The little piece of malicious code called the Covid 19 Virus has changed more fundamentally than we would have expected and anticipated but happen it has and it is, therefore, time to reanalyse how we work and interact going forward.

One major change, that was predicted to happen by 1999, of working from home has finally happened and with it, many of us have been forced to reconcile our multiple personalities that never needed to coexist before. 

Many of the personalities started developing as early as when we were left home with “nannies” as our mothers returned to work, we initially developed 2 distinct ones, the one with the “nanny” such as you ate whatever was put in front of you.

The other with our mothers such as turning the 10-minute “nanny” mealtime into a 1-to-2-hour quality engagement with our mothers that included spitting and throwing unprovoked tantrums if she dared to blink. 

The latter was actually supposed to test our mother’s resolve of daring to go back to work before we had turned 2, you wish. I believe that I am the first of the post-independence generation to be exposed to mothers who worked away from home, I am sure the example might not resonate with many others.

As much as we like to believe that we do not have multiple personalities we know we are in denial and virtual working has finally forced us to address our demons. 

It is interesting how so many people show up late for a virtual aka Zoom meeting yet all they needed to do was switch windows from WhatsApp for desktop to Zoom and that is the issue that I really want to discuss, the early comments were the trailers of what is coming soon (intended for the movie theatre generation).

What triggered this, I am sure many of you are wondering, was an experience I recently had when attending a virtual meeting with a manager of one of the local blue-chip companies. 

As per the invite, it was to be a 30-minute meeting with a “hard stop”, meet one of the new definitions borne of the virus, which I believe means that they cannot stay on the call a minute past the assigned end time.

Being from the old school, I logged onto the meeting 15 minutes early just as I would a physical one, it helps to do so as it gives you a chance to make sure that you aren’t only showing people your nostril hairs.

Interestingly, the meeting room was one of those perpetual ones with the same link used across multiple meetings, which gives a semblance to the traditional meeting room, and so was automatically ushered in. 

There was some staff review session going on and so I just “sat” there and listened as the session progressed with warnings and threats being issued about productivity to the staff member as I assumed, he sat in his house barefoot and wearing only his boxers on as all cameras were off, I suspect, due to bandwidth issues which could also explain the fact that I believe the convenor had not noticed our arrival.

As our meeting time neared, she “hard stopped”, by turning off the person’s microphone, the meeting with the staff member in mid-paragraph, I suspect it was a “hard stop” meeting as well, so we knew what to expect immediately our 30 minutes ended. 

She then said hello to us, my co-attendee is also from the old school as well and proceeded to remind us that she had a “hard stop” in 30 minutes, we already knew how it would end. But instead of proceeding with the meeting she “went off” to find the other attendees from her organisation, after fifteen minutes of us listening to mobile phone calls to others who were listed on the call and rabid (not a typo) typing that I believe must have been in WhatsApp desktop it was clear that the others were not joining us. Which was a little obvious as none had actually confirmed the meeting request.

Once it was clear that she was alone for this meeting, she came back to us and proceeded to ask us to explain what we were all about. A little background, we had landed with her after being downgraded 3 levels from a director who was our initial contact two weeks prior.

Well, as promised, we got our 15 minutes in the sun and were then terminated and sent back into the dark with the following parting words;

“As I had said I have a “hard stop”, please send me a one-pager on what you are offering but note we already have a solution which is working brilliantly, when we are reviewing it next year, we shall get back to you”

She then immediately switched to the new audience, who seem to know her very well as they had checked in 5 minutes before our meeting had ended, I said on for a few minutes before exiting the meeting by which I had seen half of the confidential presentation deck.

I am not complaining about how the organisation treated us, but more concerned by the inevitable breakdown that will soon be ravaging many organisations. In addition, unless her KPI was how many virtual meetings she held it is clear that her productivity was through the floor.

Sadly, she was in the organisation’s HR department which means that if this is how she is working imagine what the rest must be going through with literally no one to turn to for assistance. 

In a physical space,

she would have had a chance to recover from one meeting as she walked to either the next one or walked to the reception to collect the next set of attendees, in the process taking a piss break.

If we continue to work like this Zoom shall be your Doom.

Feature Image Credits: Leslie Brown – Death by Zoom Fatigue: The cost of virtualizing social interaction

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