You may remember me from such tips as press ## to mute the conference or *323** to turn go #beepfree2020. Today I’m here to share how to turn off “please say your name, followed by the pound sign...”, but first some math...

It takes about 4 seconds by my count to wait for the question, press # without saying anything and then hear “ you will now join the conference “.

So there are conservatively 200k public servants working regularly who have on average 1 teleconference per day. So 4 seconds x 200k equals 800k seconds = 13,333 minutes = 222 hrs per day, doesn’t listening to that prompt across government

So 222 hrs x 65 workings days since Covid = 14,444 hrs or roughly 1,925 7.5 hr days culmulative across the government spent listening to a recording asking to say your name, not saying your name, and then joining a teleconference across the government. Almost 2k days lost waiting

This assume average of one teleconference per employee per day. I would guess average may be more. All for a feature rarely if ever used any more. I dont know a single current team or call that makes it mandatory to say your name and announce your presence.

I am sure there is a few, but I think it’s fair to say it would be very few teleconferences that expect name announce, and then turn that option on. The default entry option is beeps, event though it asks every participant to say their name before entries. Why? Who knows...

The good news, if you have read this far, is one can turn off this setting and NOT ask participants to say their name and save 4 seconds per participant per call. This changes your default in your account so you do it once and it’s done, no need to do again every call.

So as host, after your pin but before pressing 1 to start, press 2 to change your account options. Then press 2, then press 1 to turn roll call off. Then * and * again to return to main prompt. This will turn off the roll call feature as the default.

You can turn it back on any time, and if you do require people to use it, any partipant, any time during a call, can click *9 to hear a private list of everyone on the call. But you have to have roll call on and tell everyone to say their name. There is no way to enforce this.

So back to saving 2000 workings days, and given the reaction to the #nomorebeeps thread last week, maybe the @SSC_CA can look into turning off roll call as a default for all government teleconferencing accounts, and then people can turn it on if they want.

And while at it @SSC_CA make silence the default entry sound for all accounts and people can turn on beeps or roll call as needed for each call. How about that? Save the taxpayers thousands in lost productivity and make everyone’s life 4 seconds easier in one shot. End of rant

Ps the more people who turn off roll call, the more time saved for all. so feel free to retweet or spread the word anyway you can. I realize most public servants are not on Twitter so adding the idea to a newsletter or email tips on teleworking will help get the word out.