Conference Calls & Nuances..

I should say, at last, am able to enter the conference calls from my home using Skype.My attempts to announce my call attendance was worth enough to share year, so anyone who just start attempting the conf. calls will find this blog entry useful.

Last year, though I took calls from office and was possible even by morning 9.30 AM or evening 9.30 PM. Because, in evenings, my H used to pickup as the office was in reasonable distance. But when my workplace been moved to chennai outskirts, it was hard to join for late-evening calls and somehow acceptable in office too.

But lately, my PM asked to attend calls because of necessity for clients handling. Thank goodness of him, offered me the local office number and from there to connect thru' VOIP to US numbers. So, on the day, went home earlier, finished the dinner chores, settled my daughter in computer and myself in terrace and waiting for the call timing. The D-hour started and I dialled into the number; after two failures, could get my office number and then the conference number too. My happiness of announcing my attendance started and in the same vain, lasted for few mins only with the street-dogs had started barking and continued to do in breaks :-(

I was using a older model Nokia set and dint know that we can actually mute the phone. So I was covering the phone to mute the dog's bark, nevertheless it reached upto US and my PM had to send a SMS to close the phone, hinting the dog bark. No other go, had to switch off the connection and came down to my compie and entered the call through SKYPE conference software. Though, I was able to login to the call, but could not attempt speaking as my mike remains dead.

But here is another nuance that I did not know again, a need to enable the mike settings in the home system. So, until my friend told me, I thought the problem was with mike device and just entered the 2 to 3 calls as silent spectator and using the messenger for communication.

Finally, to my relief, with all the nuances settled down, I successfully took the calls, this week.