Confirming meetings

A lot of what I end up doing at my various assistant jobs is "confirming meetings." For those of you who don't work this kind of job, what that means is that the day before something is scheduled on the calendar, I call the office of the other people involved in the meeting to make sure we're still on. Many of the times I've gotten in trouble at my job were when for some reason I wasn't able to get in touch with the other party and someone didn't make it to the meeting/was late etc... I'm always told that every assistant HAS to confirm every meeting.

So here are the things I'm left to ponder from that:

1) Why is it that I almost never get calls from other assistants confirming us? I'm always the one confirming with them, and if for some reason I forget to call, a lot of the time I don't get a call from even if the other side is has some issue and needs to change things.

2) How is it that in this day in age when everyone has smartphones that sync up to their computers and all that, why is it that nobody is capable of just showing up where they're supposed to without someone like me reminding them?

The past couple weeks have been especially annoying because I've been confirming a client's meetings in London. Not only is the time difference such that unless I do it first thing in the morning I'm screwed, there was also a giant volcanic ash cloud that made it such that I needed to cancel and reschedule all the damn meetings.

So seriously people, keep track of your own calendars. If you depend on the safety net of an assistant catching you if you flake out on something, you'll just become a bigger flake.