My theory about conference calls

Before I started my current job, I had a relatively light exposure to the joys of conference calls. However, since I have been here, I have participated in more conference calls than I care to think about. And most of these wonderful sessions have lasted an hour or more. I'm actually flying to the main office in early February in order to avoid a meeting/call that will run from 8am to 5pm. 

At any rate, I have developed a theory about conference calls, and something that happened to me today seems to confirm it. My theory is this: when you are calling in to a meeting with other people, most of whom are together in one room, your viewpoint tends to be ignored. Sometimes the problem is the speakerphone, which usually prevents you being heard when someone else is talking. But a great deal of it also has to do with the fact that  you are not there. If you're not there, it's easy for them to ignore you. You're not a real person - you're just a disembodied voice.  This is particularly true if you have never met any of the people in the meeting.

For the past two months, I have been suffering a weekly, two-hour phone call as part of a team that is developing a Sharepoint portal for my company. Yesterday's meeting dealt, in part, with a name for the portal. The IT department had come up with a lame name that many of us didn't like. I chimed in with a brilliant suggestion (if I do say so myself) that people liked. During the meeting, I even corrected (or thought I did) someone who attributed the idea to another woman. The name was to be sent to the marketing department for their input.

Today I received an email from the meeting organizer saying that the name I had suggested had been approved - everyone loves it, thinks that its brilliant and the perfect name.

And apparently everyone thinks that another woman came up with the idea. A woman who was physically present at the meeting. 

Right now, I'm waiting to see if she corrects the mistaken assumption. Don't worry, gentle readers, that I'm holding my breath.

But I'm not bitter.


Nope!


Not me!



Yeah, right. 

I detest conference calls.