Monday 08 June 2020
I suspect that the foundation for one of the new buildings in my area is done, because the hammering of poles suddenly stopped. I wasn’t joking when I last wrote that I got rid of my alarm clock, and so I overslept by an hour today. Fortunately, in these times oversleeping by an hour still means I’m in time for work because essentially I’m just sleeping through what would otherwise be commuting time.
Wednesday 10 June 2020
I was in a call with two colleagues and after we discussed the serious stuff we stayed in the call just to chat and banter. When colleague A said something I was envious about, I - as a joke - pretended to abruptly have to leave the call by making crunching sounds in the microphone and saying that I was entering a tunnel. Colleague B just cracked up because she knows what I’m like when I clown around, and colleague A, without missing a beat, deadpanned “I can see you sitting in your chair Audrey.”
Note to self: turn off camera before applying that excuse.
Boomer Blog Week 3
“There’s an echo. I keep hearing myself . This is so funny. Hahahaha.” - W.O. boomer
No one else was laughing.
Last week I said this blog entry would be dedicated to a person I have started referring to as our W.O boomer, our worst offender. And I will. But a bit more context first. A baby-boomer is a person born between 1946 and 1964. Being a baby-boomer is a static, binary state: you either are or you aren’t based on when you were born.
But being a boomer, is a state of mind. Anyone can be a boomer. I was a boomer for about 15 minutes last week: from the moment I made an Instagram account, to the moment I angrily deleted the app. I will sadly never become an influencer. But some people are boomers 24/7. And our worst offender, is like the boomer version of a boomer. He’s been a boomer since I started working at my job, almost 3 years ago. But then we started having Zoom meetings and it turned out, it wasn’t even his final form. He’s not just a regular boomer anymore, he has ascended beyond and become, the w.o. boomer. Below you’ll find a collection of his golden nuggets of wisdom, written down during several meetings. To try and add some structure to the post, I put them in chronological order so you can go through an entire meeting with me. Enjoy.
Manager: “How is everyone doing?” W.O.: “Well this week it’s been difficult to figure out whether or not to turn on the heating in the house. Sometimes it gets cold and I turn it on, but then I start sweating and I need to get up and turn it off. It’s just hard to figure it out because it’s spring and I can’t get a pleasant temperature in the house. So sometimes I turn on the heat and then I turn in back off”.
Manager: “Okay.” W.O.: “…” Manager: “…” Manager: “So how is everyone else?” Coworker x: “I’ve been very busy this week” W.o. interrupts with a story about the criminalization of sexting with underage children. This takes two minutes.
Manager: “So how are you, coworker y?”
Coworker y: “I’m getting a haircut tomorrow” W.O.: “Oh really? I’m going on monday”
W.O. continues to interrupt everyone. 25 minutes after the start time, the seven people present were finally able to say how their week was. W.O. asks for a coffee break. His request is denied.
At 11.28 three people are on mute. It took me a couple of weeks, but I feel like a trendsetter.
We continue with the meetings agenda. A coworker is talking.
W.O.: “What did you say? I can’t see your mouth so it’s hard to understand.”
...okay.
W.O. turns mute on. I could not be happier. W.O. turns mute off. Looks like it was on accident. We continue. Then suddenly, W.O. is back.
“HELLO CAN EVERYONE HEAR ME?”
Three people: “Yes. You’re yelling”
“...OH”
I’d like to remind the readers that we were already halfway through the meeting at which he talked at length. Why he felt the need to suddenly now check his volume, I will never know.
We’re talking about productivity while working from home.
W.O.: “I have my father’s cooking timer from the 1950’s in my kitchen”. There’s no context as to why he said this. At this point I get a private chat message from a coworker. “Can’t you explain to W.O. where the mute button is?” “No, because a couple of weeks ago coworker y tried, and apparently the information didn’t stick.” “Maybe your teaching skills are better” “They may be, but my patience definitely isn’t.”
We start to chat about stuffed animals.
At this point a coworker answers their phone and proceeds to have a conversation.
They are not on mute.
The person leading this part of the meeting asks us to pay attention to the protocol, because it seems like we’re not all following the same procedures. W.O. interrupts them. “Yes because last week I talked to someone on the phone and then I thought they were coworker A’s, but later it turned out that they were in the region North-West.” Everyone stares at him in silence. Person leading the meeting: “Yes. Well. Okay”. The manager attempts to end the meeting. He talks about the future of zoom meetings for a training and using Zoom to video chat while following instructions. W.O. “Can’t we use the smartphone to video chat? I can’t open different tabs when I’m on Zoom. That’s very complicated.” Me: “Do you read the chat during the meeting?” W.O.: “No, I can’t multitask. No one can multitask”. I angrily say that reading the chat is not multitasking, but no one hears me because I’m on mute. Probably for the best.
At this point I point out that his name in Zoom has been ‘user’ for six weeks. Turns out he has yet to figure out how to change it. He needs to look up how to do that, and that’s too much fuss. He has no intention of changing it, because we know it’s him. Can’t argue with that.
We end the meeting.
Honestly I could forgive him all of this if he weren’t like this IRL. But he is, so I don’t.
Next week I’d like to share a story on that time we all had to record a 1-minute video message for a coworker that was retiring. It took up 20 minutes over two meetings. Not the actual recording mind you, we did that on our own time. Just talking about the recording was 20 minutes. How fun.