“Remoted” – Workday 103 / Day 141 (Tuesday)

Some days have giant chunks sucked right out of them, usually due to meetings. Today was one such day. If I’d just remember to check my calendar (and then remember what’s on it five minutes later) the surprises would be reduced. Most days have no meetings, which is why I don’t always check. Oops.

Being Tuesday, our regular 1:00 team meeting was scheduled, but the alert at 9:45 was a surprise. It was for a webinar about data and broadcast advertising that I forgot I registered for. At least I was tipped off about the 11:30 meeting when checking the calendar after the 9:45 alert.

Rocking the
Crypt Keeper look.

Usually, on video meetings days, I put on makeup to try to look like I give a shit and not scare my colleagues. On a regular Tuesday with just the team meeting, the attempt to tone down the scary happens at lunchtime. The first webinar was fine (and a huge relief), because attendees weren’t shown, just the panelists. When it finished, I dove into the dozen emails that had arrived and returned to what I was working on earlier. Barely a minute passed and the alert for the 11:30 meeting had already been snoozed a couple times, and I was pulling out my haphazard ponytail and logging into what turned out to be full-blown video meeting. In the meeting grid I noticed with horror that I resembled The Crypt Keeper character. Oops. 

Somehow, I thought the 11:30 was a single topic meeting to discuss website content for a new internal council. Surprise! The first 30 minutes was a round robin where everyone had to comment on a specified topic. By the time I was called upon, all the good ideas were said. To make it more exciting, both our CEO and Chairman were in the meeting. I babbled for a minute about who knows what. Oy. The meeting wrapped up a little late, and suddenly it was 12:40, I was hungry, and the regular team meeting was at 1:00.

The week of being unprepared for meetings is also the week of being lazy. I didn’t cook on Sunday. Or Monday. For some mysterious reason I was tired after work on Monday and fell asleep for an hour. At 6:30 pm. Seriously? I’m blaming the full moon. As a result, there were no leftovers for quick lunches, and I needed something that could be prepared and eaten in 20 minutes. It was ramen for the win. And somehow, thanks to hurrying, I screwed it up with too much water and not enough hot pepper paste. By the time I was done ruining it, the clock showed 12:55 and the soup was boiling hot. That didn’t stop me. I shoveled in a few mouthfuls, burned the heck out of the roof of my mouth, and logged in for the next meeting.

Luckily, our boss was in the same two earlier meetings that I was in, and hadn’t had his lunch. There was not a big agenda so the team meeting was quick. I only had to see my Crypt Keeper self on the screen for about ten minutes. By then, the ramen was no longer too hot. It was actually a bit too cool, but at least the risk of scalding was no longer an issue. And the meetings were over for the day so I could finally get some work done.