I don’t think there’s a single corporate employee on God’s green earth who hasn’t sat in a meeting and thought about the many more useful and/or entertaining things they could be doing right now. While it’s true that bringing people together in this way is an occasionally essential part of the working process, the mantra of ‘this could have been an email’ is an all too common one. Streamlined communication is the way to go.

However, in most cases, a complaint like this isn’t going to stop us from trying not to space out on Zoom for 45 minutes or more. This is part of the reason that one woman’s co-worker earned the respect of the internet after she reported how he refused to join any of their meetings, which was allowed because of how competent he was in his role. There are downsides to being that essential, but this isn’t one of them.