Schtick You Use in Virtual Life (1 Viewer)

[Ron Swanson]

So, how do you amuse yourself in those terrible videoconferences? Or the stilted Zoom happy hours? Let's work together to make these things amusing to at least ourselves!

I'll start.  I've found that in larger videoconferences there is always at least one person with a super obvious distinguishing feature, usually clothing or accessory related.  So I Mr. Potatohead them. Whatever it is, I subtly adopt their look. A knit cap? Glasses?  Backwards ball cap? Buttoned up shirt?  Sometimes only I know.  But sometimes, just sometimes, I see others catch on. And then I get to enjoy watching them try and not lose their ####.  Awesome.  

So what do you do?

 

[Northern Voice]

We should do a fbg zoom beer night. 

I flip through backgrounds like a maniac but that's about it. 

Also I get drunk (at the virtual happy hours, not the work ones... yet). 

 

[shuke]

So, how do you amuse yourself in those terrible videoconferences? Or the stilted Zoom happy hours? Let's work together to make these things amusing to at least ourselves!

I'll start.  I've found that in larger videoconferences there is always at least one person with a super obvious distinguishing feature, usually clothing or accessory related.  So I Mr. Potatohead them. Whatever it is, I subtly adopt their look. A knit cap? Glasses?  Backwards ball cap? Buttoned up shirt?  Sometimes only I know.  But sometimes, just sometimes, I see others catch on. And then I get to enjoy watching them try and not lose their ####.  Awesome.  

So what do you do?

We use Teams at work.  They just added background capabilities.  Going to use a Tiger King in my morning meeting tomorrow.

 

[Tiger Fan]

We use Teams at work.  They just added background capabilities.  Going to use a Tiger King in my morning meeting tomorrow.

would've been hilarious 2 weeks ago

 

[Pinkerton]

My home bar is behind my desk, my shtick is having less vodka in the forefront handle on every call.

 

[ChiefD]

When my wife is on a Zoom happy hour I’ll strip down nude from another room and just walk in on the other side of her laptop. Only she can see me, but she starts cracking up and I can hear her friends asking her what’s so funny.

 

[Pinkerton]

When my wife is on a Zoom happy hour I’ll strip down nude from another room and just walk in on the other side of her laptop. Only she can see me, but she starts cracking up and I can hear her friends asking her what’s so funny.

Walk in front of the camera next time to make them all laugh. 

 

[AAABatteries]

Are there any Paraguayans here?

In particular the last 15 seconds.  Classic.

 

[belljr]

I join without video

 

[Ned]

We use Teams at work.  They just added background capabilities.  Going to use a Tiger King in my morning meeting tomorrow.

Do you like Teams?

 

[glvsav37]

Zoom allows for video to run in the background. One day I recorded myself doing various things around my office from the same camera/location I do my calls from—answering a phone behind my desk, sweeping the floor, etc. I took that call in the same outfit and with the camera in the same location, when I switched to the video mid call, it wasn't obvious that my background actually changed. Within a few minutes, my clone started walking around my office behind me doing things.

I loved seeing all the people eventually start squinting at my square trying to figure out what the heck was going on behind me. 

 

[AAABatteries]

Do you like Teams?

I think we talked about it some in another thread.  Shuke I think has been using it for 3-4 weeks now if I recall.  We've used it for months and honestly its fantastic.  Some of the features I use the most (not all of these are unique to Teams but having them all in one tool is nice):

• Recording meetings
  
• Click and start video meeting from Outlook
  
• When I see an email chain in it's infancy I will frequently do a Reply All with Teams and then name the group chat the same as the Subject Line of the email.  I absolutely love this feature
  
• Attach files to chats
  
• Link all kinds of apps to a chat or team - through tabs- for example we can link JIRA to open service requests
  

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting but I'm totally sold on it - it integrates so well in the Microsoft ecosystem.  I'm really impressed with what they've done with it and usually I'm pretty down on Microsoft.

 

[shuke]

We use Teams at work.  They just added background capabilities.  Going to use a Tiger King in my morning meeting tomorrow.

would've been hilarious 2 weeks ago

My bad

 

[ChiefD]

Walk in front of the camera next time to make them all laugh. 

<_<

 

[RCon]

Add multiple pictures of yourself (or others) into your background, all looking at the camera from different angles.

 

[AAABatteries]

My bad

Did this just show up for you or did you have to add it somehow?  I don't see that as one of my options

 

[heckmanm]

Unfortunately we use Webex which doesn't appear to support virtual backgrounds. So I've been wearing a foam rubber parrot visor on my weekly team calls.  Mostly I just do audio-only though.

 

[Keerock]

I will use Google Translate to formulate questions/answers in foreign languages... and act as if everyone should know what I'm saying.

 

[gianmarco]

My daughters have had Zoom meetings with their classes.  One is in preschool, the other in 1st grade.

I'm considering crashing the next one and just doing it myself and just tell them she's busy.

 

[Alex P Keaton]

So, how do you amuse yourself in those terrible videoconferences? Or the stilted Zoom happy hours? Let's work together to make these things amusing to at least ourselves!

I'll start.  I've found that in larger videoconferences there is always at least one person with a super obvious distinguishing feature, usually clothing or accessory related.  So I Mr. Potatohead them. Whatever it is, I subtly adopt their look. A knit cap? Glasses?  Backwards ball cap? Buttoned up shirt?  Sometimes only I know.  But sometimes, just sometimes, I see others catch on. And then I get to enjoy watching them try and not lose their ####.  Awesome.  

So what do you do?

I’m trying to make it through a whole meeting where I only speak / reply to people using movie quotes.  

 

[heckmanm]

I’m trying to make it through a whole meeting where I only speak / reply to people using movie quotes.  

Pick a single movie and see how long it takes people to guess it.

 

[Pinkerton]

I have a nice photo of the men's room at my office after it was remodeled.  I used it as as my Zoom background a few times this week, but most of my meetings have been with people from other offices anyway. 

 

[belljr]

I hate video meetings

 

[Foosball God]

I shave my head so everyone I work with obviously has seen me like that.  We have several wigs around here from various Halloween costumes over the years.  I've started wearing different wigs to our video conference calls.

 

[Keerock]

I shave my head so everyone I work with obviously has seen me like that.  We have several wigs around here from various Halloween costumes over the years.  I've started wearing different wigs to our video conference calls.

Mrs Foos still wearing the merkin?

 

[Foosball God]

Mrs Foos still wearing the merkin?

She's the beard

 

[eurotrashman]

My cats make an appearance on pretty much every video conference call.

 

[Pinkerton]

My cats make an appearance on pretty much every video conference call.

that is their shtick, not yours. 

 

[bostonfred]

I want to start using a plain black background.  Then create a gif of myself sitting in front of a plain black background, not doing anything, just listening attentively, maybe looking down at my keyboard or nodding vigorously.  And then I want to use that as my background for just one meeting, and sit somewhere nearby while it plays on a loop.  And nobody will know until it's my turn to talk and then suddenly I'll show up in front of a still moving picture of myself and I'll answer the question, go back on mute, and act like nothing happened.  Then a minute or so later, just kind of slide off camera and see who notices.  Then next call show up with the same plain black background. And no matter what anyone says, deny it. 

 

[shuke]

Did this just show up for you or did you have to add it somehow?  I don't see that as one of my options

Had to add it.  Teams hasn't made it easy yet.  Paste this in your run bar to find the folder where you can add images:  %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Teams\Backgrounds\Uploads

 

[mquinnjr]

Changing the background on a 5 minute interval during a serious-ish work meeting is solid shtick. I work with someone who does this, it's best while you're talking if you can pull it off and keep your train of thought going, even more solid.

 

[Leroy Hoard]

I hate video meetings

Try them minus pants. Very liberating.

 

[Corporation]

I think we talked about it some in another thread.  Shuke I think has been using it for 3-4 weeks now if I recall.  We've used it for months and honestly its fantastic.  Some of the features I use the most (not all of these are unique to Teams but having them all in one tool is nice):

• Recording meetings
  
• Click and start video meeting from Outlook
  
• When I see an email chain in it's infancy I will frequently do a Reply All with Teams and then name the group chat the same as the Subject Line of the email.  I absolutely love this feature
  
• Attach files to chats
  
• Link all kinds of apps to a chat or team - through tabs- for example we can link JIRA to open service requests
  

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting but I'm totally sold on it - it integrates so well in the Microsoft ecosystem.  I'm really impressed with what they've done with it and usually I'm pretty down on Microsoft.

We've been using it for about 2 months, and it is solid.  With Skype our chat histories were gone if the client crashed.  I really like the static nature of the chats, some of our most productive work comes in IMs.

 

[nirad3]

We've been using it for about 2 months, and it is solid.  With Skype our chat histories were gone if the client crashed.  I really like the static nature of the chats, some of our most productive work comes in IMs.

I was actually going to pose a "Skype vs. Teams" related question... my company is switching over to Teams from Skype and for some reason my boss hates Teams.  I just got my first taste of it today and no complaints, although I really didn't do much.

 

[shuke]

Do you like Teams?

Love it.  

 

[Keerock]

Do you like Teams?

Love it.  

Except for the "single pane of glass".  I'd like to be able to "separately" chat/post in different windows without losing context on the meeting.

 

[belljr]

You guys pay way more attention to people backgrounds than I do.  I also don't have everyone displayed.   

 

[AAABatteries]

We've been using it for about 2 months, and it is solid.  With Skype our chat histories were gone if the client crashed.  I really like the static nature of the chats, some of our most productive work comes in IMs.

I'm not sure how I left this feature off my list.  I think we've used it for so long I almost forgot about it.  You are right and this would probably go right to the top of my list.  Having the history there and being able to reply to people next day or whenever I can get back to them and you don't lose the context.

Also - for some this may be a negative but I installed the app on my phone.  Sometimes comes in handy.

 

[AAABatteries]

Except for the "single pane of glass".  I'd like to be able to "separately" chat/post in different windows without losing context on the meeting.

Do you mean with the same folks or with someone else?  There's a "Pop out chat" feature in the top right of a chat that allows you to open it in a new window.  That comes in handy in particular if you are in a Teams meeting and have a second screen.

 

[bryhamm]

When my wife is on a Zoom happy hour I’ll strip down nude from another room and just walk in on the other side of her laptop. Only she can see me, but she starts cracking up and I can hear her friends asking her what’s so funny.

It's never a good thing for your wife to crack up when you are nude.  Just sayin.