Here’s what happened at my house during my first conference call back in 2003 when I was still working for the law firm. My son slept in that school-less day because we were going to go stand in line that night for the release of the latest Harry Potter book, and I didn’t want a really crabby kid there with me. He slept in so long that I didn’t have time to take him to latchkey before the scheduled conference call. I shooshed him and my 100 pound chocolate Lab into Patrick’s bedroom on the second floor and told him not to make a peep while I was on this very important call. I went across the hall to my room and called in on the landline, but no one could hear me. I ran downstairs and got the portable phone and discovered I still couldn’t be heard. Finally I just gave up, hung up, went back upstairs to redial and luckily got in. Not five minutes later, the doorbell rang so I set the phone down, ran back downstairs and discovered a friend of Patrick’s at the door. I let him in at the same time Patrick came out of his room and let the dog loose. Buddy charged down the stairs, jumped up on poor Chris and slobbered all over him. All Chris said was, “Boy, he’s ‘way bigger than my dog!” I quickly ushered all three of them back upstairs into Patrick’s room and I got back on the phone. Within three minutes, Patrick picked up the extension, because Chris had to call his grandmother to tell her he arrived safely. I put the phone down, ran back downstairs to grab my cell phone so Chris could make the call. Once back upstairs, I showed them how to use the cell phone (they were 8 and hadn’t had their own phones yet). I went back into my room to return to the conference call. I then realized that my cell is a 313 area code and we live in 734, Chris’s grandma lives in 734, and they probably would not be able to figure that out, so I put the phone down again and went to Patrick’s room to help but they were all gone. The room was empty. I ran back downstairs again, found them, dialed the number for them, and then went back upstairs to get caught up on the conference call. While I was finally settling in on the call, I heard Chris out in the front yard through my open second floor window say to Patrick, “Let’s go to my grandma’s house” and off they went. All I knew about where Chris’s grandma lived was that it was across from the school. Perfect.
Finally, a half hour later, after I finally was able to hang up, I leashed the dog and walked a few blocks over by the school looking for two bikes, of which only one would I recognize. I somehow eventually stumbled across them and managed to get the grandma’s phone number. I went home and collapsed.
So that’s how my first conference call went. I had another one the next day but this time, I had a plan: The dog will be at the vet, Patrick will be at latchkey, and I won’t be answering any doorbells!