I work remotely, and when it comes to Zoom calls, I’ve been caught with my metaphorical and literal pants down one too many times. I typically roll out of bed and hop on my first call of the day, but today I decided to wake up a full 3 hours in advance to make sure my hair was just right. You see, there’s this new hire, Maximo – he has no last name – and I knew he was hot because I stalked him endlessly on LinkedIn last night. I got a full blow-out and styled my hair to perfection only to arrive and find out this morning’s meeting was “cameras-off.”
What the hell! Why is the universe uniquely determined to ruin my life?
Why did I wake up three hours in advance of my 8 a.m. call, you ask? Because I had an appointment with the best blowout technician in the tri-state area. I sprung out of bed at 5 a.m., drove 30 minutes to meet her in her basement – where the humidity is just right for the blowouts – and was back at my apartment by 7:30. I composed myself, put on a full face of makeup, and decided it was time I learned what “setting spray” was all about. Then I opened up my laptop to join the call only to find that I was unable to turn my camera on even if I wanted to.
What gives? Didn’t they know I was going to be hot today?
I messaged my boss immediately to tell her that my “video on” button seemed to not be working, and she messaged me back, “Hey! Yeah, today’s meeting is voice-only.” My world shattered. I replied, “Oh, no worries – I’d love to turn my camera on, though!” to which she replied, “We actually didn’t want people to feel pressured by the option to turn their cameras on, so we’ve disabled the feature for this entire call.”
I was furious. Maximo was there and he couldn’t even see my good hair.
I typed, “What if we restart the meeting so we can use cameras? I feel like everyone would really like that. I feel like everyone wants cameras today,” to which she replied, “I don’t think everyone would like that actually,” which was incredibly rude, even if it was true.
Before I knew it, the meeting was over, and absolutely no one had seen my hair. Woe. Pain. Horror. I’d lost all will to try. The next day, I didn’t even get out of bed before hopping on the call. Turns out that one was video-mandatory, though! Awesome!
