The green light came on. Two windows appeared, then four, six, eight.
Someone tapped a microphone. Some attendees checked for food in their teeth, adjusted positioning, and/or changed the virtual background to something more whimsical like a video of a beachside location, which was nothing like a beach really because the ocean waves and rustling palm leaves were on an asynchronous loop that never matched at the ends.
Most attendees kept an impatient eye on the time, watching the minutes tick off while clicking a mouse or pecking at a keyboard like the deepest itch begging to be scratched.
The first presenter was ready, but was having trouble sharing his screen.
Some attendees maintain that this delay, while apparently small, has only to be multiplied by the tens of thousands of meetings happening every day across the globe and by the major satisfaction benchmarks in which the stakeholders at ZOOM must report back to their investors, may have a significant impact leading to the perceived quality of the software overall or company valuation to use the specific business term.
The presenter successfully shared his screen — at last! — but then it became clear that the meeting host was no longer following, his face completely frozen on screen. There must be some connectivity issue, a bad internet connection, or a software update in progress, it wouldn’t be the first time that this happened.
A wave of attendees sent off messages to the chat: “We can’t hear you,” “You are frozen,” and “try restarting?” Some colleagues messaged him privately and texted his cell phone, prepared to take over the solemn duties as Conference Call Host.
The man turns his head just slightly inside of his two-dimensional window. To judge by the movements of his eyes he is confused, and when he blinks a couple of times something occurs to him and it is then that he opens his mouth to say where am I? to the group. He blinks again, looking vacantly at the screen.
Someone asks tentatively is everything alright Mark, to which he responds — who the hell are you?
No one believes this at first as the man seemed healthy enough, his face flushed and full of color as he crisply announced the meeting agenda mere moments ago. He asks us verbatim what is going on, and it becomes clear by now in how his face is clenched and how his eyes have narrowed that something serious is happening.
It is also clear that he is trying to recall the very last memory he had. Someone off-camera says something to him in a high pitch, an unfamiliar voice to which he repeats who are you? in utter and total confusion as the off-camera entity removes the small white earbuds from his head and gently closes the screen.