TORONTO, ONT. – According to a new report published in Business Quarterly magazine, a significant majority of Canadian workplaces confirm that Zoom meetings are increasingly unproductive as employees are too distracted checking themselves out to actually participate.
“We were having a meeting about how profits have drastically gone down. No, we were definitely talking about company wide lay-offs. Maybe it was just our weekly check-in? Regardless, I needed to make sure my lighting was flattering for the entire call. That meant looking at myself only and adjusting my camera for the entire one-hour call,” explained Elyse Bierman, of her most recent Zoom meeting.
Bierman isn’t the only one catering to her imaginary audience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many employees across Canada, now required to attend meetings on the largely unsecure network, find themselves having to choose between actually participating in meetings, or making sure they still look hot on camera.
“I gave myself a bad at-home haircut, but you can’t tell as long as I’m showing my right-side profile at a 37 degree angle. I get we need to strategise new revenue streams, but it’s also important everyone knows I’m still the most attractive person in the office” said Trevor Keough, one of the survey participants.
Other reasons survey participants gave for checking-out of their Zoom meetings include: wondering if their dead plants and broken blinds are visible on camera, thinking of ways they would renovate their colleagues kitchen, and generally not wanting to listen to Steve from accounting anymore.
When one regional manager was approached for comment, she said “We’ve mostly adapted to working from home, except for Zoom meetings. At first, I assumed everyone was silent because they forgot to unmute themselves but it’s a far dumber excuse than that” she further commented, adjusting her lipstick via her video feedback image. “What, you never know when a cute hacker might join in on the call.”
The same regional manager confirmed that by the end of the Zoom call, a hacker successfully infiltrated the meeting and has since been hired due to his meaningful contribution to the conversation.
