One of the side effects of home working is the increased number of telephone conference calls that you have to endure.
When you work for a company such as the one that I do then many of the calls are international and the challenge is trying to hold calls at a time that is suitable for all nationalities.
A consequence is that for some folks the calls are before they travel to the office, so they take the calls from home, whilst others take the calls while travelling home from the office.
Today I experienced perhaps the most bizarre of these calls.
On this call there was
- a crying baby as well as a barking dog courtesy of a US based colleague
- there was background traffic noise from a colleague who was on his mobile while travelling home in Hungary
- another colleague sounded as if he had fallen asleep although I convinced myself that he had on a headset with the microphone to close to his nose. Leastways I was giving him the benefit of the doubt
- from another colleagues phone we were overwhelmed by the sound of an automobile alarm which was outside his office window
- just to round things off I thought I would contribute to the chaos of this call, or rather I should say my neighbours cat did. He/she/it sat outside my conservatory window yowling.
I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. Mind you any crying would probably have been due to hysteria.
WrAnTz 