speak english very well, so I guess it didn't distract her.
The guy was a perv (suffed pr0n at work and the whole 9 yards), so I never really doubted him.
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