Some writers need absolute solitude to write. Others prefer to scribble their notes in crowded coffee shops. I find that I’m most productive when I’m supposed to be paying attention to something else.
Right at this moment, for instance, as I write these words, I’m also on a conference call with about a dozen other people. The conference call has participants from both coasts, New York and Los Angeles, so some of us are in business clothes and some of us, like me, are in pyjamas. It doesn’t matter what you wear to a conference call, of course, but there’s still something vaguely naughty about wearing pyjamas to the office, even if it’s a virtual one.
It’s also a lot more palatable to be lounging at home swaddled in blankets than gathered in a conference room, talking loudly into one of those starfish-looking devices.
There’s no effective way to conduct yourself on a call like this without feeling foolish. In the first place, you have to speak with a kind of deliberate loudness, which makes you feel as if you’re speaking to an elderly relative. And because there are so many people on a call like this, you have to identify yourself each time you speak, so the relative is not only old but also slightly batty.
And then there’s the overlapping problem.
“This is Rob. I just have one thing to add –”
“Can we –”
“Oh, you go –”
“What?”
“You go –”
“You go –”
“Can I just add –”
“Wait. You go.”
And it goes on that way for several minutes, or enough time for half of the participants to hit the “mute” button, begin surfing the web, and check out mentally. That’s what I decided to do a few minutes ago, when I lost track of who, exactly, was speaking.
Before I started writing this column, of course, I needed to hit the “mute” button. The tapping of the keyboard would have given me away otherwise. For some reason on these calls, although you can never quite understand the person talking because of murky and muffled acoustics, the moment anyone on the call makes an even mildly embarrassing noise – opening a package of potato crisps, for instance, or a loud video on YouTube – that sound comes through loud and clear.
It pays to be paranoid. The sound of running water, the “ding ding” of the seat belt alarm in a car, the noise of a child in the background, the unmistakable rattle that ice makes in a highball glass – a conference call is basically a form of old time radio theatre, and you want everyone to think that the play is called “Look How Engaged I Am in the Business at Hand,” not “I’m Lounging Around My Bedroom And Nobody Knows It”.
So when it comes to the “mute” button, belt and braces is the way to go. Here’s what I do, just to be sure: I hit “mute” on the phone, then use the “call silence” code for the conference call service and then, just to be sure, I try to interrupt the flow of the conversation to see if anyone can hear you.
“Hi, it’s Rob. It’s Rob. Can I break in? I need to break in here!” I’ll say loudly into the phone.
If they stop and ask me for my thoughts, I’ll just chime in some meaningless contribution, which, because it’s a conference call, no one will identify as such. If they all keep talking, I know the telephone is safely muted and I can go about my business.
It’s smart, though, to surface every few minutes into the call, just to maintain the fiction that you’re there and actively participating. I usually take the telephone off the “mute” function and dive right in.
“Uh, this is Rob,” I’ll say. “I just want to add that I agree with that. We can address that.”
Of course, I have no idea what I’m agreeing to or what I’m going to address. But the point is made: Hey! I’m paying attention.
And now I’ve got another 10 minutes of relative peace and quiet. I’m pretty sure more than half of any conference call is made up of people who are busily doing something else, and who dive back into the call every so often just to keep up appearances.
And that may explain why the Chinese are ahead of us, economically. They’re making iPhones and iPads and satellite rockets. We’re in our pyjamas, pretending to pay attention.
Rob Long is a writer and producer based in Hollywood
On Twitter: @rcbl
