That is hilarious. I guess it isn't very funny when you're living through it, but golleee what a bunch of dopes. I'll say our guild is more organized than that!!
I've never been on a conference call like that but I did have a situation once when I was a DJ in Calgary. where I accidentally forgot to key off the mike switch. Now this was a hugely expensive mike that could pick up an ant sneezing across the room. I had this music playing softly to lull the 1am listeners to sleep, while I cleared my throat preparatory to reading the news, whistled along with the song, practised reading a couple of news clips, and generally made the normal noises a person does whose mike switch is actually off.
I got a lot of phone calls on that one
I never did it again.