The Conference Call is a universal staple of almost any workplace. They happen often, and can range from being inconsequential to being the most important event in your universe. This leads to literally thousands of situations that can arise, some of which are bound to be funny.

With this in mind, I’d like to present the following conference call bloopers:

The Bastard

This actually happend to my office mate (oh yes, I’ve escaped the cubicle for the time being), but he was on with our shared client so I can definitely see this happening. Apparently it was one of those high level conference calls (read: many people who make more money than us), so the mood was pretty serious. One of our clients was on her cell phone at the time, amazingly enough without the usual background noise and static that usually accompany cell phone participants. During the course of the call, out of nowhere, she screamed “Move you bastard!!”. Obviously, this was answered by stunned silence, followed by: “Oh geez, I’m on the call….”. My friend had to put his phone on mute because he couldn’t stop laughing, and it was even made more funny because of the attendees. Ah, if only I could actually say that, mean it, and get away with it…..

Elevator Music

I was on a very important conference call, with probably about 30 people from across the country. There was a wide variety of attendants, with both high and middle level people on the scene. Since it was such a large call, some people were having trouble getting and staying connected (our conference bridge was working overtime). In the middle of the call, it sounded like somebody just suddenly dropped off. The call kept going, but in the background we could hear a light overtone of elevator music. It was weird, but we kept moving on because of time constraints. About five to six minutes later, right in the middle of a brilliant analysis by me of course, a loud voice suddenly booms out “Your message has been recorded, Goodbye!”. Apparently the person was still connected but it went right to their voice mail. In the end, we were treated to light jazz and they got five or six minutes of thrilling analysis by me. Fair trade? Of course, I’m definitely worth at least some light jazz.

These are two from recent memory, but there have been many others before them. What was the last conference call blooper you or a co-worker were witness to? Don’t be stingy, I know you have some.