Perils of the modern era: ‘Hey, you’re on mute’
Before the pandemic started roughly 80 kajillion bazillion years ago, the following phrase was not part of my lexicon and yet now I hear it at least a halfdozen times every work day. “Hey, you’re on mute.” Like many soft-handed officedwellers, COVID-19 has required me to work from home for long stretches and forced the vast majority of my meetings to take place via video conference. That’s necessitated adapting to a whole new set of online tools and the etiquette that comes with them.
Camera on or off? If it’s a small group or I’m the one leading the meeting, on for sure. But if it’s a bigger group or if I’m just an observer or I’m trying to eat a sandwich while (mostly) following along, then I will sometimes leave the webcam in the off position — or tell my fellow attendee it isn’t working.
That is both a plausible excuse and often actually true. The various online video tools — and I regularly use Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet and Web Ex — all have their idiosyncrasies but are universally, maddeningly glitchy. Cameras, microphones, even whole applications often stop working for no discernible reason, turning me into a smashy, smashy rage monster cursing into the void (which will definitely be only thing heard by everyone on the call.)
But user error is also a factor. Part of online meeting etiquette, as I understand it, involves turning off your microphone
if you aren’t talking. It cuts down on background noise (dog barking, Amazon delivery person arriving) while also demonstrating to others that it’s their turn to talk.
As someone who can occasionally be accused of having loquacious tendencies, this can be a good thing: it’s rarely bad to just shut up and listen. But in order to be heard, you actually
have to turn your microphone on and many people (myself included) forget to do this on a regular basis.
“Hey, you’re on mute.”
I’m not sure if it’s more annoying to be told you’re on mute and be forced to find the unmute button (in different places for all applications, naturally) before repeating your bon mots or to sit there and watch someone talk without being able to hear anything before interrupting them, watching them scramble around for the unmute button and then having to listen to what they were trying to say.
Of course as video conferencing sins go, the accidental mute is pretty benign compared to some of the other travesties out there — especially those that involve people not wearing pants or thinking their camera is off (or both.) Just to safe, I always assume my camera is on, even when my glitchy machine says that it isn’t.
As for pants ... I’d say more about that but apparently I’m on mute.