Send It To Zoom

Does anyone else remember the TV show ZOOM? I just checked the internet and they had email addresses and shows in the 21 century, so I guess it lasted long past my childhood (OK, looks a remake started up in 1999), but I don't remember seeing it around for my kids. Maybe Californian PBS was too cool for this East Coast kinda thing. Although really the only reason I associate it with the East Coast is because it came on after The Electric Company which I always vaguely assumed was the utility powering Sesame Street.

But I bet any alums are feeling very ahead of the curve lately, since everybody is rushing to Zoom. My kids do college over Zoom, my family has transcontinental dinner parties over Zoom, any important (ha!) committees I'm on that tracked me down in the pandemic are held over Zoom, and vitally for my mental health, book clubs are held on Zoom.

My poor mom was complaining about how complicated it all was as we hauled her into the family dinner. This involved several texts and phone calls before we could all settle down. It's a good thing we have so many communication devices so we can use some to explain the intricacies of the others. It's a bootstrapping process, you see. Mom may have thought I was exaggerating when I said I was almost as clueless as she was, but it's all too true. But now I've used it at least five times so I'm an expert.

Here are my tips:

* Find the best decorated part of your house and sit in front of that for the meeting. Sadly, I prefer to zoom on a giant screen, which means my desktop computer. The office containing it has scuffed white walls over a fading couch and no artwork. Not even bookcases -- somehow this is the only room where you can be out of arms reach of literary goodies. I've been stealing artwork from other parts of the house and precariously balancing them on the back of the couch. My safety conscious children keep exclaiming in horror and returning them to their proper places. At this point I graduated to --

* Virtual Backgrounds. After the third time a cat almost knocked over a glass frame, my son asked why I just didn't use a virtual background. I said I didn't know how to make one. With a long-suffering sigh of deep patience he showed me the free ones that come with Zoom. Now I could relax on a beach, soar over the Golden Gate Bridge, or float in space while attending my meetings. I also enjoyed the way bits of my body would vanish and reappear as I shifted as apparently virtual reality is almost as complex as the real thing so computers have problems integrating them. This was particularly fun when my cats joined the meeting, so that focus shot to their tails waving where my suddenly decapitated head had been a moment before.

* Pets are also a vitally important part of any Zoom gathering. When a pet enters the camera view, everyone must stop and appreciate it. If the pet is short (like a dog) then this may involve moving the camera so everyone can appreciate the fuzzy one. Cats will often make it easier to see them by sitting directly in front of the camera, or sometimes walking onto the head of the person in the meeting for a better vantage part. Agin, this is the most important part of the meeting, so don't rush them. Imagine how much more useful Trump's briefings would have been if he stopped talking and let the camera look at a dog or cat?

* I also highly recommend gallery view over speaker view, unless you are a student in a class. Before I realized this was an option I got to watch people in book club jumping all over the screen as Zoom tried to figure who was going to finish their sentence. Amusing for a while, but luckily I discovered the Gallery button before my interest waned.

* Speaking of these highly technical points, how often should one change one's virtual background? Are we supposed to keep the same one for a whole call? Are they like cocktail dresses where people aren't supposed to reuse them in the same crowd? Should I use the beach for day time calls but switch into outer space for evening meetings? If I have the fix that will save the day for my team, is it appropriate to show up in front of a superhero headquarters? These are fine details of Zoom etiquette I haven't worked out yet.