Since the company I work for became global nearly two years ago when acquired by a US firm, I now have regular conference calls or ’stand-up’ meetings with my colleagues from the States. These are normally at the end of my day due to America being from 5-8 hours behind and involve various member of staff from different states/time zones. Coming from working in a one office London-based company to a global company takes a bit of getting use to. For one my working days seem longer due to a second wave of work or emails arriving later in the day, different working practices, different technology and different ways to communicate. One of these is conference calls. On my meetings I’m the only one from the UK and being naturally shy at speaking up at meetings, I sometimes find these calls really hard.
It’s weird because I have known most my colleagues for well over a year (a couple of newbies have joined as well) and they are all really nice (I count some of them as friends as well) but every week I still get a bit anxious before the call. The level of being anxious does depend on what I have to say or not to say - I don’t always have anything to add (which feels worse surprisingly). Even when I wish to ask a question for some reason I clam up and don’t say anything. Maybe it’s a fear of looking stupid. I also get ‘red neck’ from these calls, like my body temper rises with these calls. It’s also hard because you can’t see other peoples body language like in normal meetings but then again I wouldn’t want everyone to have web cams while on these calls. It must take practice and a lot of confidence to be really good at these calls - I’m off to look on Google for top tips on speaking up. Watch out everyone who knows me - here comes loud and over-confident me!!







