You Know What? Fuck Zoom.

I'm just going to say it: fuck Zoom. I'm not directing this to the fine people at Zoom.us or whoever, but rather what Zoom is doing and has done to our professional culture-- all in about 6 weeks, mind you. I don't mind the technology, in fact, I totally get it: for people who need to communicate effectively with one another over distance while only having to learn how to press three buttons at the most, Zoom is a godsend. Granted, there is usually a steep learning curve for people who need to learn what those three buttons are, but nonetheless, in a pinch (and roughly 8 hours with a guide of some sort) it does the job. 
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For teaching? Come on. I mean, I get it-- Zoom is the closest that narcissistic educators like myself can get to the real classroom experience, where personal validation is more important than student education or critical thinking. Moreover, it is far easier than availing oneself of all of the wonderful and cutting edge educational tools that exist in the internet ether, thus rendering the faculty member, once and for all, the only authority with which students need to concern themselves. For teachers, 

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zoom lives in the murky netherworld between an egoist and a luddite-in-denial. But like I said, for pandemic purposes, at least, it does the job. That being said, if anyone in our post-pandemic world* decides that they want to teach online using Zoom almost exclusively, I will convert to Christianity and go to church every Sunday for a year just so I can feel confident that God will answer my prayers when I say, LORD FUCKING HELP ME PLEASE.

But I'm not concerned with Zoom in the classroom so much as I am in other professional settings, like meetings. In person meetings have a rhythm to them, and a cast of characters as well. And most importantly, like it or not, the success of a meeting often depends on people being able to work together by listening and building ideas-- or even simply being cognizant of the trajectory of the meeting and making decisions about where they can most effectively interject. Now it's time for some hard truth:

We all suck at it. 

We're terrible at it. 

Don't worry, we're still good teachers. In fact, it should be comforting to know that the reason teachers are so god-fucking-awful at meetings is precisely because  we are good teachers. For roughly 80% of most of our days, we are pretty much the absolute authority on everything. And truthfully, if we aren't an expert on what we are teaching, we know a shit ton more than the students, so our actual qualifications technically only need to be just slightly better than what our smartest student brings to the table. 

But I digress. 

Being the authority that everyone in a room looks towards for enlightenment or knowledge is not a personality switch that one can turn off at will. Therefore, in our professional meetings, we all vie for control of the floor-- at a conscious level for some, and an unconscious level for others. It's a bug that bites us all.** What makes these types of committee meetings tolerable is that in a committee meeting in which everyone is physically present there are nonverbal cues constantly traveling across the room at breakneck speeds:

Jaded Instructor looking across at a colleague: OMG will this guy shut up?
Equally Jaded Instructor, making eye contact: I know, right? Geez.

​New and Confused Woman Instructor, looking around: Wait-- he is saying exactly what I just said. Why is everyone agreeing with him and ignoring me? 

My point is, in a meeting where the attendees are physically present, people pick up on these nonverbal cues. Ok, maybe not the guy who won't shut up, but enough people in the room pick up on them, and usually that is enough for someone to step up and say, "maybe we've travelled a bit far afield from where we need to be. Can I do a time check?" Problem temporarily solved. 
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But with Zoom...oh, with Zoom things are oh-so-different-bordering-on-maddening. On Zoom, two people who are not talking cannot exchange looks. The speaker, whoever he might be (and let's face it, this is academia, so 95% of the time it's a "he"), is looking at everyone at once-- and everyone is looking back. Over Zoom, you're pretty much in your living room, and you're just talking. what you're saying is not prepared, because, well, shit-- you're wearing sweats, flip flops, and an old T-Shirt you bought at that Snow concert you went to when you traveled all the way to Toronto to go out with a young woman you met in a chat room on AOL in 1992. And really, if that is where you are, then you could give two shits about whether you have been pontificating for 12 minutes on a topic that began as relevant, but soon spiraled into a discussion about your uncle who lost his leg 40 years ago in a freak diving accident.


In Zoom, even though we can see each other, there is no room to read. So fuck Zoom. 


*this is assuming that we all don't end up as unwitting characters in a shitty science fiction film come to life. I'm looking at you, 28 Days Later. 
**Except for me. I'm darn near perfect!

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