If You Zoom With Your Camera Off, You Will Probably Get Fired

Unlike in-person meetings, you don't have to fake paying attention during a Zoom call.

During the pandemic, Americans working from home quickly learned that they could attend virtual meetings with their bosses and colleagues while in their pajamas and eating a bowl of cereal. All they had to do is join the Zoom meeting with their camera off.

However, corporations across the country are onto the trick. According to a new survey from the software company Vyopta, 92% of executives in medium and large firms think workers who turn their cameras off during meetings don't have a long-term future at the company. 92%...

The survey concludes that camera-less Zoomers are often disengaged, not listening, and don't retain much of the information from the meeting.



So will you audio-only Zoomers be fired soon? Probably. But Axios compiled a list of excuses you can use to justify hiding your face during a Zoom meeting and perhaps save your job

-- You can claim to be a victim. Some workers have told their bosses that they spend so much critiquing their appearance on camera that it distracts them from the task at hand. This is called "Zoom fatigue."

-- Say your house is messy in the background. Try, "Sorry, I've been so busy preparing this spreadsheet that I haven't had time to clean my kitchen. So I just turned the camera off." Gold.

-- "My child's toys are all over the floor."

-- Managers also have no way of knowing whether your WiFi is performing aptly. Tell them you had to go to a nearby coffee shop and join the meeting with no camera or audio. Plus, you can get a mocha while on the clock.

-- And if a real old-timer runs the meeting, just say "camera off" is your default. He won't know to question your lie.

We know that there are plenty of other good reasons you can offer. We just advise you not to use the same one too often.

If all else fails, you could always threaten to quit. However, that option comes with significant risk, so we suggest doing so only as a last resort. 

"Just like forcing people to come into the office maypush them to quit, mandating 'camera on' could do the same," Axios adds.

Best of luck, Zoomers.

Finally, I will not disclose whether I'm a camera-on or camera-off Zoomer. Just know if I ever join Zoom without my camera on, I have a good reason for doing so.