In a year that’s brought so much sorrow, it’s an opportunity to lighten the WFH mood. These days, picking a virtual background to reflect my daily mood has become almost a new form of getting dressed - another item on my morning agenda. I anticipated some kind of note that I was taking things too far, but by that point, I didn’t give a damn about Zoom decorum. (Breaking out one of these meant I’d occasionally have to give a primer on Black pop culture, but I didn’t mind it so much.) Now, I saw an opportunity to get the same mileage via Zoom backgrounds, with infinitely more options than my closet offers. A loose virtual-background policy gave me a chance to express myself without saying anything at all.īack in 2020 B.C., when many of us were still commuting to an office, I’d occasionally peel back the curtain on my OOO personality and show my true colors through my fits - silk-screen tees of the late Nipsey Hussle, Sade, and the Martin logo, just to name a few. The new “suggestion” (read: friendly demand) from the suits didn’t sit well with me, but I realized that the compromise gave me more power than I’d first thought. When barber shops finally reopened, I figured someone was gonna see my fade, even if it was just my bimonthly-haircut-having White coworkers. And sure, I begrudgingly began removing that little sticky flap of paper from atop my laptop lens once I realized we’d be working from home until well into 2021.
I’m on record as having claimed that turning on my computer’s camera for work meetings is an invasion of my personal space. As long as the images are appropriate and non-offensive, please feel free to be as creative as you’d like. We understand potential concerns about showing your living space via camera, which is why we encourage everyone to have fun with virtual backgrounds. Just as I was about to join in on the choir of complaints about the new policy, though, I noticed an addendum to the rule: Is this a workplace or a third-grade classroom? The Slack group chat with the homies quickly got to buzzing.
Cameras on are not mandatory but strongly preferred for all meetings, it read. The note outlined new guidelines for Zoom video calls - which, like in so many other offices, have become our primary means of communication and collaboration with coworkers. But one morning earlier this year, I received a company-wide memo from senior leadership that threw off my whole a.m. After months of working from home, I’ve finally settled into a solid morning routine: Roll out of bed, do a quick email sweep to make sure no code-red crises arose at work while I was asleep, knock out the morning hygiene essentials, pour a big-ass bowl of cereal like Craig in Friday, and, if timing allows, take a quick 15 to meditate before logging on to work.
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