Red faces boost conference call market

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After the Christmas party season and New Year antics, free conference call provider Powwownow experienced a sharp spike in users - 26% up on the previous year's festive season. Whilst you'd expect the fall in the economy to be accountable for business' taking advantage of the cost-cutting service, it seems, in fact bashful employees opted for a telephone conference rather than the prospect of meeting face to face.

In the past 12 months Powwownow has conducted various surveys to reveal the work habits of Small and Medium Enterprise employees. The Dirty Habits Survey conducted in the final quarter of 2008 found that a whopping one in three men at SME's had had a sexual thought about their work colleagues whilst in a meeting! The fear of a bad impression coupled with staying utterly professional has never been so important. As the economy slows and jobs go the allure of the free telephone conference call enables us all to hide at our desks whilst saving on travel expenses. From this and past surveys, it seems for the most part we're not fit to meet with people face to face in any case. At the very least it appears we all had a very Merry Christmas indeed!

Christmas and New Year 2008 created some remarkable stats: 33% of people who had to attend a meeting in the days following a staff/client event chose to have a conference call instead

29% feared they had made a fool of themselves Only 12% would admit that alcohol had a rôle to play in their decision to hold a telephone conference call!