What I Miss

Working from home has been intense at times as we all adjust to spending eight hours in front of our screens with no real human contact. There is little to break up the work, besides trips to the bathroom and occasional household chores. There are no hallway or doorway conversations. No antics. We're all in our own little bubble. Today, though, the bubble broke for a few precious, joyous moments.

My colleague and I are responsible for converting an in-person campus visit into a virtual visit using Zoom. I have used Zoom for the last few years to meet with my faith-sharing group in Florida, but I've never hosted a meeting. I watched a video tutorial yesterday that reviewed the basics in preparation for my meeting this morning and picked up some tips and tricks that I felt would be enough to get our test meeting started. The Golden Girls, as our boss calls us, are pretty resourceful after all. We are both former (or recovering) "church ladies" who used to work in ministry settings but are now in college admissions where hospitality and event planning are mainstays of our jobs—along with listening and helping students discern major life choices. Knowing how to use Zoom's functionality well will help create that comfortable space where students and families can ask us questions and get to know us and our campus.

Yesterday, I learned about the virtual background feature and thought this could be really fun. Zoom's virtual backgrounds are like the green screen that meteorologists use to broadcast the weather. Instead of students having to look at the wall in my rather boring home office, I can come to them live from pyramids, or from the beach, or from a baseball game. Oh, and I suppose from the campus, too. I was super pumped about this feature, but because of technical difficulties, I was unable to make it work on my computer until IT downloaded a driver later in the day. However, my coworker was able to make it work, and it was the most amazing thing. She found an aquarium scene and then thought it would be hilarious to take a green sweatshirt and basically play peek-a-boo and yell, "Surprise!" I recorded this on my phone, and it was the best five seconds of the day—no, of the week! No, maybe of the last 15 days. I belly laughed over and over again—and so did our boss who shared the video on her own Instagram page.

For a brief moment, everything felt normal. I miss feeding off this kind of energy. I miss hearing not just one other person's laughter on a videoconference, but an entire room laughing together. Even though I'm an introvert, I miss the camaraderie that comes from being part of a team.

In other news, gas is $1.55/gallon. Eight hundred sixty-seven Ohioans have been tested and diagnosed with COVID-19.