A typical work-from-home meeting

9am it starts. 30 people are on the call. Everyone has their microphones on and not muted. Muffling noises are heard battling each other to get attention.  “I’m gonna need everyone to go on mute”, John says. Nobody listens. This continues for 2 minutes. 

At 9:02, John the presenter finds the button to mute everyone including himself. He realizes this and then tells everyone that he muted himself. He waits for a laugh. Nobody laughs cause they are all muted trying to figure out how to unmute themselves so they can laugh. 

He shares his screen. 

“Can everyone see my screen” he asks to a muted room. 

Silence. 

He asks again. “Can everyone see my screen”.  

An awkward silence. 

Finally, Pam from Finance says “Yes we can see your screen.” She must have figured out what button to press to unmute herself. Oh wait..

She accidentally hits her video button revealing herself to the room. Luckily she is wearing clothes. She does not know she is sharing her video. It gets weird. 

Over the next few minutes, new people join the call. Each one has their own story of why they are late. John immediately mutes them. 

At 9:10, a chat icon suddenly appears indicating that someone in the meeting is trying to say something. Everyone looks around trying to figure out how the hell to see the chat.   2 more people click the video button. 1 person clicks the share screen button taking over John’s presentation revealing that he has been shopping on Amazon for beard shampoo.

Finally the chat button is found and it says.

“We cant hear you”

John continues talking unknowing that people are chatting in a chat window and not watching the screen and listening to his presentation. He is also trying to take back over the screen as Carl finishes his beard shampoo purchase on Amazon.

Suddenly, John says “Oh. You can not hear me?” He must have gotten a text message from Pam. 

He then fiddles around with some buttons and disconnects himself.  The room waits in silence. One by one they go off mute. A chat icon pops up. 

“Zzzzzzzz” says Shirley to whom she thought was for Pam but instead to the entire room.  

“How long can this go on for!!” responds Pam not realizing everyone is reading. She includes some inappropriate GIFS.

Conversations start about COVID-19 and how the families are doing. Billy is trying to make jokes that nobody understands. Pam is still sharing her video until dummy Mike tells her. She remains calm in her voice but panic can be seen the last remaining view of her looking for the button to shut down her video.  She cant find it and informs everyone. 

Mike and Joe try to explain where the button is. Mike then starts sharing his video not realizing it. The room is in chaos. Where is John?

John comes back on.  Its 9:15. 15 minutes left. He apologizes and gives some lame excuse that his WiFi has been giving him problems lately. Then makes a dumb joke about how he is IT and he should call the Help Desk. 

Shirley again writes to Pam but instead to the room “What a dork”

John starts again. Everyone is off mute now.  At 9:17 a dog starts barking. It does not stop. At 9:18, Wendy asks that everyone go on mute. Nobody is listening and so nobody goes on mute. The dog continues to randomly bark. Probably sayin “Please get me the f*&k out of this house already!”

Construction is being done outside of Jakes house. Everyone can hear. 

“Please go on mute Jake” a voice asks. 

John mutes everyone. Silence.  He then finishes his slides and starts to ask questions forgetting all is on mute. 

Shirley writes to Pam aka all “Does he not know we are on mute!”

Nobody asks anything and its a clear indicator that this meeting will be over much earlier than expected.  Then Pam, the only one smart enough to get herself off mute but dumb enough to show her video again, asks a question.  F&*king Pam! 

John attempts to answer but it suddenly sounds like he is on Space X Dragon making his way to the Space Station. He gets disconnected. 

The room waits. Its 9:25. John comes back on.

“How do I sound now” he says to the room and the dog barking.  Cars and birds chirping can be heard. There may have been a police car that just drove by. 

“You sound far away” Julia from HR says. 

“How about now” says John sounding exactly as he did before. 

“You sound fine John” Pedro says to get this dam call over with already. 

John answers Pam’s question. Somehow it takes 8 minutes. Then asks Pam if he answered her question. 

Silence. 

“Pam you there?” 

Dogs and birds talking to one another is all that is heard. A bulldozer or some shit just ran something over. Some on the call pray it was not a human. 

“Pam?”

“Oh sorry. I was talking on mute” giggles Pam who clearly was not listening. “What were you saying”

John repeats. It takes another 2 minutes. Meanwhile, someone is talking to someone else not realizing they are not on mute. Someone’s video is on but its all black indicating their laptop is closed. An ambulance is heard in the background hopefully not attending the loud construction noise that was heard earlier.

Pam must have hung up or is on mute because she is not responding. No. Wait. There she is. She is still showing her video. 

Screaming is heard in the background. It sounds like a woman yelling at her kid. Something about fractions and to listen better.

“Does anyone have anymore questions?” Johns asks. 

Silence. 

“I really think he should shave his beard. Would you believe he named it Kip” pops up on the chat board for all to see. 

“No. Thanks John” says one person to answer for all. 

“Ok. I will send out the minutes shortly” which John never does. This then sparks Matt to send a group email inquiring on the notes that were taken during the meeting. However, he got distracted by his 8yr old screaming downstairs that she is hungry even though he gave her a snack 20 minute ago. He accidentally sends the email to the entire corporation sparking an infinite loop of work from home workers replying all that they should not be a part of this chain. This continues all afternoon clogging the email server and eventually shutting it down. 


Good times we are living in with this work from home shit!

Godspeed