Study: Nobody Is Paying Attention on Your Conference Call - Atlantic :
It's 3:15 p.m. on a Wednesday, and I am deep, deep inside the guts of
BaseballReference.com, the statistical mecca for MLB
fanatics, conducting an exhaustive investigation on an issue of national
importance: What was the greatest pitching season of all time? Was it
Bob Gibson in '68? Pedro Martinez in 2000? Clayton Kershaw
in 2014? Browser tabs and Excel charts extend across my two computer
screens like the dashboard of a junior analyst. The answer is coming
into focus when, suddenly, a voice from the phone shocks me back into
reality...
... "Derek, what do you think? Derek. Derek!"
Oh, that's right. I'm on a conference call.
"Sorry, I was on mute," I say.
I wasn't on mute. What were they talking about? From my shallow
working memory, I can make out a few words spoken while I was looking up
Martinez's strikeout numbers—headlines? narrative structure? something about never again using personal anecdotes as ledes?—and I take a deep breath.
"Well, I guess I'd like to begin by piggy-backing on that last point about anecdotal ledes..."