A series of unfortunate events: a round-up of mishaps and misfortunes as people take their work online
The Covid-19 crisis has seen millions worldwide begin teleworking, some for the first time, and all sorts of unfortunate online happenings, including one poor woman who forgot to turn off her video as she popped to the loo mid conference call.
As at least one person has said online, this woman, who shall remain nameless here, deserves a medal for making us laugh in these challenging times. There are other deserving candidates. My favourite is the boss who turned herself into a potato into a video meeting. https://bit.ly/3f2C5f1
Mrs potato head
Lizet Ocampo, political director at People for the American Way, accidentally turned on a potato filter via the Snapchat app and struggled to turn it off. Ocampo took it in her stride, joking on Twitter (@mlizetocampo), changing her profile image to a potato head with the words, #PotatoBoss Says Stay Planted. Save Lives, and pinning the tweet: “I yam potato boss. You should see me in a crown, right @billieeilish?” and “I yam glad this is making folks laugh at this time. Please stay planted at home and safe!”
I relate because I sometimes try and jazz up my calls with my kids, and find I suddenly have rabbit ears, for example, or falling glitter, which I then can’t undo, much to their mirth – or is it exasperation?
A priest in Italy had a similar problem. While conducting his service online, he accidentally alternated between filters including said falling glitter and some kind of space helmet (my favourite.) https://bit.ly/2zyXpIL
There are many examples of people forgetting to turn off the video, or not realising it’s on, or not being able to control what popped up behind them. We’ve all been treated to mass sightings of kids and partners shuffling past, and animals popping up on the screen.
One teacher I spoke to was captured, unwittingly at first, attempting to pluck an alarmingly long nostril hair from one nostril in full view of his students, while a coach was, like so many of us (hand up here), partially clad in PJs for one meeting, and got up mid client call to open a window, forgetting they were immaculately dressed only down to the waist.
Zoom bombers
Meanwhile, the shift away from office working has also seen a number of new terms and acronyms enter our lexicon. One is zoombombing – when meetings carried out via Zoom are interrupted by uninvited guests. One of this magazine’s contributors was on a webinar that was hacked by someone singing and drawing obscene images on slides.
In the US, the FBI’s Boston division issued a warning on zoombombings, discouraging people from sharing links to meetings on social media.
Tips to reduce the likelihood of zoombombing include:
- Never Tweet or Facebook the meeting details
- Don’t use your personal ID number. Instead, use a per-meeting ID, exclusive to a single meeting
- Use a password
- Set up a waiting room
- Disable the ‘join before host’ option, screen-sharing for non-hosts option and remote control function
- Get a co-host
Here is an article with even more tips: https://cnet.co/3aOCf6u
The silent treatment
We have a love-hate relationship with Zoom. We love that we’ve been successfully able to move our events and meetings online.
But we’re so over Zoom dinner parties,‘pub’ and ‘club’ nights, when we’re all peering through smeared specs at rows and rows of faces, many framed by very rakish homemade haircuts or alarmingly BIG hair, including our own, and where everyone talks over one another, and nobody can hear a word.
Enter silent zoom meetings.
According to an article published in The Guardian last month (April) (https://bit.ly/2Yco6xk) silent Zoom meetings where people gather to boost focus on writing, for example, are increasingly the rage. Phew!
- Contributions to this slot are welcome. Email: liz@coaching-at-work.com
“There are many examples of people forgetting to turn off the video, or not realising it’s on, or not being able to control what popped up behind them. We’ve all been treated to mass sightings of kids and partners shuffling past, and animals popping up on the screen”