At one point, they were reviewing a few documents, so I was handling the task of SHARING SCREEN so that they could check and discuss their comments looking at the same page/paragraph of the documents. (Hence no need to keep repeating, "which page, which paragraph, I can't find it" etc.).
After two documents were done, the third one was getting dragged along a bit too long, nearing the One hour mark since we started. And yes, a bit much for my short attention span of that day. I understood there was nothing for me to do at this moment, as the meeting WAS BEING RECORDED ANYWAYS, I could always check back later to fix up my notes in the next few days.
Without even being aware of it, I pressed ALT-TAB to shift to my browser, landing on facebook, and the LAND of MEMEs. As they kept talking about the document review issues, I was giggling at some Classical Art Memes, very aware that I kept my mic on mute.
But SUDDENLY my giggles came to a halt, I froze in my tracks as it dawned on me,
"OHHHH MAN I AM SHARING MY SCREEEEN!"
"This is the end... my only friend..." I could hear the song ringing in my ear, coupled with the out-of-sync drumbeat from my heart. I could have hummed along with the song on any other day. But "I" was the one, on the verge of END-ing, ending my presence at any top management meeting ever again... One step away from a plethora of reprimands, culminating in a professional 'snafu' maybe?
A few moments went by as I ruminated on my newfound misery, and then I thought, WAIT A MINUTE, why haven't they noticed anything? Why don't they scold me or at least LAUGH at the super-fun posts on my News-Feed?
It was because, instead of sharing my WHOLE SCREEN, I chose to only share the PDF document window, a novel feature to me that was not present in most versions of SKYPE, which we previously used.
My heartbeat eased. I could hear what everyone was saying again. Nope, none of them were furious at me. I was saved from the crater of a volcano, the eye of a tiger.
I was SAVED by ZOOM. And this cool feature that lets me share only a specific window while browsing other tabs undetected.
I got back to typing. I was fully attentive to the conversation again. "Things were not THAT boring", I said to myself, "I should really get a hold on my attention span these day... LOL."
And, without a cue, I started humming to a new tune,
"It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight
Rising up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night
And he's watching us all with the eye...(whooow)... of the tiger."
-End of story-
Keep Creating
If you have read this far, thank you, you are AMAZING for having the patience to READ, instead of being trapped by the infinite scroll. To me, you are the epitome of what this society needs! YEAAAH! But, do you have a thriller of your own from the home-office saga? Feel free to put it down on the comments, I can give it a go and elaborate on it for a future post.
Maybe it can be "The Chronicles of Home-Office: the Zoom, the Ghuum and the Mute button", wouldn't that be a timeless classic for the generations to come? (Ghuum means sleep). Do let me know. People who won't read it all have missed this awesome part. Their loss! Not ours, right? মাইন্ড করলে শাইন করতে পারবেন না।
I better stop talking or this won't fit in one status. Have a good day at office tomorrow! Goodnight.
Radi Shafiq
Development Professional | Author | Artist
18 August 2020
Dhaka