I prepare for any meeting being held on a computer as though the cameras will be on, even if they’re not typically. My concession is that since I don’t expect them to see my lower half, I might wear jeans instead of dress pants.
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You’re good, you’re really, REALLY good. Took me half a heartbeat, but what a great almost a pun!
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Lol, it can be a game. Perform a Zoom meeting only wearing a shirt. And don’t let anyone know.
Even if this were in an office and others hadn’t seen, it’s so weird. Imagine it was the before times: you’re in a conference room at a meeting with a bunch of other people simulating election night. You all take a quick 10 minute break-out. You…go off to your private office to do phone sex and jerk off…?
Pro-tip: don’t masturbate in your office.
Also, does anyone else find it telling that none of his coworkers shouted out when the “exposure” happened? I was on a conference call once where one fellow thought he was muted, stopped at a gas station and used the restroom. We were all shouting, “Cal! You’re not on mute! Cal! Mute your phone!” Because we didn’t want him to embarrass himself.
That ended with us saying, “well, at least he washed his hands…”
All this to say, it seems like no one on that call liked this guy enough to warn him.
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Rule one of pandemic working:
Don’t put porn on the computer you work with.
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And that’s why you’re not editor of The New Yorker.
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In my organization the group most likely to not have their camera on during a call is the IT department. Come to think of it we’re usually muted unless we are actually speaking.
This has nothing to do with pants (or lack thereof) nor fear of in-call wanking. Rather, we just never feel that it actually adds to the meeting to see people eating, obsessively scratching or playing on their phone.
Personally I think of this as me not wanting to be on a call at all when an email would suffice.
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Dude… he wasn’t scratching.
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Two people who were on the call told VICE separately that the call was an election simulation
I think VICE meant to call this an erection simulation!
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Based on the topic, I’m going to have to ask you to visit Human Resources for that joke, @cepheus42.
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Alas, the Sensible Erection site is no more. [weeps]
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First thing I thought of reading this
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I prefer keeping the camera off unless absolutely necessary or required because I prefer to sleep in and shower during my lunch hour. They don’t need to see my greasy hair and wrinkled t shirt.
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I was once on a call at a company that was very anti-WFH (founder excepted, natch) because we were all snowed in. I mention this to say that everybody on the call except me was an experienced and comfortable presenter, with zero prior experience being on a call from home.
So imagine a half dozen researchers with twenty sets of postnymnal letters between them, and their new dev geek, all trying to do one of, what I would soon come to learn was, our typical rambling multihour meetings. Now imagine that one of them, a person that all would agree is way the hell out at the more image-conscious and well put-together ends of those respective spectra, and who is also among the most technically competent of them, not realizing that anybody on the call with two monitors (depending on their local settings) could still see their camera feed even whilst screen sharing.
The polite Latin term is mucophagy. Well, at least for the subset that passed a rather unsubtle inspection. It was unnerving, and I am certain that it was not any sort of a ‘power move’, well-considered or otherwise. Another thing I am certain of is that most people were not actually watching, it having become in essence a speakerphone call most of an hour prior.
So my job, as possibly the only person who could save them, was to try to trigger awareness by subtle references and phrasing, but without getting anyone else to notice. And ideally, without tipping them off that I was even aware. Because of course, my only means of contact would likely show up on their shared screen.
Eventually the president of the company picked up on my socioverbal desperation and texted them. Twas never spoken of.
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Good band name 
Very Emo.
That meeting sounds gross and awkward.
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Thanks. The only specific instance I can recall is acting really impressed with an idea of theirs, and exclaiming “If only you could see the look on my face right now!” while they were knuckle deep. *whoosh*\ No noticeable effect. I couldn’t even.
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If he was really busy on a bunch of projects, one could say he, “had a finger in every pie(hole).”
Zeroeth rule of pandemic working–Buy a new computer for work.
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Everyone is now aware of his shortcomings…
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