How To Survive a Boring Zoom Call

HOW TO: survive a boring zoom call By Jake Flaherty

In the age of COVID-19, boring Zoom calls are claiming the lives of innocent people worldwide. Drab lectures, useless club meetings—sometimes you even get that one kid who has to dump their entire life story onto the Zoom call. But fear not! To turn your Zoom call from torture to tea time, just remember the four-letter acronym A.S.M.R.: avert, shield, mime, and relax.

*NOTE #1: If the Zoom call has 20+ members, feel free to leave even earlier. The Zoom call is now too large for your teacher to keep track of each individual. While your teacher will still see one of their students leaving, there’s no way they’ll remember which of you it was.

1. Avert

Your first goal is to minimize the amount of time on your Zoom call without your teacher noticing. Less time on the call is less time being bored.

Show up late

In a typical classroom setting, teachers scold people for being late. However, despite the lack of transportation required for Zoom, the average Zoom call will wait a few minutes for latecomers. Take advantage of this.

Leave early

When clubs/teachers finish, they will usually ramble on for a bit. Leave early. The club/class has already counted you for attendance. You can even make an excuse to shave off extra minutes. Say your goldfish drowned. Maybe your potted plant contracted COVID-19. Get creative. The more tragic, the less they’ll argue.*

2. Shield

The key to enjoying a boring Zoom call is distracting yourself with another activity, which you are unable to do without proper deflection. Here’s what to do to reduce being called on. Volunteer early

Whether it’s for icebreakers or a classroom discussion, volunteer at least twice very early on. This way, the teacher/classmates will be enticed to call on others. If you can make a big enough impact early on, the teacher will leave you alone for the rest of class. Also, if your teacher does one of those “popcorn” things, going early will save you from having to pay attention.

Turn off the facecam

If your facecam is off, people will either assume that you have a problem or forget about you. While some teachers will still include you, it will reduce the chances that you will be called on/involved. Having

the facecam off also prevents you from having to pretend to pay attention. Do it if you can. Claim that your camera is broken, your wifi is bad, anything.

3. Mime

Does your teacher require that your facecam stay on? No worries! While it will require more effort, there’s no reason to stay bored. However, you now must appear as invested as possible while remaining minimally engaged.

Eyes on the screen

Keep your eyes on the screen. Looking down at your phone will demonstrate to everyone that you’re very bored, and worse, not paying attention. You are bored, but they shouldn’t know that! Hold up your phone **NOTE #2: If the to your screen below Zoom call ever plays the camera as you use awful background it or play games in a music for you to different window, but make sure you keep your head up. (Pro work to, you can mute the Zoom call without muting the entire computer. On tip: Double-clicking Mac, click next to the the Zoom icon makes microphone button it shrink so you can and click “Leave watch YouTube at the Computer Audio.” On same time easily.) Windows, right-click the sound button React to the audio and open the volume mixer to mute Zoom. And BOOM! Your Sometimes your boring Zoom call is teacher will make a now an epic concert. joke or say something Enjoy! they think is important. It’s critical to react to show that you’re listening. As you go on your phone or watch YouTube, be sure to smile if you hear laughter and nod occasionally, no matter what. This shows that you are listening, even though you’re really not.

The Lean Back (Advanced)

The Lean Back is perfect if you cannot do any of the previous tactics. To begin, push your chair back as far as you can (increase the distance between you and your device). Then, tilt your device’s screen up so only your eyes are visible on screen. Your professor will

not find it worth their time to ask you to lower

your screen. This way, it’s difficult to see where your eyes are focused, allowing you to get away with more.

4. Relax

Averting, Shielding, and Miming wasn’t all for nothing. Now that you have maximized your freedom, it’s time for the most important step: relaxation.

Chill

Check your phone, games, YouTube, or anything you would do outside of class. Remember, the worse your camera’s view is, the more you can get away with.

Pump it up

Music can turn a boring lecture into a jam session! Pull up your music app of choice and adjust the volume to avoid drowning out the call completely. Be careful with how much you groove, however. Bop to the beat with just your legs instead of your torso.**

Eat

People don’t care if you eat. In fact, eating is a lowrisk way to deflect attention. Doing so tells others that you are busy and shouldn’t be bothered.

It’s also a great way to entertain yourself. If a party is boring, it’s boring. But if the boring party has food, it’s a little less boring. Unfortunately, you need to have the food beforehand, but a little preparation goes a long way.

With A. S. M. R., you now have your four key steps to surviving any Zoom call, which can be used to maintain comfort and ease through the dullest of Zoom calls. With enough practice, you will soon naturally avert, shield, and mime, resulting in Zoom calls that are 99% relaxation. Good luck!