The Story of a Family Zoom Meeting

A few weeks ago, my MIL said that her friends have family zoom meetings. She wanted one. There was a long-ish pause with no one speaking up, so I volunteered to host, since I am already paying a Zoom subscription to host a couple other things (monthly book group and weekly Fancy Friday). I suggested — not pushy, openly said it was only an opening bid — 2 pm on Sunday. My theory was, the west coast contingent probably would not attend, and 11 am is not THAT early on those rare occasions they might decide to. The west coast contingent did not speak up, however, the mother of a west coaster said, but that makes it hard for the west coast can we do it later. I was like, sure, how about 3. People wanted later; I said that later did not work for us, because around 4 pm the kids start wanting food and then we need food, and then after that it becomes dinner time for Cooler People Than Us in the family and then my kids bedtime and etc. So, in theory, the meeting is at 3. And may I add, I do not believe any west coasters have attended in the small number of weeks we have been doing this. The core attendees are MIL, us, and two SILs. BILs will sometimes poke their heads in, as will offspring (ours, theirs). Last week, one SIL canceled. This week, the other SIL canceled. That is fine. Life happens, and a lot of this group has jobs that are quite demanding normally, and things have not slowed down and in some ways the job demands have become even worse. I get it.

In addition to one SIL canceling, the other SIL wanted to do an outdoor thing (it is nice out) and move this all later, to 5:30 or 6. I almost said, yeah, but dinner. And then I sat down and thought it through. I was like, okay, one SIL is out anyway. I bet this thing does not even happen. No biggie. Worst case scenario, I set up the meeting and completely ignore it. Maybe R. looks in. Maybe the kids look in. Whatever. They can chat amongst themselves (MIL, SIL and any of SIL’s family that wants to talk to MIL). So I said, “Pick any time you like.” She did not pick a specific time. Later I said, okay, the meeting is postponed to 5:30 pm or whenever SIL says it is. SIL eventually says, 5:30 is great.

Then MIL says she has been backed into at the store parking lot and there is a bit of a shaggy dog story involving the man not stopping, so she went home, called in the plate, and was told to go back to the store to call from there to talk to the police at the location so she will not be able to go to the meeting.

Aha! Fine. No meeting. Perfect. I silently reschedule the meeting to next week at the usual time.

Then SIL says, oh, bummer, if you get back by 6 join the meeting. *sigh* Schedule it back to 5:30. Turn on Zoom at 5:30. SIL not there. Return to dinner prep. I hear stuff some time later, check in, there is SIL, hair damp, rattling off how BIL is driveway socializing with people and she should be out there.

SIL could have avoided this so easily! Cancel entirely in favor of outdoors! Accept MIL’s cancelation! Instead, she is going to put in a short, pre-MIL appearance, while leaving me twiddling my thumbs on an open and empty Zoom meeting on the off-chance MIL shows up? Hey, SIL, this is my dinner. Has been for a decade and a half, and that has been a source of conflict for the us and the rest of the family that entire time, because no one can manage to remember that. Bye!

At 6:01 — and this is, hands down, the very best moment of the entire story, MIL texts:

“Please send me the meeting information by message or by mail. I hope I can get to the meeting on my phone. I can’t seem to find it sitting here in the car waiting for hours for the police”

I told her, there is no meeting, and then I realized that while there is certainly enough alcohol in the house to fix this little problem, a walk is a much better choice. So I went for a walk, listened to some Highwomen (which I highly recommend, altho it may make you cry), talked to my sister, and settled the fuck down. While I was on my walk, SIL came through with a completely adequate apology and a commitment not to fuck with the dinner hour again. Which I appreciate.

There are all kinds of lessons that could be drawn from this little tale. I, personally, originally intended this to be a half hour meeting, and it got turned into an hour. I am thinking I may trim it down to 20 minutes. Maybe people will feel less compelled to go through so many gyrations to avoid attending.

ETA: MIL did not get home (per Find My) until well after 9:30 pm.

ETAYA: Having slept on it, I went back and dug up the email chain setting up the family meeting. MIL originally requested a half hour once a week; it almost immediately grew to an hour and immediately after that, people started canceling (further proof that meetings should never be longer than 20 minutes). I updated the inevitable one incorrect email in the original discussion (BIL who has never participated), and then sent out some of the original chain, and notified everyone that I am not going to be scheduling or hosting this meeting any more after pointing out that it is supposed to be a half hour which fits within the Zoom free tier. I did offer to help MIL learn how to host a meeting herself if she needs practice. I also explicitly included our dinner and bedtime routine constraints in case someone else wants to schedule it. I could not figure out any way to set any kind of boundaries on this thing that did not wind up making me hate my Sunday, and eventually realized I just needed to stop.

Hate Reading Opinion Piece at the NYT

I feel like this should be an entire category of blog post, so I can go, oh, probably should just not write it in the first place.

I will do one. OK? Ok.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/17/opinion/coronavirus-office-telecommuting.html

First, my Priestess noted that her (Seattle branch) office had rent on the order of $10K a month. And there were on the order of 10 people working there. I mean, that was really attention getting. That is math that just up and dope slaps you. They are working to close the office; working from home is now a permanent arrangement for Priestess, and I do not think she is precisely unhappy about this. Her internet cost has gone up slightly, but her commute cost has gone down more, plus there is that extra hour and change per day that she has gotten back in her life.

Second, I have been retired for a little over seven thousand and nine hundred days. I DO miss office gossip most of everything about going into an office. And I do not miss office gossip very much. I think it is safe to say that I did not miss the office once I was gone from it.

I have been explaining to my daughter, on and off, about how to create structure when you do not have an environment such as work or school to create it for you. We have been exploring this space in the context of people expressing confusion about the passing of time, or what day it was or whatever. But reading the description of segmenters vs. integrators in this article, and then confronting the claim that the Pandemic is Segmenter’s Hell created massive dissonance for me. I mean, what kind of weak ass segmenter needs to have externally imposed structure to maintain separation of the faces that they present to the world? Who are you people? (ETA: In case it is not clear, I am a segmenter. OMG, am I a segmenter. I segment so well, that El Jefe said after the second interview, that he intended to hire me in the first interview, and he wanted to know where I had been hiding all this stuff that showed up in the second interview. I segment so well, that my elderly Dutch relative honestly thought someone else has snuck into the house and was talking on her phone, because she did not recognize my voice on the phone to someone else. I could do this all night. I will refrain. Oh, no, one more: I mention a friend at the end of the post. She commented on Friday that she had entirely forgotten that I had been married before. She knew me and the husband before I got married, through the entire marriage and the subsequent divorce.)

Still stuck on the thousand dollars a month per employee (cost to employer), plus the 1-2 hours per day on the commute (cost to employee), never mind the cost differential of Work Clothes vs. Work PJs. Is it really worth $12K and 500 hours for ... socializing, possibly meeting someone to shack up with, and meaning (whatever the hell that even means)?

I will end with a comment that the elder daughter of a friend shared with her mother (my friend). The daughter is in college, and has some classes that involve group projects. The daughter commented that online, it is absolutely impossible for people to hide the fact that they are not pulling their weight (not her phrase). It is completely clear who is producing and who is ... not.

Really puts that opinion piece in a harsh, harsh light.