Zoom Meetings: Religion and Blasphemy!
About six weeks ago, people found a new religion- Zoom Meetings. “Wow!” they said, “We can really conduct business from home!” Articles sprung forth, videos clogged the Internet, pundits opined, and a new world was heralded. The “Office is dead!” declared grey eminences. A specter was haunting the business world- the specter of Zoom. A new paradigm was afoot and we have Covid-19 to thank for it.
Or so we were told.
Well, about five weeks ago, people realized that Zoom Meetings had a better use-they were “bad-ass” for virtual happy hours and family calls. People started booking busy social calendars. Combing hair, applying make-up, wearing decent clothing, and making cocktails in preparation for these calls- these were the new-new things helping us blaze a new trail and forget our sweat-pant induced ennui. Yeah okay, every now and then you got “Zoom bombed” and saw a random body part or heard some epithet or another but man, it was so cool to drink “Quarantinis” with your friends. The “WFH” religion got supplanted by the happy hour religion that Zoom helped bring back.
And then about two weeks ago, the heretics emerged like clockwork. “Boy, these work calls are hard. You are always on video! I used to multi-task during calls and now I have to pretend I care!” Such was the collective emotion of the erstwhile believers. “Video is exhausting.” “I don’t want to get dressed or make my private space palatable for work!” Even Psychologists opined, suggesting that the mental toll of constant video calls was overwhelming. Well, the heretics figured something out- they just turned off the video and, well, participated only by voice. Wow. So innovative!
The tenor on social media changed. In the first weeks post-enlightenment, places like LinkedIn were full of advice on “Working from Home.” Companies of all stripes sold their wares on these sites- suggesting that if you were WFH then you really needed their stuff. Reports of desk chairs selling out were rampant. And so on. Now, there are more articles helping us “cope” with WFH and asserting the power of togetherness for team building.
Will the new religion be the world’s shortest-lived one or will the bullshit hyperbole die down and people find ways to balance working from home and going to offices? Who’s more right? The high priests or the blasphemous and heretical? Or can we just stop the hype and use technology when it helps and reject it when it doesn’t?
