The Conf. Call Dance

To fill in the breaks between work, we here at Microsoft love to jump onto a conference call, to discuss super-important issues. These come in four flavours.

1. The briefing
An important event has occurred, and everyone needs to know about it immediately. However, 'immediately' can be pushed back a bit to make sure that everyone can sit at the end of a phone to find out about the event, because this event's so important that email simply won't cut it.

Unfortunately, 'important' is a relative term, and no-one on the call, except the organiser actually gives a fig about this bit of news. As such, they all press 'mute' on their phones and get about their work, with half an ear open for their name.

Years of chatting to various women on the phone has left me expert at this particular type of call, and I'm invariably able to judge which non-committal phrase to utter when my attention is grabbed by my name. The notable exception was when I stupidly said "Yeah sure I can sort that", without hearing what 'that' was. The call then moved on, and to date I still have no idea what I agreed to - clearly can't have been too important though.

2. The Transatlantic
Across the pond, Brad and Crystal are super-excited about the latest scheme they've thought up. They're HYPED. To the max. Now, the scheme might not be entirely appropriate for your region's needs, or have any real content, but that's no longer important. The scheme, you see, has been assigned a Marketing Budget.

Given the time difference, you might not be at your best when the call starts at 6pm. However, this is not an acceptable excuse for not giving the call 110% - because that would be unpatriotic. Sitting there, over in the good ol' US of A, B & C expect you to be ENTHUSIASTIC and would love an INTERACTIVE call.

You can't even check your emails, as you'll constantly need to refer to the flashy Powerpoint deck which the marketing folks have put together, and will be talking you through for the next four hours.

3. The team catch-up
Everyone in the team needs to know what everyone else in the team has been up to. Quite why this is, no-one's sure, but it's in everyone's Outlook calendar, so it must be true. If you need more convincing - then consider the fact that the most successful teams in the company always have these calls, and deaths in the team have been at 0% since the calls started up.

Whatever you've been up to for the last week - whether it was a holiday in Skegness, or a technical training conference full of juicy gossip and hot new gadgets, you have 60 seconds to speak. You must fill these 60 seconds, and then get back on with whatever you were doing.

Given that these calls often occur on a Monday morning, that generally involves pulling the blanket back over your head and enjoying a nice lie-in.

4. The non-starter
Turning up on time to any kind of meeting, especially a conference call, is so passé. As such, you can expect to be on hold a fair while before the call starts. If you happen to work at Microsoft, then you get the awesome, fast-looping hold music loved the world around.

I've danced to this before, in meeting rooms and at home - but why did I never think of recording it before?

Classic, watch it all the way through: