Is there anything so “played out” as Zoom Happy Hour?

I mean, I get what we’re going for, and I really appreciate the “Hey! We’ve worked hard, now let’s play hard” energy. But the things that make Zoom/Teams/Skype work for business meetings are the very things that make it a difficult format for pulling off anything that isn’t business-related.  Think about it.  We like that Zoom makes it really easy to get to, because there’s no commute — but that also means that it’s easy to duck out and leave. And let’s be honest — that’s a problem when it comes to social stuff.  I don’t know about you, but the whole, “I’m marooned here with adults trying to act like we like I have the energy to invest in being interested in other people’s lives, so I might as well make the most of it,” only really works if you’re stuck there. 

Another thing that makes Zoom work for business and suck for parties is the “one speaker at a time” thing.  It’s awesome for meetings because you can go through the agenda and call on people when it’s their time to speak.  Efficient as heck. But y’all know how well that translates to a party.  The thing I like about parties are the sub-groups and the organic flow of conversations in and out.  If I don’t want to hear about Larry’s herringbone pattern on his new deck project, I can go for snacks or a refill and find something else.  Not with Zoom, though. Sure, you can try breakout rooms, but that’s even worse because when you’re in a smaller group, then you have a bigger share of the conversation void to fill up.  And there’s this weird thing with conversations online that the longer a pause is, the more awkward it becomes. Instead of thinking of a tangent to follow, you think about the awkwardness of the silence and realize that when you break it, it better be good, or else the zeitgeist is all, “Wait… you made us wait… for that?  God … I’d rather talk about herringbone patterns. What breakout room is Larry in?”

And yet, we have to make parties work.  So we have to make Zoom work.  The worst thing about this pandemic for me is all the milestones that have been robbed from us.  Human beings NEED milestones like graduation and end-of-semester parties.  It’s a spring-cleaning for the soul.  It’s a set-aside time where we reflect on what we’ve done and allow our futures to begin to crystalize a bit. If we don’t have those things, we feel unmoored.  It’s like trying to cut a bagel without looking at the area previously cut.  If you aren’t careful, the circle won’t line up and the bagel is ruined.  You can’t not cut the bagel, though. So we persist and have our Zoom parties.

For me, I wanted to know how to make it work. I was being a Grinch. And my staff was being Grinchy too. We were tired. We didn’t feel particularly valued — and I don’t think that’s anyone’s fault. It is hard to toil in the middle of a minefield and try to find victories in the mines that haven’t gone off yet. But we NEEDED to do something.  I wanted to buy my people a drink.  They deserved that and everything that goes with it: the excuse to be around each other and a boss doing something nice enough that it feels good, but not something so nice that you feel like you have to return the favor if you don’t want to. If nothing else, you leave with a good taste in your mouth.  But obviously, that wasn’t an option … .

Or was it?

I looked up a “holiday themed drink” and modified it to something soft and easy that could have a virgin option and still taste good.  Then I went and bought the ingredients in the form of single-serving options. I placed enough for two drinks for each of my staff and their +1s (two drink-tickets, right?) into festive holiday bags along with the recipe, and then I delivered them.  I gave instructions to refrigerate and not to open until our scheduled Zoom meeting time.  Spouses and SOs are absolutely invited; kiddos and fur-babies are too.  After everyone arrived, we made the drinks together (virgin options, too) and made a point to toast each other and the year, and maybe next year.

It ended up being my favorite holiday party in a long time.  It was just nice to find a way to be with each other — in all that we are — together. I love these people and how they “showed up,” just like they have been “showing up” all year for our students and each other.  I told them what they deserve and how the beauty of this job is that they will never get it (what they deserve), but that they show up anyway, because helping our students succeed even just a little bit more is enough to sustain us. 

I also talked about how though we all want to get back to “normal,” there is something to understanding that a lot of good things have happened.  Zoom is so much better for connecting with students than a phone call.  And that technology use has opened education to a lot of people who may not have had access previously. Persons with chronic illnesses, for instance, don’t have to force a painful walk across campus with Rheumatoid Arthritis on especially bad days. They’ve had barriers removed now that no professor can say they don’t know how to work the cameras.  There is a LOT of good that we’ve discovered in this.  So “normal” means something different now, and “the way things were” is not exactly how they should be.  We can insist on a “new normal” or, perhaps, a “better normal.”

At the end of the day, we need these milestone moments to assess what we have, even if it is just to survey the rubble.  That is why we force ourselves to “person” after the end of a long semester.  That is why we leave our shells and put on uncomfortable shoes and clothes we only wear one week out of the year, to go out and talk to people while we pay someone else to watch our kids sleep.  We do it because we need to understand what remains.

Cheers to the end of 2020, and the building of a better “normal.”  Someone check on Betty White, please.

—Neil Golemo

Neil is a doctoral student in the Department of Education Administration and Human Resource Development.