Young professional’s delayed click of ‘Leave Meeting’ lands him face-to-face with ‘Boomer Bob’
CHICAGO, IL — In the age of the Coronavirus, Zoom has become the gold standard for professional meetings. While this format has allowed participants the freedom to multitask or disengage altogether, there are a few drawbacks.
Olufemi Sani, a thirty-three-year-old software developer says that ending meetings on Zoom is much harder than in person.
“I hate talking to people about anything not related to work. It’s just too awkward to say stuff like ‘Hi,’ and ‘How are you,’ it’s like..eek, you know? So Zoom’s been a great way to dodge that but sometimes I find myself stuck doing it at the end of meetings and it’s just like….eek you know?”
Sani is referring to a phenomenon that occurs at the end of Zoom meetings, where people are signing off in droves. As the boxes disappear, he begins to get nervous that he will be one of the last two people to exit the meeting, forced to engage in friendly conversation.
“Every week we have a team meeting that includes like 30 people and I always forget that in Zoom I have to click “Leave Meeting” again after already clicking “Leave.” By then it’s just me and this guy from accounting that we call “Boomer Bob.” I”m pretty sure he just stays on until everyone else signs off and the window automatically closes.”
Sani added that he is usually able to look away from his screen and pretend that he doesn’t see “Boomer Bob” before quickly closing the window, but that he sometimes isn’t so lucky.
“Last week I was especially slow and he was like “well hey Olufemi, it’s great to see you, how’s everything going?” and it was just so awkward, I was like ‘eeeeek’ and hung up”
