Things to Do While Your Camera Is Off During a Zoom Meeting
By: Ryan Fan
Tags: Gadgets, Satire, Remote Work, Digital Life, Humor

Humor

Things to Do While Your Camera Is Off During a Zoom Meeting

Leave the computer

Photo from Alexandra_Koch on Pixabay

Nothing is as great for productivity as when your camera is off during a work Zoom meeting during the pandemic. No one can accuse you of not being logged in — after all, you are logged into the meeting, right? The pandemic is stressful enough without the stress of having to show your best self every single time when you look like shit.

However, having the camera off is a great opportunity to get things done, or at least get some rest. Having the camera off means you can do literally anything else than work. Disengagement is the norm, not the exception. Here is a list of essential things you can do during a Zoom meeting instead of paying attention:

Sleep

Didn’t sleep much last night? Stayed up too late watching Netflix? Your child kept you up last night? Got too shitfaced from a pandemic induced upsurge in drinking? Don’t worry — a Zoom meeting where you don’t have to give a presentation and don’t have to participate means you can sleep.

When your boss is telling you you can leave the meeting and telling you to do so before the next staff meeting, tell your boss your lack of response was due to technical problems. But definitely take that hour long nap because the meeting was boring you to sleep anyways. Make sure to keep your mic on so the whole staff can hear you snoring, too, and when you are reprimanded for it, tell them it was your young child or family member to avoid accountability.

Play video games

If you’re behind on playing either console of Internet games, then having the camera off during a work Zoom meeting is the perfect recipe to continue. Make sure to have your mic unmuted as well, just so your co-workers can hear just how much fun you’re having behind the scenes. When you need to make an excuse, tell them it was your child playing video games in the background.

Become so immersed in your video games that you don’t notice when people ask you to share the latest report. Feign innocence, because you’re maximizing the time you can spend taking time for your own self-care and TLC because, as everyone has been saying during COVID, it’s okay not to be okay.

Work out

Since your goal every day is to maximize your time, the work Zoom meeting you treat like a joke is the perfect time to work out. Do sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups, or any other form exercise you need during the Zoom meeting. That’s the only way you can keep it interesting while you’re about to go to sleep.

The best time to make #gains is procrastinating on what you’re supposed to be doing. The floor to do push-ups on certainly seems massively more appealing than typing about how you’re doing into the chat for the seventh time in 10 minutes. Why do we have all these meetings anyway, you ask? Well, that’s a great question to ask.

Leave the computer

The best thing to do when you have the camera off is just leaving the computer. Go into another room and turn the TV on, or go on a walk to get some fresh air. Since screens hurt your eyes so much, do anything other than engage in yet another useless meeting just so your boss can feel like he is holding his employees accountable.

Make sure, however, to check in periodically. When you come back, participate by saying something completely irrelevant to what people have been talking about for 30 minutes. Your presence needs to be known so no one knows you stepped away to check out highlights from the football game the other day — and you get credit for attendance.