No eye contact from manager on zoom calls

[ProseccoSupernova]

As he has two monitors he has set it up so if you are on a zoom call you see the side profile of his face rather than being able to make eye contact.m as he is looking at the monitor without the camera on. I find it really off putting but before I ask him, am I being overly critical as I do have a tendency to find things annoying! 🤣

We've been on lockdown how many weeks yet a large number of supposedly intelligent people still can't use zoom. Incompetent things I have witnessed include but are not limited to:

Top of head only part visible

Walking around with zoom on mobile so I feel seasick
Monitor tilted so I see up nose
Back to window so they appear like a kamizaki plane coming at me out of the sun.
Pitch dark in room.

Outdoors when it's supposed to be confidential.

Wanky background (no you are not in San Francisco, twat) that makes their hair have a strange edge.
Lying down
Leaning back and showing armpits.
Eating loudly on a business call
Smoking / vaping

I could go on. People need to get their shit together.

Oh god yes don’t get me started on the calls to clients from the garden!! Erm not sure that’s the image we want to be showcasing! And yes to the ‘crime watch victim’ approach of sitting in front of a window so you’re just an outline! It’s not like you can’t see yourself and how you are coming across!

My dad is a terror for wandering around during video calls and facing the camera up at the ceiling, so much so that my sister once had to put her head out the window as she thought she would actually chunder. Then again he is 80 so fair play to him.

Overwhelmingly no video on my conf calls so I'm surprised about all this. I don't even have a webcam myself.

I have my lap top set up so it is linked to a large screen making it easier to see people better. My laptop with the camera is to the left so when I am looking at my big screen you can just see my side profile. When I am speaking to people I have to remind myself to look into the camera. He probably just forgets you cannot see him face on. I am not sure I would ask him about it though.

I’m sure I’ve seen one of my bosses smoking a spliff during a work call.

I am a nightmare for this. My laptop is raised up and to the side as I use my main large screen for everything so when I video call you can only see my head, not really any of my body, and I’m at an angle as I’m usually looking at my main screen. I do make an effort to look at the camera when I’m talking but I’m not rearranging my workspace for video calls. Having a webcam built in to the laptop makes it much harder to rearrange.

It doesn’t really bother me as I know people talk to the screen rather than the webcam, which may not be on their main screen, but bring it up if it’s annoying you that much. You’ve potentially got months still to go wfh.

This thread made me laugh, we had our team meeting this morning and had several of these. My manager has us on a big screen, but her laptop is only slightly to the side, so it's not profile, but she isn't looking at us. I don't mind the slight sideways thing.

So many up the nose and window behind them ones though. I purposely got two large books to prop my laptop on, and also opened up my camera to check how I would look before we started video calls. We are now on week 13 for my office and still some people don't get it.

Meh, I can't get worked up about it. My 'effort' for a video call involves putting a bra on and attempting to get the camera somewhat decently aligned...my laptop has the typical built in camera but not in the typical location. Instead of being at the top of the screen, it is at the bottom, which makes it really hard to get a decent angle. It's automatically looking up your nose! To get it to face level, I have to raise it so far I can't actually see what I'm doing, so it's pretty useless. Fortunately we aren't obliged to do video calls - you can join with mic only - because it is fairly observed that video calls make many people uncomfortable.

It is quite complicated if you've got 2 (or in my case 3) screens, one of which is the laptop which has the camera. I spend a fair amount of Teams calls not looking at the camera because I'm looking at another screen that has the other people on it, plus whatever they're sharing.

It's not something that bothers me, but I do work with a lot of different types of people who have different levels of comfort with video calls, and see all sorts of ways people are doing their best to cope with the tech.

I'm scared about going back to a normal office set up. Not because of catching covid, but because everyone will have stopped washing, be chomping food and wandering round all through meetings, and won't look me in the face.

I do video training with clients and do have to use the two screens - I actually always state really clearly that when I’m looking off to the left that I’m not avoiding eye contact, I’m using a second screen.