conference calls

[Mobuck]

This seems to be the norm in business these days. I'm not really comfortable with the idea but may as well get used to it. I "talk with my hands" too much to communicate over a headset. I'm not anywhere near what Tom does for his networking digital stuff so I/we don't use 2 way video(probably a good thing). I have a picture stuck in my mind of his workgroup sitting in their "home offices" in front of the iPAD camera wearing a nice dress shirt, logo cap, AND GYM SHORTS w/crocs.
I had some experience before retiring with a "sort of" teleconference but mostly all that required was connecting to an internet link and dialing the phone and even that was a challenge for some(especially the "phone mute" feature).
I'm rounding up all the stuff I'll need to talk on the phone for 3 hours: porta power battery pack, notebook/pen, hardcopy meeting info, coffee mug, snacks that don't crunch when eaten, and a list of the questions I intend to ask. Hopefully no incoming calls that I can't ignore or call back later.

 

[JFB]

. . I'm not anywhere near what Tom does . . ,

Who's Tom and what has he got to do with call?

I've been on my fair share of low tech conference calls. Usally receiving FedEx package of drawings hour before and holding phone to side of the face for hour while discussing. and nearly all of those were done gratuitous with significant benifits to others.

 

[CGDustDevil]

Having worked in the international oil/gas/power gen field for 28 years, conference calls were very much routine; Office to office, office to customer, office to site, site to site, site to customer, etc. The last 8 years or so saw a lot of remote work, so home offices became very routine as well.

3 hours is a long conference call. Hopefully the organizers of the conference have planned for breaks. I always made it a point to be attired exactly as I would be if I were in the office, which I found helpful for staying focused on the business at hand.

 

[Rook]

Conference calls are a whole lot better than having to get up in the middle of the night to go catch a plane to fly across the country to kiss the bosses rear end in person. And then trying not to doze off in the meeting while everybody else has their turn kissing the bosses rear end while trying to impress everyone else with their vast knowledge.

 

[Mobuck]

"Who's Tom and what has he got to do with call?"
My older Son who does most of his work from his home office or vehicle seat via wireless communication. He's been operating this way for 10 years but the folks I work for are just catching up.

" And then trying not to doze off in the meeting"
One of the participants got a bit touchy when at the end of the call, the presenter jokingly suggested someone might have done this. Which was understandable since that person hadn't responded to a question or made a comment for almost 2 hours. Maybe a bit of guilt?

 

[coach]

I doubt if my attention span would make through a three hour conference call.

 

[Mobuck]

"I doubt if my attention span would make through a three hour conference call."

Watching the dollar signs roll by with every minute made a difference as did sitting in my easy chair listening to information I already heard while drawing a full day's pay. I did learn a couple of things so it wasn't wasted.

 

[exavid]

Thank goodness for Alaska's sketchy phone systems back when I was still working. We had quarterly 'grin and nod' sessions when the upper brass convened with we of the 'field'. In person no phone meetings.

 

[Jeepnik]

Bain of my existence. I could get more work done faster if cell phones had never been invented.

 

[coach]

"I doubt if my attention span would make through a three hour conference call."

Watching the dollar signs roll by with every minute made a difference as did sitting in my easy chair listening to information I already heard while drawing a full day's pay. I did learn a couple of things so it wasn't wasted.

That would keep me hanging in too. At least they couldn’t see you yawning.

 

[NH Rugerman]

I prefer conference calls over emails or having to travel any day...My employer is headquartered in London, manufactures in Bergamo, Italy and my direct report is in Toronto...conference calls, and now, much more often, Skype video conferencing is a must for our company. We can communicate very effectively and we have a rule, maximum of 30 minutes and only subjects that INVOLVE everyone on the call...otherwise, take it off line and communicate separately.

Beats 30 emails any day!! And I already fly al least 100 segments a year!

YMMV

 

[Kevin]

I had an office job once. I never liked it. Thank goodness that didn’t last very long.

These days, my wife who does have an office job does conference calls pretty much all day long. Sometimes they are “company wide.” It seems like a good way to pass out information easily. I listen in occasionally, talk about dry, boring, put you to sleep, can’t stand more than 5 minutes of talk. Well, as I said, I’m not an office type employee.

 

[CGDustDevil]

Bain of my existence. I could get more work done faster if cell phones had never been invented.

Cell phones are a two-edged sword for sure. Back in 1990 I bought my first 'mobile phone' which cost me about $1200 at the time. It wasn't huge, but it was large enough to have a carrying handle, and you had to have an external antenna (mag mount) on the vehicle. It did have a smaller antenna built in, but it wouldn't work inside a vehicle.

Back in those days in field service, we only had pagers and phone booths. If a fella happened to be locked in 6 lanes of stopped traffic in Los Angeles and received an emergency page, it was a real PITA to edge to the right to find an exit, and then find a phone! You could spend 30-40 minutes just getting OFF the freeway and to a phone booth that wasn't used by gang bangers for drug deals. There were also AT&T calling card numbers to remember, etc. Suffice it to say - Communications were complicated for those of us who spend 300+ days a year on the road.

I was the 2nd one in the district, and the 3rd Field Service rep in the history of the company to carry a mobile phone for work. One Sunday night on the way home from a long weekend in Bakersfield, I got an emergency page from the after hours answering service at around 7:00 p.m. I didn't have to get off the freeway to call the answering service! I was elated! I called from the truck and found that one of my San Diego customers had an 8 MW unit down on vibration monitor fail. I called the site on my brand new fancy dancy mobile phone, found out the particulars, and walked the customer rep through the process of removal of the suspected bad card in order to get a part number. (I was boxed in, in traffic just north of L.A. at this point)

I called the after hours parts number at the plant, and sure enough they had a spare in stores. Being Sunday night, the 2nd shift was getting ready to leave and there was no 3rd shift. I had the folks in stores walk the part out to the west guard shack and told them I'd swing by and pick it up on my way to site. I called the site back and told them I'd be there as soon as I could get through Los Angeles and down the 5.

Stopped at the plant, picked up the part from the guard shack, made the 4 mile drive down I-15 to the site, installed the new card, started the unit back up and had 'em cranking out 8.5 MW just before midnight on a Sunday night. In all, their outage was less than 5 hours. The customer was dazzled at what I could get done while on the road! I got a letter of commendation for that in fact.

After that, my boss said "We'll pay your cell bill...Just keep doin' what you're doin'!". I made calls from offshore platforms, remote oil fields, all over the place. That set the stage for the entire district and worldwide Field Service offices getting mobile phones, and it was truly a good thing for business.

These days I stay as far away from phones as I can get, but at that time the 'new fangled cell phone' was quite the trick!

Regards, Pete

 

[JFB]

Pete, I'll can't find now, But I just saw an article where the (?GE) Field Reps use a hardhat with teleconferance directly back to an office group now. Talk was that the customer could get the setup and bypass the use of Field Rep

Not conference call per say, but trying to talk someone else how to determine, reslove and repair problems with turbine controls can go either way. I have had some great experiances and some that went bad

worse was...

Maintencae Manager called and stated "the turbine would not pick up load".
after couple calls over as many hours, I discovered the unit was not even reset!
this was mechanical controls and having some one find a beer can size solinold and see if it was energized take more and longer.

Getting agrovated at the poor communications, I said lets start at the very begining and asked, "are the lube oil pumps running"

This pissed the Manager off, "Off course the pump is running, do you think we are fools"
I replied, "I asked PUMPS, you need both the bearing header pump for turning gear AND the Aux pump to supply high pressure to the controls"

there was a silence and he replied "I'll call you back if we need you" and I never heard any more that night.

Next day I called the plant manager and learned the unit was in service

besides sending them a bill for the hours, apperantly US AT&T and Canada's telephone did not like each other and my phone bill was over $200

 

[Jeepnik]

Bakersfield, oil fields, platforms and gas turbines. Guys while I do water it’s darned possible we’ve passed each other, if not actually spoken over the years. It’s a small world

Talked to a young lady operator in Bakersfield for several years before we figured out she once lived three blocks from me. So who knows.

 

[JFB]

...it’s darned possible we’ve passed each other, if not actually spoken over the years. It’s a small world ...

A neighbor about a mile away, he was a couple years older, but we grew up going to the same grade school and highschool. He graduated and went off to work at some "big company" and I followed a few years latter.

Now that I quit work (no longer on the road), he's retired and we met recently at grocery store. Come to find out he and I had worked at several the same plants at the same time including a plant in Korea! Had worked with same Crews and Contract Adminstrators

 

[Pat-inCO]

I was stuck on a project, just before I opted out, that had a conference call
every day at 1pm (CO time). Since I had one of the few speaker phones
I was able to check in to the call, put the phone on mute, and go back to
work. If anything required my input, I simply turned my chair around, hit
the mute button, and answered.

The calls were normally about an hour long, but I could get at least 45 min
of actual work done during the call. LOVED those mute buttons!
AND no one (else) interrupted me for that hour. :wink: