At 10.30am one day last week I got a reminder¹ on my phone saying that at 11am I had to join a conference call. I spent the next 30 minutes mildly dreading² it, and then at 10.59 dialled the number, put in the six-digit pin, and gave my name, as instructed.

某一天上午10点半，我收到了一条手机提醒，内容是11点我要参加一个电话会议。接下来的30分钟我一直有点忐忑，然后在10:59拨通了号码，输入6位密码，并按照提示报上了自己的大名。

“You are the first person joining the call,” said an electronic voice. I then listened to the William Tell Overture³ until I heard a robotic “Simon X — has joined the call.” Two seconds later someone called Katie joined. I had no idea who either of them were, but said hello.

“你是第一个加入会议的人，”电子语音称。之后我一直在听《威廉 尔序曲》(William Tell Overture Finale)，直到被一个机器人声音“西蒙X(Simon X)已经加入会议”打断。两秒后，一个名叫凯蒂(Katie)的人加入。我不认识他们，但还是打了招呼。

“What’s the weather like where you are?” Simon ventured. We proceeded to make the world’s most desultory⁴ small talk, interrupted by every new arrival, each one necessitating⁵ a fresh discussion about who was on and who wasn’t.

“你那边天气怎么样？”西蒙尝试打破尴尬。我们接着进行了世界上最不连贯的闲聊，不停地被新进入的人打断，每一次都需要重新讨论谁加进来了而谁还没有。

Fifteen minutes after the call was meant to start it finally got going. Various people spoke⁶ about a management symposium⁷ we are all due to be talking at next month. When it was my turn, I waffled for a bit, pretending I had already worked out what my talk was going to be about. Someone gave a guffaw⁸, though I could work out neither who it was nor whether the laugh suggested approval or disdain⁹. Then the organiser talked for some time about special dietary requirements, microphones and lecterns.

在原定时间的15分钟后，我们终于开始开会。大家纷纷讨论下个月要参加的一个管理研讨会。轮到我说话时，我有点含糊其辞，假装已经想好了自己将要在会上讨论的内容。有人大笑起来，尽管我既不知道是谁在笑，也不知道这笑声意味着赞同还是蔑视。然后会议的组织者说了一会儿关于特别饮食要求、麦克风和讲台的事。

At 11.54 it was over. Eight people in three time zones had wasted the best part of an hour on an exchange that could have been done in three minutes by email.

11:54，会议结束。来自3个时区的8个人，浪费了1个小时中的大部分时间来讨论本来可以通过电子邮件用3分钟解决的问题。

It is not hard to see why conference calls sound such a great idea. Business is global. People are not in the same place. Anything that allows them to have meetings without travelling has to be a good thing.

不难看出电话会议为什么听起来是个超棒的主意。业务全球化。人们都在不同的地方。任何可以让他们不用为了开会而舟车劳顿的办法都很好。

Neither is it hard to see why they can never work. To hold a meeting where you can never be sure who is talking — and often can’t hear them anyway — and where no one has done any preparation because they know they won’t get rumbled¹⁰ is to guarantee a discussion of the lowest possible order. Add to that sounds of dogs barking in the background and children being got off to school, because no conference call is ever complete without someone who is a stranger to the mute button, and it can only end badly.

也不难看出电话会议为什么从来一无用处。开会却从不知道谁在说话——反正也经常听不见——而且没人会做任何准备，因为他们知道自己不会被发现，这样的讨论注定是最混乱无序的。再加上背景中的狗吠声和被送去上学的孩子的声音——因为没有哪一次电话会议是在所有人都知道如何使用静音键的情况下完成的——会议只能草草收场。

Far from making the world seem smaller, the conference call makes it feel bigger. The people who are hanging on the line when a hard core are together in the meeting room do not feel included. They feel second-class citizens, who are impossibly far away. It is no surprise that everyone hates them. There is a funny sketch¹¹ by Tripp and Tyler sending up the conference call that has been watched 11m times on YouTube; I watched it again last week but didn’t laugh. It was too near the knuckle¹².

电话会议非但没有拉近世界的距离，反而使世界显得更大了。当一群骨干聚在会议室时，未在场的电话会议成员会感觉无法融入。他们会觉得自己是二等公民，身处千里之外。每个人都讨厌电话会议，这并不令人意外。特里普(Tripp)与泰勒(Tyler)制作的关于电话会议的搞笑短剧在YouTube上的观看次数达到1100万；前一阵我又看了一遍视频，但是笑不出来。太低级了。

What is surprising is that these virtual meetings go on happening. I seldom give a speech without having to endure a conference call in advance. A friend who works for a large global company tells me that every day two to three hours are given over to them, but in 10 years she cannot remember a single useful one.

令人惊讶的是，这些虚拟会议竟然能够继续存在。我往往要在不得不忍受电话会议的情况下讲话。有一个在大型跨国公司工作的朋友告诉我，她每天在电话会议上要耗费两三个小时，但是她想不起10年来有哪一次是有用的。

Email is often said to be the main bane of modern office life. But conference calls are surely worse. Emails can be deleted and ignored while a conference call puts one at the mercy of people gabbling away interminably at what is often an unsociable hour.

电子邮件常被称为现代办公室生活中的主要祸害。但是电话会议必然有过之而无不及。人们可以删除或忽略电子邮件，而电话会议中你得听有些人喋喋不休说个没完，在这一个小时中你也往往没法去跟人结交。

Many companies have tried to improve matters by fiddling¹³ with the technology. Some are foisting¹⁴ video conferences on their people instead so that up to 100 individuals in far- flung places can now all watch each other while they pontificate.

很多公司试着通过利用技术来提高电话会议的质量。有些公司强制要求员工使用视频会议，以便让分散各地的许多人——有时可达上百人——可以在发表意见时看到彼此。

In a way this is an improvement, as at least you know who is talking, but it has the drawback that you can no longer attend from the gym or naked in bed. Worse still, you can’t do the only sensible thing when on a conference call: get on with your emails or unload the dishwasher.

从某种角度而言，这确实是一种改进，至少你知道谁在讲话。坏处是你再也无法在健身房或者没穿衣服躺在床上时开会了。更糟的是，你再也无法去做电话会议中唯一明智的事——处理电子邮件或者腾空洗碗机了。

The main reason such conferences go on existing is political. Managers can cover their backs by saying they held a meeting in the knowledge that the format¹⁵ is too hopeless to produce a resolution.

这类会议继续存在的主要原因在于政治层面。管理者可以借声称已经开过会来避免遭受批评，但却明知这种形式的会议没办法达成解决方案。

Which leaves them free to impose whatever unpopular action they were planning in the first place. There is only one sort of conference call that should be allowed. It involves three or, at a stretch, four people who already know each other and who need to agree on something specific. It makes sense for example for an editor, a writer and a libel lawyer to have a conference call to discuss how best to keep out of jail.

这使他们可以随心所欲地推行他们最初计划的不受欢迎的举措。只有一种电话会议是合理的。会议涉及3个人、顶多4个人，他们彼此认识，并且需要就某件具体的事达成一致。比如，一名编辑、一名作家及一名诽谤律师开一次电话会议来讨论如何避免坐牢。

Otherwise there should be a rule. If something is so important it needs to be chewed over at length by more than four people, then a table must be found and people must travel to sit at it. If it is not so important, then the meeting ought not to take place at all.

否则就应该定下规矩。如果有件事非常重要，需要4人以上详细地反复讨论，那么就必须找张桌子，让相关人士亲自坐在桌旁。如果这件事没那么重要，那压根就不应该开会。