No problem for us.

We use Skype for Business, which is so flaky at times that the default assumption if somebody is not joining is that the system conked on her.

If you stake your life’s happiness on pleasing morons (and the morons in this case are those that pretty much don’t immediately assume technical problems out of your control) - you’re pretty much guaranteed a bad time.

A couple of months ago, I finally landed a first-round job interview at a place where I've wanted to work for several years. The interview was conducted over Zoom.

What would have happened if Zoom had worked fine on their end, but I was randomly unable to connect? Perhaps it would have been fine—they would have been understanding, and we would have rescheduled for another day. Perhaps if they hadn't been understanding, I shouldn't have wanted to work for them anyway.

But, I don't know. I wanted to work for them, and I was competing with other candidates who presumably interviewed on different days. Hiring processes are inherently imperfect, and lots of things can be consciously or unconsciously treated as a red flag.

(And yes, lots of other things could have happened on the day of the interview. But I still find this scenario particularly scary to think about.)

> Hiring processes are inherently imperfect, and lots of things can be consciously or unconsciously treated as a red flag.

Exactly, so it’s weird to worry about a Zoom problem in particular. If anything it’s a little better now since most people are conditioned to think of technical problems as less likely the affected persons fault (that’s why I referred to the alternative as “morons”) - even if you left yourself plenty of time and did everything right and public transit fucked you over it was never a good look.