At the last earnings call in July, I was on the call as an editor of the transcript as assigned by the company I was working for. My audio was pretty faint and it was difficult to tell which of the officers was speaking during the Q&A.

At the end of the call I e-mailed the IR department, in a professional manner, to ask if, during the next call, the officers could identify themselves. The IR person contacted my company and I was fired because my e-mail was "embarrassing". Of course, there was no mention of what the embarrassing part was.

I had been at my job as an editor for 6 years and had contacted numerous IR departments for term clarifications and additional accuracy and I don't believe the request was out of line because in many earnings calls, the officers DO identify themselves for sake of clarity and believe it or not, somtimes they do sound alike.

My contacts with IR departments were always as a last resort and I would never call to ask this of the officers, this instance was an e-mail. And my suggestion got me fired. I had no idea that company officials would be SO offended. They certainly DO NOT have to identify themselves, and I'm sure they won't in future calls, and at this point I could care less about this corporation or any others.

So I just wanted all of the people listning in on future calls that I did try, because we CAN'T see who is speaking, to bring a bit more clarity to the call. And in my 6 years as an editor, I've done thousands of earnings calls.

Not sour grapes - just trying for the best possible transcript.

I'll probably get in trouble for this posting, also.