Horror! Marketing manager Jessica Burns reported that her boss Sherry, without any notice or provocation, asked her to share her screen during a team-wide Google Meets call today which was honestly just not even cool.
“I was already stressed out,” said Jessica, who was doomscrolling Twitter at the time of the request, “and then I realized that Sherry wanted me to present one of my projects? At work? Could this endless cycle of global tragedy get any freaking worse!?”
Jessica, who’s had almost zero in-person interaction over the last 2-plus years, did not react well to the 40 pairs of eyes suddenly upon her and immediately hit “leave meeting” instead of “unmute”. Once she realized her error, Jessica frantically rejoined and expertly owned up to the mistake by just blaming the whole thing on her internet connection like a proper grown-up lady.
And things only went downhill when it was time for Jessica to actually present. “I must have spent hours questioning myself” she stated, of the literal 2 seconds it took for her to find the correct document and hit “share”. “Did I disable Slack pop-ups? Is my desktop messy? Will everyone see my internet history and learn how often I search for “Fred Penner, nudes”?!”
Because she successfully pressed “Share Tab” and not “Share Screen”, none of those were actually scenarios that Jessica had to consider – but that didn’t stop her from formulating 12 possible escape plans should she get a notification from her mother asking if her candida was still “on the fritz”.
Once the marketing manager confirmed that she was sharing the correct document and not, somehow, that love sonnet she wrote for a certain Canadian children’s musician, she spent the next 2 minutes leading a perfectly normal presentation on customer demographics while simultaneously blacking out from the white hot fear that she was completely blowing it.
Despite its rocky beginnings, the presentation received generally favourable reviews from Jessica’s colleagues. AJ, in accounting, stated, “that part of the meeting wasn’t relevant to me so I just answered some DMs”, while HR rep, Trina, went as far as to ask,“did someone present? Honestly, I spent the whole call scrolling Twitter”.
Later, Jessica experienced a moment of victory when Sherry DM-ed her a “nice job!”, though she did, honestly, resent the attention. “If there’s anything that over two years of isolation has taught me”, Jessica moaned, “it’s that I want to be recognized for my value without being perceived in any capacity whatsoever”.
Luckily, Jessica was able to move on from the crime against humanity by spending the whole afternoon snuggling with her cat – but not before a fellow colleague was irreparably traumatized when he spent a full 10 minutes pantsless in a Zoom call before realizing his camera was on.
