The Seventh Circle of Conference Call Hell

Posted 01.31.2014

One of the theories about what makes comedy funny is when the bit does such a great job of describing everyday reality that you laugh out loud in recognition.

That’s what made Jerry Seinfeld a wealthy man and it’s what makes this video on the seventh circle of Hell known as a corporate conference call from comedy duo Tripp and Tyler so hellaciously funny.

videoconfcall

I first learned about the video from a post by Seth Godin at the beginning of the week on conference call hygiene.  He linked to it and when I first watched it it had about a million views on YouTube.  As I write this four days later, it has over four million views.  It’s viral because it’s funny.

I’ve yet to find the person who loves conference calls and, yet, they are a fact of professional life.  We can all at least do what we can to make them more bearable and less frequent.  Seth offers an excellent list of ideas about how to do so in his post.  They’re all good.  My favorite is “when in doubt, don’t have one.”

What say you?  What rules should every conference call convener or participant be required to follow?