Working in a global environment exposes you to amazing and wondrous things – like great trips to foreign countries, new learning experiences, cultural norms, languages, different foods, work ethics, etc.

There’s a dark side that only seems to rear it’s ugly head when I’m desperate for sleep – conference calls at 0 dark 30 in the morning.

As someone living in a Mountain time zone area, I’m used to getting up early in the morning in order to make an early morning call scheduled in Eastern time. Usually, the time zone with the most participants gets first priority on determining what time the calls occur. Sometimes that means that I’m getting up for a 5am call on a Monday morning. At other times it means working in the middle of the night.

The reality is that a global work world means that not all participants are based in North America. Ergo, I’ve got a series of 11pm-1am conference calls on my calendar in a few short days. Hopefully no one expects me to share coherent thoughts during the session.

Wish me luck!

Technorati Tags: conference calls, time zones, sleep, global work environment

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