‘I’ve seen someone fake a frozen screen’: 25 Clever employees refusing to be on screen for video calls – FAIL Blog

Why do CEO’s love staring at everyone’s face on the company-wide video calls? 

The modern workplace is fraught with nuances that your average medieval peasant could never understand. Hybrid schedules, lunch breaks, and cubicle drama aside, the biggest concept for contention in the workplace has become the fated webcam. Managers, bosses, and higher-ups insist that their employees show their faces on virtual meetings, invading their homes on screen and demanding their employees reveal the inner workings of their living room, home office, or even the coffee shop they decided to work in today. 

But why must we show our faces in a meeting? 

It remains a mystery why C-levels can’t fathom a workplace monologue without an audience, but there are many employees who have found a workaround for this conundrum anyway. Many modern employees downright refuse to show their faces on video calls, finding loopholes and virtual backgrounds that reflect their disdain for mandatory meetings that could have been an email. 

Blurry taped cameras, webcam “malfunctions,” and uploaded images from a hybrid office are some of the ways that clever employees get out of the vulnerable video call obligation, but there are a few, even better ways to completely hide your personal life from the business world.

I’ve worked remotely for almost 5 years now, and I’ve never been a fan of meetings, virtual or in-person. Regardless of the reason for the meeting or its pertinence, I’ve found that revealing my laptop location, explaining my new background, and doing unintentional MTV Cribs-style house tours was never a part of my job description. 

Luckily, I like my coworkers, and I like my job, but if I ever felt creeped out by the voyeuristic nature of the modern work-related video call, I’d employ a few of the techniques below to try and staunch the prying eyes of corporate in the sanctity of my home, too. So if you’ve ever felt weird about taking a call from your cell or blurring your background on a video call for work, you’re not alone; at least now you’ll be equipped with 25 clever ways to refuse on-screen face time with your workplace on a video call.