Now that we’ve all been living the remote work life for a few months, there are a few things we’ve grown accustomed to. Things like: The mail truck coming by and still not delivering the new shoes you ordered two weeks ago. Staring out the window at your neighbors sunbathing in the back yard at 2PM, and wondering how they could be so lucky. Your roommate deciding to start noisily doing the dishes right when you jump on an important work call.
But there’s perhaps nothing we’ve grown more used to than the trappings of a Zoom conference.
If you’ve been in a Zoom room in the last couple months (and let’s be honest – you’ve probably been in a number of them this week alone), here are a few things you’ve almost certainly heard.
Things you hear in a Zoom room
If you’ve heard at least three of these during a work meeting in the last month, then there’s a good chance you’re living the full-on tech company life. That means we’d love to hear about your hiring plans, or see if we can match you to your dream role in sales, marketing, customer success, or people operations.
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“I think you’re on mute.”
We’ve all been there: someone in your meeting starts moving their mouths, but no sound comes out. An awkward silence ensues in the meeting. As fun an experiment as it can be to see how long it takes the person to realize what’s happening on their own, it’s better if someone lets them know they’re muted. And at some point, in almost every Zoom room, it seems, someone does.
“Can you see my screen?”
They’ve clicked the “share screen” button. They’ve chosen the window or application they want to present. They’ve made sure to close any embarrassing browser tabs they may have had open. Now there’s only one question left to answer: Did it actually work?
“What’s that background you’re using?”
A meeting isn’t a meeting these days without someone in the Zoom room making it look like they’re reviewing action items from a beach in Tahiti. Are we supposed to be jealous?
“You’re frozen.”
The words keep coming, but the video feed gets stuck – often in a less-than-flattering pose for the speaker. Well, too bad. If Jeff didn’t want us to linger on a freeze-frame of him hunched over with his cheeks puffed and tongue sticking out, then he shouldn’t have brought his lunch to the Zoom room.
“I miss you all!”
Remote work has kept us from seeing each other outside the confines of official meetings. It’s natural to miss your coworkers after so much time spent out of the office. Still, now that we’re over three months into this, it’s a head-scratcher when someone says this to a group of people who were all hired after we made the switch to remote.
“Let me just sign off real quick and then sign back in.”
If often seems there’s no technical difficulty in a Zoom room that can’t be solved by simply leaving the room and then coming back. It’s the “turn it off and on” of 2020 work meetings.
Hear more things that people in Zoom rooms say in the video below. And keep enjoying the remote work life!