A Conference Call Gone Wrong

     Working at any large corporation entails a lot of meetings and conference calls.  There are so many they become routine. Throughout my work life at McDonnell Douglas/Boeing (33 years) I attended many meetings but also set many up and as I said these were routine task.  As with some task that become routine sometimes you become complacent.

     So it goes, one day I needed to set up a conference call between a the US Navy, vendors, engineers, logisticians and British Aerospace (BAe).  The participants were all people I knew and frequently dealt with so I expected it to be a productive conference call sorting out a few issues but low key.  The US Navy was located in Patuxent River Maryland, the vendors in California, BAe in England and the engineers/ logisticians in St Louis, Missouri.

     I set the call up for later that week; I took account of the different time zones (as you may have noticed) and picked an appropriate time convenient to all as best I could.  I sent out the email invites giving the conference call number as well as the time for their time zone, feeling proud how damn organized I was.  

     The day before the call, something came up at home which I needed to take off work for, so I ask a co-worked (Lynn Duncan) to handle the call, saying "It will be no big deal it's all setup just keep everyone on topic".  Lynn accepted the task after all it was "no big deal".  So I took off work the day of the call feeling confident that everything was in place for a successful conference call with Lynn handling the reigns.

     The day I returned to work I was surprised with a time zone wheel (designed and built by Mike Gilmor).  Mike was another co-worker that also was participating in the conference call.  As it turned out my organizational skills at least concerning time zones needed a lot of work.  Lynn told me people from all over the country and world (BAe) were calling throughout the day to connect to this conference call because I had royally screwed up the time zones confusing everyone.

     I should have been embarrassed but I was laughing so hard I could barely see straight, especially after looking at the time zone wheel (see photo insert).  This makeshift wheel turned out to become a very functional tool which I used until I retired.  The time zone wheel provided such an interesting and funny memory that I kept it after I retired and I now have it hanging in my home office.  Next time someone ask you for a favor claiming "It's no big deal", run, run as fast as you can to the nearest exit.