I’m on a lot of conference calls. I’ve perfected the art of participating whilst doing other things simultaneously, like scratching my balls or writing a chapter of a novel.

But the one aspect of conference calls that I really enjoy is when we come to some impasse or another and decide to call in yet someone else; either for their worthless opinion or to blame them for everything that has gone wrong in the past quarter.

So these poor bastards, sitting at their desk playing solitaire or whatever is they do all day, get phones call they’re not expecting. A nice surprise. And for some reason they never suspect they’re on a conference call or that we’ve called from the conference room and that a party of ten is on the line. You’d think they’d learn, but they don’t.

And almost without exception they pick up the phone, hear a familiar voice and start talking shit. Or telling exceptionally filthy jokes. I get to hear one per week on average, where some dumbass picks up the line and starts telling a room full of people that he was out all night drinking or has the scabies or some shit. And no matter if the chairman himself is on the phone, no one says anything for at least a full minute because no one knows just how to tell the guy without making it a legal issue or whatever.

Yesterday we called a guy in and as soon as he heard the voice of the guy who was chairing the meeting, a friend of his, he starts busting the guy’s balls:

“Tony! You home jerking off today? I bet you are. I bet your jerking off to the yoga channel, huh? I love jerking off to the yoga channel!” Then he made a few exaggerated noises.

“Uh, Pete, I’m here in the conference room with the budget team…we have a question.”

Dead air.

After about five seconds the meeting guy composed himself and asked whatever pointless question we called about.

There were a few women on the call, two company officers and an old broad from purchasing with no sense of humor. I had to excuse myself from the room for a minute because I was crying. It was one of those times where you laugh hysterically but no sound comes out and tears run streaming down your face. It was uncontrollable and everyone knew it.

When I returned a few minutes later the call had ended and people were filing out trying not to make eye contact with each other for fear of explosive laughter. Let this be a lesson to you.