Work Story

Our entire team took part in a phone meeting the other day. The bosses called the meeting to let us know that our leader of ten years was moving on, and our leader's leader — our Grand Leader — aka Rex Dangervest — wanted to weigh in and say reassuring things.

Suddenly the phone meeting went into echo mode, probably because someone started listening to the meeting on speaker, so that speaker phone picked up the audio and echoed it. Picture someone calling in to a radio show while still listening to the radio.

So there were two minutes of the Boss of the Boss, bless him, saying, "I want to reassure you all (reassure you all) that we will do everything we (do everything we) can (can) - wow, this echo is really distracting (this echo is really distracting) ... " and so on.

At the end he said, "Any questions? (Any questions?)"

One young co-worker answered, "Yes, I couldn't hear, could you repeat everything you just said?"

I can’t tell you if he laughed, because everyone else’s laughter was too uproarious, but I really do fear we might be pushing the boundaries of Big Boss Dangervest’s good humor.

Comments

[KC]

I grant that could be frustrating (especially after dealing with a conference call echo, auuugh, not the kind of feedback we want...), but *think* of the morale value of an uproarious laugh as a team! :-) (and also, if there's anything that reassuring needs to happen about, then if everyone's laughing at the end, and not in a grim gallows-humor way, then Boss Boss has won the round, I think?)

[TheQueen]

KC - yeah! Morale! It definitely broke the tension.