The call that lives in my mind was a long time ago. It was a sales pitch selling I-don't-even-remember, but given the participants I remember probably some web publishing tool.

Then my manager, the person who would actually make any decisions, took a call and stepped out of the room while the sales-droid was mid-pitch. The other three of us are suppressing laughter, and then see $boss hang up and just walk away while a polished, chipper voice drones on about all the great features of whatever it was.

At which point we have an etiquette problem. One person looks at me uncomfortably and leaves. I can tell the other really wants to bolt too, so I break in and apologetically manufacture a vague emergency to explain why we need to pick up the call later.

That was my life, nearly every week. We had someone who doesn't mute and his kid will be crying all through the meeting. People tried reminding him couple of times to no avail.

Later, the teleconference software added a button where the organizer could mute everyone and we could solve this problem.

Wow. Never have I been more grateful that our stuff has the ability to disable anyone's can/mic.

Why didn't someone say "Hey Helen, you know you're not on mute right?"

> Why didn't someone say "Hey Helen, you know you're not on mute right?"

Helen was dealing with puking, crying, screaming and crapping themselves. We were taking too long planning a budget.

Sometimes Helen isn’t on speaker phone, and the handset is laying on the desk while she deals with the emergency.

Helen doesn’t hear the warnings, sadly.