Quirky Confidence

Working Remotely Seems to Only Remotely Work

I have been working remotely for the last ten years.  It’s a tad embarrassing to admit how much I enjoy working remotely.  It’s not that I don’t like people.  I do like people, I love people.  In fact, my results from the Myers Briggs personality test determined I am an ENFP.  EXTOVERT!  Scientific proof I love people.

Unfortunately, the Myers Briggs test did not have a method to alert me to the major life altering personality shift which occurred after having a second kid and turning forty.  The three short lines on the side of the letter E fell off the big upright vertical line.   Suddenly I had become some mutant version of an Introvert!

The loss of my desire to frequently interact with human co-workers in an office setting was not my only immediate problem to be solved.  There was the challenge of all the constant distractions from a house full of my stuff.  Maintaining a high level of focus as a remote worker took a monumental amount of willpower.  Willpower strong enough to keep me from getting up to clean the house, plop onto the sofa, stream the latest Netflix show all while finishing off a large bag of popcorn.  Yet the most difficult challenge of my remote employee life, staying out of the kitchen and away from the refrigerator.   Within the first couple of weeks, I quickly realized to be productive, I had to basically lock myself in a room away from the main section of the house. However, working in my closet turned out not to be an optimal situation either. Dark, cramped and the constant urge to change my outfit because all my clothes were right there on display.

I had one major advantage over at least half of my co-workers, no young children at home when the full COVID lockdown was imposed.  My daughter was at college in Oregon, living in her own lockdown nightmare.  My son was living in town with three other roommates in a rental house.  He was a manager at a large grocery store.  He did not get to work remotely or lock anything down except the toilet paper and hand sanitizer isles at his store. His job entailed wearing a mask for 8 to 10 hours a day.  Not to mention his constant failed attempts to keep customers from cleaning out the shelves during a COVID panic attack.  As far as I knew there was no employee training on how to reason with crazed customers who purchased ten super large packages of toilet paper and 25 bottles of hand sanitizer in a single shopping trip. His situation seemed much worse than my work from home (WFH) trivial issues.

This unearned advantage of grown children, over my co-workers was confirmed during a meeting with a company sales manager, attorney, and myself.   Prior to this meeting one of our largest customers made several edits to an extremely complex legal contract directly tied to a software transaction worth several million dollars over the course of three years. 

The contract needed to be reviewed, simultaneously discussed, and modified before we sent our edits back to the customer.  The edits were due back to the customer in the next two hours.   The first thing we discovered on the Zoom call was how difficult it was to hear the attorney because his three kids were chattering, screaming, and playing with different toys in the background.  The three kids were so loud I could not hear myself talk on the call let alone concentrate at the level required to respond to the customer.

I knew his wife was at home at the same time because California was in a mandated lockdown first, I told myself to be more compassionate.  I concocted several scenarios in my head regarding his living situation; a one room apartment due to the high cost of living in the Bay area, his wife works for the CIA and is in a national emergency conference call with the President of the United States, or our attorney actually was at his most productive in a state of constant chaos.  He must be one of those people who performs at their best under pressure.

Then I remembered no way he lives in a one room apartment.  He’s an Attorney; he probably earns three times my salary.   He and his wife most likely own a very nice home with multiple rooms.  Where in the heck was his wife?  Could she not oversee the kids for one hour so we could have a productive review of this contract?  After all we three had to read through the customer’s edits to the contract in methodical detail with all our undivided attention to every word on every page.

Unfortunately, the meeting was headed into a downward spiral toward a very deep and noisy black hole.  Every time we needed his feedback, or anytime he wanted to interject into the discussion he had to take his laptop speaker off mute.  Immediately we would hear a barrage of screams, frantic squeaky voices asking Daddy for some juice or a snack.  He would apologize, then we would hear him bribing them with goldfish crackers and sugary prepackaged juice drinks.  The age of his children was not clear.  I assume maybe around two to eight years old based on the noise and the simplicity of their urgent conversations.  If this had not been such a critical junction in the contract negotiations, the whole debacle might have been funny.

In the meantime, the Sales Representative was messaging me in Slack, “Where is his wife?”  The answer became crystal clear when we heard her walk in the kitchen and tell him he was in charge of getting the kids dinner this evening.  He quickly responded, “Yes Dear, as soon as I finish this meeting call.”  She promptly let him know their dinner could not wait until after our meeting!  The Sales Representative “Slacked” me again, “OMG we know who wears the pants in that family!” As women we should have been cheering her on for taking charge of her relationship. Except as company employees counting on their paychecks to put food on the table and pay the bills, feminism took a back seat to fear of loosing our jobs.

Suddenly as if out of thin air the disturbances became even louder at his house.  The racket sounded like an unidentified mechanical noise.  A loud pounding noise, similar to a jackhammer, next we heard the contracting and expanding of thick metal springs, quickly repeated.  Over and over and over.

By this point every ounce of professionalism I had left dissipated as fast as steam leaves a pot of boiling water.  I blurted out “Are your kids playing in the kitchen on their pogo sticks?”  It really sounded like they were playing on pogo sticks right next to him and his computer.  He paused for a moment, briefly let out an uncomfortable laugh, then responded that only one of the three kids was on a pogo stick.

Finally, the sales representative, whose very large commission was riding on getting this contract completed, mustered up the courage to ask if possibly his wife could watch the kids while we completed our review of the contract.  It worked left the meeting for about five minutes then called back in without the whimsical distractions of his three wonderfully outspoken children.

One of my other more memorable remote Zoom meetings story occurred when I was on a forecast call with the Vice President of Sales, all his direct reports, and at least a half dozen supporting business partners.  The Zoom meeting was about 10 minutes in when one of the direct reports could not get his microphone to work correctly.  He turned on the speaker of his laptop which created an echo and lots of feedback every time he went off mute and tried to speak.  The VP of Sales said, “Look I will buy you a new headset, just get a headset” In the meantime please use your mute button when you are not speaking on the call.”  This same background static and noise had happened on the last three forecast calls with the same person.  Right after the VP communicated his frustration to the Sales Rep, his wife walked in the room.  For some unknown reason he decided to take the video Zoom call in the kitchen.  He must have had some type of short-term memory loss because the next words out of his mouth were “Hey baby, can you get that cute ass of yours over here and fix this computer for me?”  No one in the meeting said a word.  We were all in shock.  He went on to tell his wife, “If you don’t fix this computer for me then I am going to have to spank you.”

I am certain I heard the VP of Sales fall off his chair.  His video camera was off at this point.   He said to the sales rep, “You realize you are not on mute, right?”  The sales rep responded with yes, I know I was not on mute, but I figured no one could not hear me since my sound is not working correctly on my laptop anyway.”  The VP let him know yes, we could hear him and that he needed to use the mute button or this might be his last forecast call.

Maybe the whole idea of “working remotely” is an oxymoron.

What potentially funny, embarrassing or just simply unbelievable stories can you share in regards to remote work and video conferencing meetings?

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