[Ipg-smz] Your conference-call horror stories & banalities, please.
Tom Henderson
thenderson at extremelabs.com
Wed Oct 10 17:57:50 UTC 2018
The male cockatiel has a brown/tan sere above their beak. Without a lot
of embarrassment for bird and holder, it's the only way to tell. Oh, and
females will lay eggs. Usually but not always, males are more vocal.
I've raised cockatiels. I put them in their cage when a limo full of
Microsofties brought pizza to my home lab one lunchtime. The only one
they didn't like was the product manager, who of course, was the most
aggressive.
They can be taught to poop in the cage. This lasts about two weeks. Ask
me how I know.
Great story.
Tom
On 10/10/2018 12:59 PM, Brian Santo wrote:
> I'm moderating a webinar.
> And let's back up a year. My spouse decides she wants a cockatiel. I
> don't care what animal she gets as long as she takes care of it. Of
> course, I end up taking care of it -- I'm home all day. The things are
> social and as long as he's sitting on my shoulder Life Is Great For
> The Cockatiel. Week 1 of owning this bird nearly every shirt I own has
> bird poop on the right shoulder. Why? Because he is unhappy on my left
> shoulder. Week 2? Michael Jackson had his sequined glove, Taylor Swift
> has those shorts-thingies, and I have a rag over my right shoulder. It
> has become a part of my identity.
> So. A year later. Webinar. Tunneling in cable modem termination
> systems or proactive maintenance on the DOCSIS 3.0 platform or
> something -- let me know and I'll send you the link. And I want to
> stress this -- this is far from either my or the bird's first webinar.
> We are, at this point, webinar veterans. Fifteen minutes into this
> particular webinar, however, the cockatiel, hanging out on top of his
> cage, for no reason goes from 1 to 11 on the Agitation Meter. Or maybe
> it's a she -- I really don't care. Anyway, "Tweet! Tweet!" says the
> cockatiel. "Tweet! Tweet!"
> Normally, what calms down the bird is the opportunity to poop on my
> shoulder. So I hold out a finger as a perch, which thus far in Our
> Life Together has only meant but one thing -- "next stop: right
> shoulder."
> A message pops up in the Webinar Chat Window. It's from the sound
> engineer with the webinar hosting company. It says "Does anyone else
> hear a bird?"
> It's cool, though.I have my finger in position. I got this.
> The bird cocks its head, hops and takes flight, soars over my finger
> and starts doing circles around the room, screeching "TWEET! TWEET!"
> I am confused. The finger has always worked before. I stand up,
> helpfully displaying my finger to the crazed cockatiel, whose name is
> Pluma. Pluma wants none of it. "TWEET TWEET TWEET!" He's flying like
> it's Independence Day and he's Dennis Quaid's unhinged little brother
> trying to make a virtue of his unhingedness in the last major motion
> picture he'll ever be hired for.
> A message pops up in the Webinar Chat Window. It's from the guy with
> the webinar hosting company. It says "Brian, we have the bird isolated
> on your mike."
> I scream -- in my head mind you, only in my head -- "I FUCKING KNOW!"
> This is an accurate, word-for-word quote, which you can attribute to
> the source.
> After another 30 seconds of screeching tweets and frantic flapping,
> the situation, for reasons known only to the cockatiel, de-escalates.
> He alights on top of his cage -- or maybe it's a she, I don't really
> care -- and goes all quiet contemplation on me, like a Zen Master
> demonstrating Cosmic Stillness.
>
> I have told this story to a hundred people. Every single one of them
> asked, "Why didn't you just put your microphone on mute?"
> For the hundredth-and-oneth time: because I'm an idiot.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 9:13 AM Tim Walker <tewalkerjr at gmail.com
> <mailto:tewalkerjr at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> These are great, Tom — thanks.
>
> On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 10:38 AM Tom Henderson
> <thenderson at extremelabs.com <mailto:thenderson at extremelabs.com>>
> wrote:
>
> From my ugly conf call memories:
>
> 1) PR and Company CEO think they're on mute or haven't heard
> my entrance tone. PR company is in the midst of a long diss of
> the publication I'm representing, calling out chapter and
> verse for each of their top staff. Epithets and expletives
> abound. CEO is digesting the background. Oh, you heard about X
> from Y pub? Five minute story about taking two journos on a
> drunken #MeToo experience. Said he caught a case of something.
> PR person snickers. I clear my throat. You'd have thought a
> completely different pair of individuals were subsequently on
> this call.
>
> 2) Had a nine-person conf call. CEO/founder, VP marketing,
> product manager, geeks from Israel and India on speakerphones,
> PR person desperately trying to manage the call, and a product
> engineer. Fortunately, they knew how to use mute controls. The
> rest: Total mayhem, with mayhem slides, then the app demo that
> switched back and forth between machines, and nothing worked
> at all, period, for the entire wasted hour. Nine sheepish
> goodbyes.
>
> 3) We have a conf call to tell a product manager that his
> stuff actually doesn't work, and why. This is impossible for
> him to believe, so we switch into view screen mode. He watches
> the problems with his own eyes. He yells, "FU A$$holes" and
> terminates the call. An hour later, a request from the VP to
> do a conf call. Rinse repeat the demo from our side.
> "Hooooolleeeeeeyyyy F" is his response. Next morning, another
> and final conf call, final because we don't get paid to teach
> vendors their mistakes. It's the coder. I fixed it, he says. A
> week later, we've checked it. Nope, not fixed, smoking crater
> with scents of sulfur. They were bought by a certain three
> letter company two weeks later for almost a billion dollars.
>
> 4) Product manager in Israel does a skype conf call. Very late
> in the day for him. He didn't realize his cam was on. Naked,
> of course. Very hairy guy. Eventually, he realizes this and
> the screen goes blank, but not the audio. I hear a scramble
> while he's talking. Call is cut short. Oddly and perhaps for
> the same reason, he leaves the company not long after.
>
>
> Tom
>
>
>
> On 10/10/2018 10:11 AM, Tom Geller wrote:
>> Funny you should ask this, because Cracked.com
>> <http://Cracked.com> had a somewhat-related listicle yesterday:
>>
>> http://www.cracked.com/pictofacts-1104-21-hilariously-cringeworthy-moments-from-live-tv-shows/
>>
>> It includes the famous "baby running into the room"
>> conference call (#19)
>>
>> #21 had me rolling on the floor.
>>
>> ---
>> Tom Geller * Writer & Video/journalist * http://tomgeller.com
>> Rotterdam, The Netherlands, +31 (0)6 87071468
>> Oberlin, Ohio * +1-415-317-1805
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Tom Henderson
> ExtremeLabs, Inc.
> +1 317 250 4646
> Twitter: @extremelabs
> Skype: extremelabsinc
>
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Tom Henderson
ExtremeLabs, Inc.
+1 317 250 4646
Twitter: @extremelabs
Skype: extremelabsinc
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