“Are we all here now?” Beth says.
Everyone, of course, is not there, but the people who aren’t there don’t have the ability to answer, so with that rhetorical question, the meeting begins.
James is stuck in the video meeting’s lobby, and no one who has the meeting credentials to let him in does so. The message that James is in the lobby remains on everyone’s screen for a period of time, and then vanishes. (Beth has the credentials but doesn’t seem to notice the message.)
“Michael, you’re up first,” Beth says. Behind Beth in Panel One, a bookshelf is filled with books that have been organized completely by the colours of their spines.
Michael starts talking, and Heather, Mary and Ryan all speak in unison: “Michael, you’re on mute.”
Michael gesticulates wildly for a moment and leans forward towards his keyboard while his computer’s camera gives a dermatological close-up of the nascent bald spot on the top of his head.
“Can you hear me now?” he bellows.
Michael starts talking, and Heather, Mary and Ryan all speak in unison: “Michael, you’re on mute.”
Everyone nods simultaneously, and Michael jumps into the first-quarter budget presentation. He talks very quickly. By five minutes in, everyone on the call has developed a dazed look, as if Michael’s words are tiny mallets that have beaten them into submission.
No one seems to be paying complete attention until an odd echo develops, as though Michael was speaking through the cardboard tube from the centre of a roll of paper towels.
“Michael?”
“Michael.”
“Michael!”
Attempts to get his attention fail as Michael looks down at his presentation. While turning on his microphone, it appears Michael has turned off his audio. The echo continues until he finishes.
Asked for detail about the sales division, Mary shares her screen, but the print is very small, and suddenly everyone’s faces fill their panels out to the very edges as they lean in to try to read the fine print legend at the bottom of table four. When Mary stops sharing her screen and her face comes back into Panel Six, a spider fern tendril from a huge plant behind her has settled on her shoulder like a small green bird.
In Panel Four, Heather suddenly pushes her chair back from the computer: “Sorry,” she says, “There’s something happening.” Heather does not return for the entire rest of the call. Panel Four becomes a still life.
For the third time this call, Ryan is scraping the inside of his right ear with the butt end of his pen. Ryan’s face lights up pale white with the light from his computer screen every time he opens a new email, and everyone else on the call can see the changing pages as they reflect in the left lens of his glasses.
“Michael, you’re on mute again.”
James has reappeared in the lobby.
Kevin’s on the call from his smartphone, which has slipped down from where he had positioned it. In Kevin’s panel, you can see Kevin’s eyes, eyebrows, forehead and a great off-white penumbra of ceiling above him. It is disconcerting.
Mark, as usual, has not turned on his video, and has never bothered to create a meeting icon in the system. A small grey circle with his initials lurks at the bottom of the screen, a tiny technological tombstone. Mark does not have a panel. Mark does not speak.
From Panel One, Beth asks if there are any closing thoughts; “I think this has been very productive. Anything else, folks?”
In Panel Five, Michael’s hands and lips are moving, but there is no sound.
No one bothers to tell him he’s muted again.
James exits the lobby.
Russell Wangersky’s column appears in SaltWire newspapers and websites across Atlantic Canada. He can be reached at [email protected] — Twitter: @wangersky.
