belhoste

I work for a company that looooves to have meetings. I attend meetings to talk about other meetings that I went to and then I attend other meetings that are scheduled to talk about new meetings that will be scheduled. But since all of these meetings are with people outside of my office, they all take place via whatever telecommunications device that I have handy. Basically, this means that I am on the phone all day every day.

The company is nationwide, so I have people on both coasts to talk to. The meetings have started as early as 7 AM and have ended as late as 7 PM (now that was a fun day). Of course some of the meetings are productive, but most of them are just to pass information on to other people that didn’t get to attend other meetings. So if you were lucky enough to have made it to the first informational meeting at 7 AM, then you get to hear it all over again at the second informational meeting at 7 PM. If this company ever goes global, then I can look forward to 3 AM meetings [insert sarcastic 'joy' here]!

Now as if just having one meeting per hour for 12 hours wasn’t enough, there are times when I am required to attend two meetings at the same time (and of course neither one can be re-scheduled for someone so ‘bottom of the food chain’ like me). This has become such a common occurrence, that I carry two telecommunications devices with me at all times. Both phones are commonly in use together - this requires knowing for absolute certain which call is on which device (some information is confidential even between the departments that I work with - like I didn’t already have enough to deal with). It also involves remembering the code to mute the call for each type of conference call you may be connected to (even though it is the same company - we don’t all use the same type). I gave up trying to remember the mute codes and now I just use the mute button on my phone - which is much more reliable than my memory.

All this talking/listening on the phone has resulted in some extreme auditory related issues: nightmares where I wake in a panic to the sound of a dial tone in my ear; I swear I am still hearing certain people’s voices even after a call ends; and thinking that I hear people typing and eating even in an empty room. Oh and I now immediately cringe at the sound a speakerphone makes when it is too close to a cell phone (I honestly would rather hear nails on a chalkboard)!

I would ask these people if they have ever heard of email, but I know that they have because I have almost 900 saved work emails from the month of February alone (this does not include the 100 or so I trashed - nor does it include the 20+ per day I get personally or blog related). When do these people find the time to type up an email when they are on conference calls all the time?!?!

Oops, gotta go - I’m late for a meeting!