Thursday, December 20, 2007
Attending a work Christmas party remotely?!?
Thursday, December 20, 2007 
True story, although I'm not divulging the name of who is directly involved, because this just seems so silly.
Someone I know works for a company whose parent office is in California. The satellite office where my friend works is located here in Boston and has been recently reduced down to two employees.
So, yesterday the parent office hosts a Christmas party (in CA) and they want (ie. required) the satellite employees (all two of them) to attend... virtually. Now this means video conferencing. They send the the small office cookies, etc. ahead of time for this. One of the other satellite employees was out of the office yesterday, leaving just my friend there.
Video conferencing wasn't working. So get this, they set up teleconferencing for this thing. My friend is sitting at a table beside a conference phone, eating some cookies while listenening to the broken up audio of a party happening in CA. For an hour. They said it was like something straight out of television sitcom The Office. I guess the receptionist (yes, a receptionist for two employees) kept walking by the room chuckling. Personally, I would have taken the cookies and gone home. "Ooops. The phone wasn't really working so I split."
I guess its a good thing that the video conferencing wasn't working (that would have been twice as strange), but this is the strangest story I have heard in quite some time.
Someone I know works for a company whose parent office is in California. The satellite office where my friend works is located here in Boston and has been recently reduced down to two employees.
So, yesterday the parent office hosts a Christmas party (in CA) and they want (ie. required) the satellite employees (all two of them) to attend... virtually. Now this means video conferencing. They send the the small office cookies, etc. ahead of time for this. One of the other satellite employees was out of the office yesterday, leaving just my friend there.
Video conferencing wasn't working. So get this, they set up teleconferencing for this thing. My friend is sitting at a table beside a conference phone, eating some cookies while listenening to the broken up audio of a party happening in CA. For an hour. They said it was like something straight out of television sitcom The Office. I guess the receptionist (yes, a receptionist for two employees) kept walking by the room chuckling. Personally, I would have taken the cookies and gone home. "Ooops. The phone wasn't really working so I split."
I guess its a good thing that the video conferencing wasn't working (that would have been twice as strange), but this is the strangest story I have heard in quite some time.
Comments:
There are currently 2 Comments:
-
TJ said...“I dont even know how to respond to that except to say "if you're too freaking cheap to fly your employees out to your company Xmas party then don't torture them".”
