So, imagine it’s a Monday morning; the shining sun is beaming through the gap in your blinds, and your mind is active and refreshed. For once, you actually feel prepared to begin the tough day ahead of you. You allow your eyes a moment to adjust to the light, pick up your phone, proceed to check the time and….
Ah shit. You’ve missed your 8 am tutorial. But that’s okay – it was being recorded, and it wasn’t that important anyway. As long as you don’t miss your 10 am meeting with….
Ah shit. You’re late for that too. Begrudgingly, you stumble out of bed and groggily make your way over to your computer, to launch Zoom and hop into your call thirty minutes late.
The Zoom meeting then lasts for a whole two hours, despite the time of death actually being 40 mins in. Instead, you struggle to repress your safety mechanism through silence of asking inane questions. Thus, the meeting drags, and drags, and drags, and…
Hi. I’m Subeditor Brian Gu. Licensed to kick-ass, drive and operate Zoom (unlimited meeting times and up to 300 participants). Do these sound like the everyday problems you’re experiencing in your Zoom calls? Do you know the solution to all your problems would be to just wake up a little goddamn earlier?
Well, fear not, because I have just the cop-out solution for you! Imagine if your meeting did actually end 40 minutes in? Well, turn that dream into reality with our top five patent-pending techniques of escaping the awkward silence of goodbyes at the Zoom meeting. You’ll thank me later! Or will you?
Perhaps I’m already gone…
1. Chair swivel out of frame
Sometimes, words are just the problem. Maybe you need to just stop with the talking, and unleash this power move on your caller. Maintaining eye contact, good posture and firm facial expression is critical to communicating that the only Zooming you want to be doing is out of this meeting on your chair. Retain good form on the swivel with a strong push, and make sure when your arm leans in to end the call, it remains out of frame.
Demerit points on your license to Zoom: 10
Apart from speeding while on camera, you haven’t really done much to phase your caller here.
2. Play ‘My Heart Will Go On’
Goodbyes are always tearful, and this one is no different. Even though you and your caller are miles apart, it feels like your hearts are closer than ever. Because, well – near, far, wherever you are. Give it your best belt and make Celine proud. I do believe that the heart does go… Fortunately, they couldn’t take any more of it and ended the call.
Demerit points on your license to Zoom: 20
Your heart might go on, but your Zoom license won’t if you keep this up.
3. Change your Zoom background photo to National Party Deputy Leader Nikki Kaye
The next best thing to ancestry.com; if she managed to convince one of her own MPs he is Māori, then look no further for someone to persuade your callers their Zoom meeting is over.
Demerit points on your license to Zoom: 35
Congratulations – you’ve earned yourself more points than National is polling at currently.
4. Walk down an imaginary set of stairs
We’ve all tried this as a child – pretended we need to get something from ‘the basement’, and then begin to crouch in a succession of lowering squats. Either do it side on to the camera, or recreate the stairs scene from Parasite, and have your head bob slowly up and down below frame. Your caller will be shouting to grab your attention, but it’s no use – you’re gone. And that certainly isn’t your hand reaching over again to your keyboard, is it?
Demerit points on your license to Zoom: 40
The von Trapp children bid adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu.
5. Tell your Zoom call you found Parasite to be a lazy portrayal of societal class disparity and inequality.
Exercise your freedom of speech, and you may just also pick up your freedom to leave this Zoom call. Prepare for people to defend this film quicker than Todd Muller did with his Trump hat, because you’re mistaken if you think this cultural revelation didn’t deserve that Oscar. Land the killer blow by telling them the movie was hard to watch with subtitles.
Demerit points on your license to Zoom: 50
Hand over your license. It’s back to forty-minute meetings for you.
