Thursday 28 May 2020
I kind of live on a construction site. A new building is 60% done west of my building, a new big parking garage is being built north-east of my building, another apartment complex will be built south of my building starting in August, and since two weeks or so, a foundation is being laid for a new building a few hundred meters away from me. Laying a new foundation comes with hammering poles into the ground (“heien”), starting at 7am. I’ve gotten rid of my alarm clock.
Being woken up early isn’t even the most annoying part. The rhythmic banging sound interferes with my (conference) calls, so whenever I sense that I won’t be talking for a while I quickly mute my microphone to spare my conversation partner. My Portugese colleague called me out on it and, while he appreciated the gesture, told me I didn’t have to bother going on mute. Another colleague of mine, who has become more of a friend and with whom I’m on the phone regularly, has yelled multiple times now “Aud, aren’t you going completely BANANAS??”. The funniest reaction I’ve received so far, is a colleague who stopped talking mid-sentence and asked what kind of music I was playing.
Starting this week, I am joined by a close friend, who has her own fair share of Working From Home struggles. Her struggles are real. Her struggles are next level. Her struggles are too good to not publish. So, we are joining forces and hopefully will provide some comic relief every week. Here is Miriam.
Introduction to Miriam being angry about online meetings
“My biggest enemy is me, ever since day one” - Lady Gaga on Chromatica’s 911.
“My biggest enemy is my coworker, ever since Covid-19” - Miriam.
More specifically, the enemy is my coworker born between 1946 and 1964.
Now, before you judge me as a typical boomer hating millennial, hear me out. The majority of our workforce is above the age of 55. The average number of years an employee has been in their job, is 14. That’s 14 years of knowledge and experience they bring to the table. Some of my coworkers are dedicated and great mentors, there’s almost nothing they haven’t already seen and they will take my phone call for help at any time of the day. There’s an added value in experience that I would be remiss not to mention.
But my baby boomer colleagues have also gotten really used to doing their job the exact same way for 14 years. That’s 14 years of habits they have no desire to change, and 14 years of liking the job exactly the way it is. Nothing causes them more stress than change forced upon them, and if there’s anything the current pandemic has done, it’s force change on people. This can lead to one of two things: personal growth, or people threatening to burn your house down because you are impossible to work with. As you may have guessed, this blog entry is about the latter.
Some background information. Our team consists of people who all do the same jobs in different places. We don’t typically see our coworkers apart from our monthly team meetings. These meetings last 6 hours and are, to put it mildly, inefficient. How inefficient? Imagine sitting in a poorly ventilated room with chairs that are funky but have no lumbar support, listening to other people talk for six hours. I try not to see this as time wasted by making grocery lists in my head and mentally writing my magnum opus. If that doesn’t work, I go out to lunch and talk to some food. I’m okay sleeping with my eyes open once a month. We can’t always get what we want, and sometimes we just have to deal with reality.
But then the government said we can’t meet in person, so those meetings were all cancelled. My prayers had been answered. I was finally free. “Then why is she complaining”, you ask?
Because the people who sit in our upper management have decided that in these times we need more social interaction. This crisis called for a new protocol: our monthly team meetings have been upgraded to a weekly basis, via zoom. Since they’re now weekly they’ve been cut down to 90 minutes but not to worry, because they feel so much longer.
Zoom is new. Zoom is a change. Zoom is my nightmare coming true every week for 90 minutes. In my mind, I quit my job every time until I remember that I have to give a month's notice so it won’t get me out of the meeting any faster. At this point our meeting is 10 minutes in and we haven’t started yet because people are having technical difficulties. Every. Single. Week. It’s been over two months and it is not getting better. Watching my coworkers struggle with the most basic technology, pressing the same buttons every week, has led to me doing two things:
1. Practice patience. So far, I’m at a solid A for effort. I send myself a gold sticker because I’m a millenial and apparently we need participation trophies.
2. Update my boomer blog, where I anonymously write down quotes from these meetings. I will be sharing some of these here. You’re all very welcome.
Now this has been an introductory post with background information. Over the next few weeks you can expect entries that deal specifically with how these meetings go, minute to minute. If you recognize what I’m writing here, please know you’re not alone. We will get through this together. Send boomer blogs.
Week 5 of weekly zoom meetings.
Meeting scheduled to start at 11.
It is 11.02 and coworker 1 can’t get his sound to work. He calls the manager for help. His sound starts to work and we can hear him echo.
3 people: “Turn off your phone”
Coworker 1: “My phone is off”
3 people: “Turn off your phone”
Coworker 1: “My phone is off”
3 people: “Turn off your phone”
Coworker 1: “My phone is off”
[repeat for six minutes]
Manager: “I see that you only paused the phone call”
Coworker 1: “Oh”
Manager: “Now this whole thing has led me to lose the agenda”
It is 11.08 and the meeting still hasn’t started. A non-boomer suggest that we all go do something else and come back in 15 minutes.
11.16 and we’re making progress. People are trying to talk about how working from home is going. Keyword here is trying, because Coworker 1 keeps talking over everybody and interrupting with jokes and comments. This person's current topic of interruption is the criminalization of sexting with minors. We still have not started the actual meeting.
11.17 I discovered that if I hold a Nintendo 3DS below my webcam, I can play Yoshi’s New Island without anyone noticing, as long as I just answer direct questions. The rest of the meeting is a great success.
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