CTO Fraction

When Your Zoom Partner Does Not Show to the Meeting

Lessons From a Failed Video Call

In today’s world of virtual connections, the reliance on video conferencing platforms has become an integral part of professional interactions. However, as convenient as these tools may be, they are not immune to the occasional hiccup. In a recent encounter detailed in this article, I share a firsthand account of a failed Zoom meeting and the valuable lessons learned from the experience.

The Back Story

Recently, someone (I will call him Bill) reached out to me on LinkedIn, requesting to connect and learn more about the services I offered. I accepted the offer. After that, we set up a time to meet over Zoom to figure out if there were any potential synergies between the two of us. The meeting was scheduled about a week out, and finally, the time came to meet.

I opened my meeting invite and clicked the Zoom link to join. The app popped up the typical window, letting me know that the host had not started the meeting yet. So I patiently waited for Bill to start the meeting. After about 5 minutes, I assumed that something had prevented Bill from joining. Therefore, I sent him a brief message, asking if he was still able to join the meeting or wanted to reschedule.

Then I switched screens and continued doing some work, which took my attention. A few minutes later, I remembered to check and see if I had a response from Bill. Sure enough, he had responded promptly, kindly reminding me that we were using my Zoom link. He had been waiting this entire time for me to start the meeting.

Feeling bad, I scurried to figure out what I had done until I finally put two and two together and managed to log into Zoom and start the meeting. By then, 15 minutes had passed since our appointed start, and of course, Bill had left. He had sent me another message, letting me know that he was dropping off and wishing me a good day. Then I noticed that he had also sent me an email earlier, asking if we should reschedule.

The realization sunk in – I had handled this situation irresponsibly. Ouch! So I decided to use this as a learning opportunity and capture the lessons from my failure.

The Lessons

If the person you are supposed to meet on a video call does not show up in the first 5 minutes, there are things you can do to handle the situation gracefully:

  • Assume the issue is on your end.
  • Do not dedicate your attention to other work, but rather do the next steps to find out what happened and how you can be reconnected with the person.
  • Check whether you:
    • Joined the right meeting.
    • Have the correct meeting time.
    • Used the right meeting link.
    • You are the host and need to start the meeting, or they are.
  • Revisit the last communication you had with the other person and see if you missed anything.
  • Look for any new communication they may have sent in just the last few minutes. Check email, LinkedIn (if they are a contact), phone (if they have your number).
  • If you have done all of the above steps and everything checks out, and there is no new communication from the person, reach out proactively to them. Send them a kind message explaining the situation and ask if they would like to reschedule.

The above list may not be an exhaustive one, but it covers the bases. For me, the main takeaways are: assume the issue is on your end and focus on finding out what happened, rather than passively waiting for the other person to reach out.

If you have read this far, I hope this helps you, and I hope you will handle similar situations in a better way than I did.

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P.S.

To finish my personal story… At the end I apologized to Bill and asked if he wanted to reschedule. He was graceful enough to write: “No worries. It happens to all of us :-)”, and offered for us to schedule a new time.