Lessons from 28 hours on a webcam

I've spent 19.4% of the last six days, or about 28 hours, on my webcam. For Rent fans, that's 1,680 minutes, and I measure it in eye strain and back pain.

Kidding aside, I want to share some lessons I learned. But first, let me explain why the heck I decided to do this.

Starting last Friday, I helped organize nearly 400 high-school competitors in the Academic Decathlon of New Jersey. Students take a series of exams, write essays, participate in interviews and deliver prepared and impromptu speeches.

The competition is usually held at a high-school or college. It's an astonishing display of logistics: hundreds of students from three different regions competing in three different locations, scored by hundreds of volunteers, with interview and speech verdicts issued by dozens of judges. It's crazy, it's invigorating, and it's an incredibly rewarding experience for all involved.

This year, it was all virtual.

After weeks of figuring out the optimal schedule to inflict on the most capable software, the ADNJ Trustees - with my smug assurance - settled on Zoom. I had used it before, but I had never ventured to use it on this scale. I was once wise, but now I leaped unreservedly into a sea of folly.

LESSON 1: ALWAYS, ALWAYS ASK FOR ADVICE FROM PEOPLE WHO HAVE DONE WHAT YOU'RE PLANNING TO DO.

Friday night was a 4-hour block of speech and interview. I set up in my basement; a bit cool but certainly not cold. Breakout rooms were created. Judges arrived, mostly on time. All seemed ready. Then the students arrived. 20 minutes later, I discovered that what seemed easy on paper, what was perfectly feasible in person, was nearly impossible online.

Students ran over time. Room assignments had to be changed. Everyone had to change their name to preserve a level of anonymity. Participants didn't automatically drop back into the Main Session, making us hunt them down, room by room. And I, so certain that it would work, found out that it wouldn't.

As a relatively cool 4-hour session turned into more than 6 hours of basement-chilled frigidity, I witnessed the best of human nature. My fellow Trustees stepped in to block and tackle. Team coaches, after taking some seriously deep breaths, did their best to understand the challenge, and communicated instantly with their students. My wife brought me coffee, then a soda, then a cheeseburger. And the students, competitors to the core, never complained. Instead, they hunkered down, they participated, they competed - and they shined.

LESSON 2: DON'T BE A HERO. SCHEDULE YOUR FOOD. AND IF YOU'RE IN THE BASEMENT, HAVE COFFEE AND A WARM JACKET EASILY ACCESSIBLE.

If I remember correctly, the last student departed around 9:30 p.m. I looked directly into digital eyes of my fellow Trustees and the Executive Director, and said, "Okay, so I f***ed this up. Not that it matters at this second, but I wanted to just get it out of the way."

LESSON 3: ASSUME THAT 1 HOUR WILL BE 1.4 HOURS, AND 4 HOURS WILL BE 5.6.

And boy, was it a screw up. More than half the students missed one or both of their assigned competition slots. We agreed to add not one, not two, but three additional nights of competition. After all, it wasn't just the student schedules that mattered; it was judge-time, and volunteer-time, and coach-time. It was the entire darn thing.

Unsurprisingly, everyone rose to the challenge. What was once a Friday-only activity turned into a Sunday, Monday and Tuesday activity with astonishing rapidity. Two hours, then two more hours, and yet two more hours filled the gap I had created. And almost no one complained.

Like I said, the very best.

But Saturday was the real test. Whereas student arrivals were fully staggered on Friday, they were scheduled to arrive within a 30-minute window on Saturday, starting around 7:30 a.m. Yes, there were fewer breakout rooms, but there was more happening in a shorter period of time.

And astonishingly, it worked! Proctors (essentially room-watchers) showed up on time, students showed up early, and we were on point.

It worked, that is, until it didn't. Suddenly, students were dropping out of sessions, and I was unable to assign them to their appropriate breakout rooms. It seemed like they could. Everything seemed to work fine. But they just couldn't join. And when you are on a time-limited test, competing against hundreds of other students at the top of their game, you cannot afford to miss out.

So, I contacted Zoom. I tried every trick I could figure out to get it done. I made the students host for a minute to get them into the room. It worked for a few, but not for everyone. "Restart your computer, host!" said Zoom. "No!" said I, "Sweet God, that is a horrible idea! What else can I do?" Ellipsis. Ellipsis. "We're working on it," they said. And an hour later, they told me they'd be back in touch in the next few days with a reply.

Could I blame them? No. It was a weekend. It was a weird problem. It was a lot of students. But could I stress the heck out? Oh sure. Definitely. And I was.

At hour 6, one of my fellow trustees worked out yet another competition-saving solution. The affected students would stay in the main session, and a breakout room that hadn't started the next exam would temporarily join me there. Somehow, against all odds, that problem was solved.

LESSON 4: EVEN IN THE MOST STRESSFUL MOMENTS, TAKING A SLICE OF TIME TO ASK OTHERS FOR HELP PAYS HUGE DIVIDENDS.

Day was slipping into night when the competition concluded. Aside from the breakout bombs, there were no major problems. But when we convened again to discuss the Friday rescheduling, I was aching all over, and very tired. We decided on 2 hours for Sunday, 2 hours for Monday and 2 hours on Tuesday for anyone who remained.

LESSON 5: PRETEND YOU'RE ON A 24-HOUR FLIGHT. DO YOGA. STRETCH YOUR LEGS. AND MAKE SURE YOUR CHAIR HAS GOOD LUMBAR SUPPORT.

Two days down. And since I had a prior engagement on Tuesday, only two days to go. I was getting a little frustrated with the basement, so I moved upstairs to defrost. And on Sunday, I spent a wonderful morning with my wife and 18-month old son.

Did I forget to mention? My wife was taking care of my son this whole time. For those of you who have ever had kids, you know how big a deal this is. For those of you who don't have kids, imagine that you invited an old college pal to your house for a weekend. Then imagine that your friend got drunk, forgot how to speak, soiled himself every 4-or-so hours, regularly splashed milk all over his face, and repeatedly looks for the nearest available staircase in an attempt to defy death itself. Then imagine that you turned to your wife, and said "See ya later!"

That's honestly about right.

LESSON 6: THANK YOUR SPOUSE IN WHATEVER WAY THEY VALUE MOST. THEY DESERVE IT WHENEVER POSSIBLE.

So I spent some quality time with the family. I washed the dishes. I vacuumed. And we went for a nice walk around the neighborhood. And she totally understood the situation.

I texted three of my closest friends. I don't often ask for help, certainly I never beg, but I did that night. Could they join a Zoom session and help me deal with any problems that might arise? Without reservation, they agreed to help in whatever way they could.

At this point, of course, I was in full self-blame mode. What should I have done differently? How could I disappoint these students? Do any of the team coaches have my home address? How do I enter witness protection?

LESSON 7: PUNT THE PROBLEMS YOU CAN'T SOLVE, AND DON'T WASTE TIME ON SELF-NEGATION. DO YOUR BEST TO MAKE IT RIGHT.

But it was time to get the heck over it and move on. And by the afternoon, I had done just that. And it worked again! Smooth as silk! Students arrived on time, rooms worked perfectly, scores were entered without difficulty. Best of all, it was only 2 hours! We were back on track!

Monday arrived, and so did work. It was nice, actually, to get back to my normal schedule. But then again, I had another 2 hours of Google Meet(ings). At this point, my eyes were seeing the glory of the shutting of the lids.

LESSON 8: STOP STARING AT THE SCREEN. YES, YOU ARE. NO, SERIOUSLY. STOP STARING. BLINK. AND TAKE A 10-MINUTE BREAK FROM THE COMPUTER WHENEVER POSSIBLE.

The nice thing about work is the schedule. I know what I have to do, and I know when I have to do it. I'm not perfect, by any stretch, but I'm comfortable with my responsibilities. So it served as a mental refresh of sorts.

By the time Monday afternoon rolled around, I was feeling a bit better. Students seemed much happier, Coaches had started to mention feeling a bit more satisfied. And the technology worked without a problem.

Finally, Tuesday rolled around. I was once again in a few virtual meetings, followed by a work event in the evening. Decathlon was someone else's job for the night. Now, I set the event agenda. I handled the invite list. I knew the people - the CEOs, the corporate leaders, the amazing volunteers. I was really looking forward to it.

Did I forget to mention that I had to switch from Google Meet to a Webex Event?

LESSON 9: SERIOUSLY. ALWAYS, ALWAYS ASK FOR ADVICE FROM PEOPLE WHO HAVE DONE WHAT YOU'RE PLANNING TO DO. COME ON, MAN.

Yeah. You guessed it. My "panelists" had to type in a password. But I hadn't set a password. It was asking them to register. But I hadn't set up a registration. I asked them to join as participants. Password again. Dumb, dumb, dumb!

WHAT THE HECK, Webex? I have used it many times before. Oh, but then I remembered, I use Webex Meetings, not Events. And the platform is quite different. QUITE different.

Still, using the dulcet vocalizing technique I perfected over the weekend, I was able to gloss over most of the problems, get everyone into the meeting, and keep us on track.

And somehow, after about 2 hours of Webexing, I was done. We were done. It was done.

LESSON 10: FEEL GOOD WHEN YOU CAN FEEL GOOD. HARD WORK DOES PAY OFF.

At each step, I connected with the people with whom I was working. How did things go? Did you get some value out of this? Would you do this again?

After about 28 hours of sitting in front of a camera, I was struck by one thought: I was proud.

I was proud of the work. I worked my tail off, and from everything I could tell, it actually did pay off. I wasn't particular proud of my screw-ups, but I was proud to see how everyone came together to overcome those problems. I was proud of my wife, and proud of my friends.

Staring into a machine that broadcast my face to everyone else, I realized I felt good about things that the webcam would never show - I made it through.

And, boy oh boy, I never want to do this again. But I promised myself that, if anyone else ever tried something like this, I would write something down to help them out if they needed it. So here we are.

And if you are doing anything like this, feel free to shoot me a message. I'll talk you down off the ledge, or warn you off the shoals. And you'll be proud when it's over, too.