While we don't use conference calls for any of our business dealings (we still do old fashioned meetings), I'm on the board for a couple national trade organizations and we hold them every few months. I can relate to every situation, I'm sure many of you can as well! You guys that don't have to partake are lucky!

IRL Conference Call

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1980 300TD-China Blue/Blue MBTex-2nd Owner, 107K (Alt Blau) OBK #15
'06 Chevy Tahoe Z71 (for the wife & 4 kids, current mule) '03 Honda Odyssey (son #1's ride, reluctantly) '99 GMC Suburban (255K+ miles, semi-retired mule) 21' SeaRay Seville (summer escape pod)

I am on more than 2 or 3 conference calls each week.

yeah, its annoying, but if the alternative is flying to Charlotte or driving to Indianapolis every time...fighting the phone doesnt seem as bad anymore.

I consider this a 'benefit' of working for a small company. Large companies love conference calls and even put in video conference rooms (with attendant techno-screwups)

Large companies generally have better pay and benefit packages, and horrific HR departments.

Small companies often have the 'luxury' of doing business locally. Which is good, but also makes it harder to 'scale' - which seems to be on the mind of most people who run/start businesses.

-John

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2009 Kia Sedona
2009 Honda Odyssey EX-L
12006 Jetta Pumpe Duse
(insert Mercedes here)

Husband, Father, sometimes friend =)

Painfully accurate

My boss is in Scotland, the rest of his team is in Germany, France, China, Mexico, Colorado, Indiana, and California.

One of my direct reports is in Canada. At various times I'll have project managers reporting to me from all of the locales listed above, plus Virginia, Singapore, and possibly others.

The engineers I support, daily, are in Virginia, Canada, Mexico, and China. Factories are in France, Germany, Mexico, China, and Korea.

Add horrible phone lines (Mexico and sometimes China), heavy accents, and the joy of trying to deal with scheduling across 16 time zones to the stuff shown in the video..... that's my work life.

But I love it - and couldn't get my job down without conference calls.

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1961 220b: first project car - sold.
2000 CLK 430: first modern Benz - sold.
2001 CLK 55: OMG the torque!!! - sold
1972 280SE 4.5: Baby Gustav
1991 300TE 4Matic: Gretel the Snow Bunny - sold
1978 300SD: Katz the Free Man - given away
1980 Redhead: Darling Wife

I don't know about you guys, but I enjoy the 150 emails a day that take the place of meetings.

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Onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat

I recondition w123/w126/w124/w140/r107/r129/ steering boxes!


1984 300D "Elsa" odo reset 6/2011 147k
1983 300TD "Mitzi" ~268k OM603 powered
1995 E300 "Adelheid" 262k [Sold]

No fun....