What really happens at standards meetings

Standards meetings aren't just mind-numbing line-by-line reviews of drafts of documents and bitter debates by partisan vendors trying to promote the technology that their products use. Here's what actually happened at the recent ASC X9 meeting.

(The phone rings. A bored attendee of the meeting answers it.)

Bored meeting attendee: Hello?

Man on the line: Yes, I'm calling about the chairs. You need an additional five chairs brought up, right?

Bored meeting attendee: No, that should have been fifty: five zero.

Man on the line: Really!?!?

Bored meeting attendee: No, not really. You really just dialed the wrong number.

Man on the line: Oh, that's good.