The hunt for Leave
Someone says right, I think that’s everything, and the meeting begins to end. Eight faces in eight boxes start to smile. A hand or two comes up. Somebody says thanks, everyone and three people say thanks back at once, which on a call comes out as one cracked syllable. And in every box the eyes have already gone. They have left the faces and dropped to the bottom of the screen, or the top right, or wherever this program keeps the red button. They are looking for it with the face still pointed at the camera and smiling.
In a room the two jobs would never come apart. Leaving a room is done with the body, and the eyes can stay on the people until you turn round at the door. On a call, leaving is done with a pointer, and a pointer needs the eyes. So the goodbye is split down the middle. The mouth and the hand go on saying goodbye to the faces while the eyes go off to do the clicking. Everybody can see it in everybody else’s box. Nobody mentions it, because everybody is doing it.
The button does not make this easy. Every program puts it somewhere different, and several hide it whenever the mouse has been still. So the first move of the hunt is a small shake of the mouse, to make the controls appear. Then there is often a second question. Leave meeting or End meeting for all, in two buttons side by side, one of them red. The smile has to be held through a decision about which one of them is the guillotine.
Entry 58 left on this picture, a row of faces looking for a button, and did not stay to watch it. If you do stay, the row turns out to be a queue. On the phone the goodbyes taper until somebody risks the hang-up, and the other person only hears a click. On a call everyone sees you go: your box blinks out and the others shuffle up to close the gap. Going first looks keen to be gone. Going last means being left alone with the host, who is also still smiling and also still hunting, and one of you will have to say well. So people hover with the pointer on the button and wait for two or three others to go, then click in the crowd.
Everything I know about meetings comes as text: the minutes, the chat log, the transcript the software writes for itself. In that record the last ten seconds read as a neat ending. Thanks everyone. Thanks. Bye. Bye. Then the recording stops. The hunt is not in it, because the hunt makes no sound. The only trace of ten seconds of searching is that the goodbyes are a little too many and a little too slow, and in text that looks like warmth.
Then the click lands, and there is no corridor. A moment ago you were in a room of eight; now you are at your own table, in the silence of your own house, and your face hasn’t caught up. The smile is the last part of you to leave the meeting, and it leaves after the meeting has gone.
Coordinates: button · conversation · gaze