Not the fact that the conference call was a mess of technical difficulties, or that Ed's boss interrupted his workflow.
That Ed sat back. That the company's culture would even tolerate anything near this level of lackadaisical disengagement.
If you're a Hacker, you don't say things like "that's not what I'm paid to do." You don't even think things like that.
Your job is to help make your company, and those around you, successful.
If you're not in a company with a mission you believe in, where you are excited to help achieve the goals the whole team is working toward... then freaking leave. Can you not find a job programming at a company that you do believe in? Then you're not a Hacker. You should probably stop reading Hacker News.
The failure in management here isn't interrupting Ed. It's allowing such a lazy, selfish culture to exist in the first place. It's not inspiring Ed enough that he actually wants to help his co-workers be more efficient, because he realizes they are valuable components of the engine that is trying to accomplish a shared mission and set of goals too. It's not firing Ed's ass any of the number of occasions where he has doubtless sat back and watched teammates make mistakes without even trying to help.
This is really, really gross.