The BOSS OF ME blog

What to do if it happens to you

Nobody wants to look stupid at work, so I do it for you. I am a certified Corporate Moron© who was caught unprepared the day my desk phone vanished from my office.

Like fax machines before them, desk phones are disappearing at an alarming rate from corporate offices everywhere. If you are not completely confident about the status of your desk phone, pay attention.

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I was logged into a Zoom meeting at the office, ready to lead a call with 15 attendees.

The problem:

My audio wasn’t working. Helpful colleagues sent messages in the meeting chat, telling me to ‘call into the meeting.’ After years of Zoom meetings, I was initially stumped. Call in? Okay. I looked around for my desk phone, but it was gone!

Where did it go? When did that happen? I vaguely recalled IT’s corporate-wide emails announcing the removal of phones from the desks of thousands of Corporate Morons©.

Realizing I looked like a fool, I aborted the search for my desk phone and reached for my primary communication device: a company-provided cell phone. While staring at my phone it occurred to me that I didn’t know how to use it to make phone calls. I finally found the ‘phone’ icon, and after a few more eons, I realized I needed to touch the ‘keypad’ icon.

With the speed of a koala bear munching on a eucalyptus leaf, I eventually found the number for the Zoom call as the high-resolution camera continued to live-stream my inability to use my iPhone. After initially dialing the US number, I finally found the Canadian toll-free number and proudly announced my accomplishment.

I’m in! I mouthed into the camera while pointing to my phone, although I’m not sure why I felt compelled to mute myself when Zoom had already taken care of that. I then typed in the zillion-digit series of numbers that made up the meeting’s ID and passcode. Next, I repeated all of the steps listed in this paragraph three times because I was now in a complete fucking rage at my inability to USE A PHONE, and I kept typing the wrong numbers.

All the while the folks on the Zoom call I was so ineptly trying to join, watched in astonishment.

My video was still on and working just fine.

Had my brain been firing on all cylinders, I would have fabricated some work emergency or another excuse to abort the call entirely, but I was in no position to get creative. I persevered and finally made my way onto the call. We all blamed the technology and our respective IT departments for the mishap. 

What’s the lesson here?

Be prepared. In the corporate world, you need to know more than just how to plug in and turn on your tech. You need to know where it is and how to use it too.

Here is my FREE Corporate Moron© Desk Phone User Guide:

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