“My 8-year-old’s school sent out some Zoom etiquette that I almost forwarded to my team. As “doing a Zoom” enters our cultural parlance and “Zooming” becomes the most common, if not the only way, to communicate, more and more stuck-at-home workers are starting to get frustrated about what they may perceive as a lack of basic manners. Of course, reasons abound: People may be in a situation where their kids or pets are jumping all over the place, or maybe, like one exec said, they’re “hiding in the bathroom so my children won’t find me.” But it doesn’t work. In a six-person meeting, there can be one person who’s decided to, mysteriously, keep their video off, there but not there, like some kind of coronavirus-era poltergeist. Lurking is a common breach of etiquette, for example. A rough school of etiquette has slowly emerged. The lawless land of Zoom, where someone always doesn’t know they are muted, needs some order. The thrill of glimpses into coworkers’ homes and lives on Zoom - “hey, is that “Conversations With Friends?” Loved it!” - has inevitably been replaced by Zoom fatigue. The initial snow-day thrill of ditching the commute has descended into depressing chaos of corralling distance learning kids, wondering if showering every other day is OK and, yes, endless Zoom calls. Most workers are entering week 8 of their new work-from-home existence.

“I was getting complaints about people who refused to turn their cameras on, probably for pretty good reasons, but it ruined the flow of the rest of the meeting and it all became unproductive. I want to see you! We all want to see you!”Ī tech company’s CEO had to recently send out a missive to his all-distributed workforce asking everyone to keep their cameras on while they were on yet another of their many Zoom meetings.

A teacher forgot to exit a zoom call