Wowza today has been go-go-go. Worked straight until 5 and only just now got out of therapy… so my brain is a little frazzled, as it tends to be after a full work day + a therapy session. But, as is the case with most busy days, a lot of food for thought came from it.
It goes without saying that communication changed a lot in 2020. Coffee runs with coworkers turned into a new espresso machine for your countertop. Popping into a colleague’s office to chat turned into a computer message. Meetings at a big round table, full of collaboration and bouncing ideas around, turned into zoom calls with the option to mute or to even opt out of video. Socialization went down, and social anxieties went up.
The other day I had a not-so-stellar remote work moment where I cracked a smile on a zoom call. I have never had a good poker face, which has always shocked my mother because I’m (tooting my horn here) really good at acting. But if someone tells me a joke? Game over. Everyone knows. One of my coworkers who was not part of the inside joke (which was about another coworker’s facial hair) called me out and I immediately turned an aggressive shade of fuchsia and promised myself to never slack again during a video meeting. Too much can go wrong.
The next day, I was still feeling guilty about smiling during the meeting. If I had been the one running the meeting and someone else had smiled, I would have felt really upset. Angry, even. Like I was being disrespected. I ended up messaging her apologizing and was really glad I did because she had, in fact, been feeling that way.
Tonight, I talked with my therapist about the entire situation.
It just sucks that we aren’t all casually hanging out at work every day. I vented. Things get misconstrued when you don’t even know if you like the person that you’re working with. (That had been my biggest stressor of the situation. These people don’t know me very well. We have zoom calls and infrequent office parties. They don’t know that I’m not sitting there messaging everyone about how terrible their ideas are or how their haircut doesn’t frame their face.)
Betsy, my therapist, understood. I think your boss had the right idea when she talked about approaching it as a perception vs a reality. When you’re all just talking to screens, perceptions tend to become realities.
I thought about this. Every work meeting is scheduled and has a set purpose, not leaving much space for casual chit chat where we all get to know (and like) one another. If someone has a blank face while receiving information and doesn’t take themselves off mute for the entire video call, it sends a message. Without casual socialization, the perception of the presenter becomes their own reality.
I have hereby placed a self-ban on messaging during meetings and am going to work harder on presenting a more invested, enthusiastic perception. Hopefully it becomes my coworkers’ realities.