I have not.
I don't like feeling like I'm in a fishbowl. I don't like that I feel rude if I have to (or want to) look at something that's not within the field of view of the other people on the call. I don't like that if you want to roll your eyes or pull some other face, you can't because everyone will see you.
I don't like how I look on the screen. Is that what I look like?
Last week, my immediate supervisor started trying to test out Skype for Business. She'd place random calls through the device -- voice-only calls and video calls. And with no or little warning. I know that the efforts were (probably) sincere, but they felt like bed checks, especially since I was also trying to help my son with his school iPad and trying to keep him on task while I also did my non-impromptu-testing-of-Skype work.
All that testing revealed that Skype for Business took an enormous amount to bandwidth. Our weekly attorney meeting last week was via video on Skype, but all the sound was via our office conference call line. That's the only way we could do it which is to say it was unworkable. And especially unworkable when we know that the courts are considering moving to video court. We need the flexibility to be able to appear in court via video.
(Video court will also mean, of course, that we will have to get dressed in suits in our houses, at least from the waist up. And that feels silly . . . silly, but necessary, though.)
So by the end of last week, our agency suddenly switched to MS Teams. I say "suddenly" because nothing happens quickly in government, but in exigent circumstances, even the wheels of government can turn quickly, I suppose.
We impromptu-tested MS Teams yesterday. (I was troubleshooting my son's iPad again, naturally, when the unannounced and unanticipated call came through.) It did actually work better. (But my hair looked a fright.)
Today, we had our first real meeting with MS Teams. I took the trouble to fix my hair (hair dryer and a round brush) and put on a little make up for the first time in over a week -- even lipstick. I should note that I did this for me to make me feel better about looking at myself on the screen. Also, I put a pair of R2-D2 earrings on and a gray cardigan over my Yoda t-shirt. (It says, "Always in motion the future is.")
The meeting went okay, I guess. I think that we could just as easily have done this by not-video conference call. I don't know why we have to look at each other while we talk about stuff. Again, my inability to pull faces during these meetings hurts me. Actually, though, I do pull faces, but now I know that I do it -- unlike in face-to-face meetings when I'm not looking at a tiny image of myself at the bottom of the screen making faces. So, really, it just adds to my, "What are people thinking of me" unnecessary stress. But anyway . . . . They're happening. They will continue to happen for the foreseeable future, so I and my overly expressive face had better get used to it.
Nighty-night, friends.
