Last week I asked people to help me come up with the things that people do that make conference calls suck. And a few things kept coming up, and so I’ve come up with some new rules:

1. Hold music.

How many times have we all been on a call, and someone puts the call on hold for a minute, and then we all have to hear their hold music?! A lot. It makes it difficult for the rest of us to hear and carry on. And the music is invariably awful. It isn’t even background music, because there’s always some sales pitch that interrupts, or some customer service voice that reminds us to “please stay on the line. Your call is important to us.”

RULE #1: If you have hold music, you are not allowed to put the conference call on hold. If you have to get off the call for a few minutes, you must drop off and dial back in when you’re ready.

PENALTY: Violators will be dropped in a hole with their hold music piped in at variable intervals until they take their own life.

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