Sunk costs, a $500 tomato, Captain Roger Over, bad wigs and worse dance moves, in a year that Zoomed by.

For many of you reading this, right around this time last year (mid-Feb to mid-March) COVID was very much of a new thing. Lockdown hadn’t entered the vocabulary and working remotely for many was also new.

I was in NYC on a family trip, sight seeing and taking in a Broadway show during school break that my daughter had been talking about for years. She’s been dancing since she was a toddler and loves all types of performing arts, so seeing her favorite show was a big deal, but the trip itself was?“normal”....by that old definition.

This year during that same week mid-Feb, I had to stop and think back. I actually had to check the ticket to confirm. Yup...That really happened. Wow.?

Jump ahead a month to mid-March and news of lockdowns start. Offices shut down. The talk in the office in the Bay Area was, hey, this is weird but temporary...see you in a few weeks.

Not gonna lie, even for someone who’s worked remotely for 10+ years, there were some anxieties involved. Shortages of staple items including toilet paper, really? That didn’t help calm the anxieties.?

Sunk costs: Corona Gardening

I am humbled and blessed to have had the opportunity to pour my energy, time and money into the ground. Quite literally. Costs were sunk into backyard garden, but one that started indoors.?Between seeds, trays, lights, just getting seedlings started, set me back quite a bit.?

According to at least one major provider of seeds, I was NOT alone. Seeds had become the new toilet paper as shown in this heat map showing purchases along the northeast. (photo courtesy of Harris Seeds)

After a few weeks, the seedlings were looking good.

but then came the next problem to solve. The timing.....It was still April, and too cold for outdoor exposure. The extra month too long indoors was NOT good to many of the seedlings by this point, it was too late for some, I couldn't balance the water, heat and temp in my little ecosystem.

For those that did make it, a new problem arose. Where will they go? uh...no garden. Oops.?

A few hasty trips to the local home supply shop later, and some rage-gardening, (which also became a thing during the pandemic like rage-cleaning) now they had a home.

My mid-summer, with some other seedlings added from the store (to hedge against total failure)

I had a legit multi-product garden.

Then it hit me, sinking all that money into the ground wasn’t directly about the return, it was more about the process, the feeling of being outside, away from a screen, in the dirt, in the sun. Growing something even took meme form.

“Normal” stuff I took very much for granted, now gave some sense of control.?After a few warm weeks I had a handful..and something to look forward to after a long day on zoom.

By fall, near the end of the season in October, a legit crop of tomatoes, cucumbers, but also had some fails from some of the seedlings that started the year. The cukes responded best. But by this time in the year, I realized the sunk costs and dollar per item wasn't relevant.

It's about the process and the experience, not the unit cost.

2021 is already off and running, courtesy of the AeroGardner. Many models to choose from. All are rather idiot-proof:

• Seedlings are prepackaged in soil containers.
• LED lights activate automatically.
• Red warning light reminder to add liquid food.
• Blue warning light if water runs low.

It's a joy to have this smell and the sound of running water a few feet from the desk, and even better to have fresh basil last week. These little ones have a jump start for the spring without the imbalance of heat/temp/humidity I got wrong last spring. Worth the startup cost.

Virtual Backgrounds, Sharpie-made shirts, Sequins, and very bad Riverdancing.?

Kickoff in the tech business is always a big deal, but when done virtually offers new obstacles. By January, zoom fatigue and its related baggage (thank you, Adam) had set in. When it came time for a sales kickoff 2020 retrospective, I struggled with creative ways to recap the amazing works of magic the HackerRank Solutions team did last year, as well as some inspiration for the new year ahead and new skills training. The result - a cast of characters, skits and priceless lessons:

1. Professor Frankeldore: Dean of the Wizarding World of HackerPotter
2. Francois, the Sommelier: Pairing wine to food resembles paring tech skills to roles
3. Sam, the developer from Boston: a parody of a developah livin undah ma's palah
4. Captain Roger Over: a British twist on the famous 'landing' scene from Airplane!

Skit 1 of 4: Frankledore: Inspired by my brother during his time as a middle-school teacher who also struggled with creative ways to engage teens, enter the DIY Dumbledore costume, and the Wizarding World of HackerPotter.

My brother built the costume during his time as a Math teacher. He is not a costume designer, nor am I the same weight (pre-lockdown) I was when he taught. When I saw it in the box I had mental images of a badass Jon Snow glaring into the distance atop the Wall. Turns out the 'tunic' for Dumbledore was nothing more than 12' of rectangular fabric, with a hole for the head and arms, with hot-glued down both the sides. No shaping for the shoulders at all. I learned the hard way that I'm only a few pandemic stress trips to the drive-thru away from turning a loose fitting tunic into a corset or tourniquet. Here's the outcome:

With costume at the ready, and a green screen hung, the outcome for sales kickoff was a montage of fun stories about an awesome team of Solutions Engineers who worked some real 'magic' during 2020, complete with some on-topic memes. I found that the Potter series gives lots of room to create new villains in the world of Customer Success, like the arch villain of any subscription SaaS service "he who shall not be named"

Delivered skit: These are two opening clips from presentations delivered on back-to-back multi-hour zoom sessions (which was common in virtual kickoff).

Lessons learned:

• PiP: The picture in picture orientation got better on day 2. Text that you show on the slide appears left to right, but on a virtual background needs to be reversed.
• Photoshoppery: Google offers several tools to remove backgrounds and/or apply layers to give photoshopped effects.
• Props impact dexterity: The eyeglasses are a total prop: and my wife's old prescription. Looking up and down quickly from camera to keyboard to move the slides made me sea sick, so the host ran the clicks.
• Beards are also wigs: The beard and wig are actually 2 beards one right side up, the other upside down. Works !
• Expect some snark: Comments in the chat claimed my accent shifted from English to German to Dutch. Snark runs deep in the tech world, but, at least they were listening...

(Extended version removed for brevity and to protect others anonymity)

https://youtu.be/gE2cQYtfhgQ

Skit 2 of 4: Francois the Sommelier: HackerRank customers in our paid service look to us as experts in the world of matching the right developer to the right job. The Success and Solutions teams have over a century of accumulated domain knowledge. Far more knowledge than the typical consumer. Plus, as a SaaS service, we constantly introduce MORE content, creating MORE choice and therefore MORE anxiety.

Inspirations and lessons:

1. The Paradox of Choice: an obstacle customers face making selections amidst choice
2. The role of the Sommelier: an expert in recommending selections (costume ideas)
3. Scenery & music: What could be more anxiety-provoking than the first-post-lockdown meal in Paris with your plus 1. Easy to get overwhelmed with choice for fear of 'runining' the event. Result? My house number (Cafe 42). Ellios pizza, a great lockdown comfort food. The green screen is 10' x 12' so when folded over, makes hiding / revealing props easy.. After the Dumbledore learnings, I added walk-out accordian music played from the phone, laid next to the USB mic on my desk. No glasses this time so my dexterity was much better. I don't own a bistro table, but do rely on shipments of both Chewy & Amazon during lockdown. 3 such boxes, and a tablecloth: voila! bistro table
4. French and English Parody Accents: Mostly Monty Python, Holy Grail -?The French Taunter skit. I was trying to land somewhere between the Frenchmen on the parapet and Jacques Cousteau.?Allo, Allo?(BBC sketch comedy shared by colleagues in our UK office who are continuously helping me improve my English)
5. Shirt, scarf & mustache: I don't own / couldn't ship a black & white horizontally striped shirt or a black scarf. But I do have a stockpile of plain white or black shirts. 6 black sharpies and some painters tape gets you the shirt. On zoom you only have to paint the FRONT of the shirt too. An old black t-shirt cut in two and rolled is a scarf. The fake mustache was a different fail altogether.

Delivered skit (minus proprietary content) Glass of red wine was photoshopped to contrast red liquid with a light virtual background. Includes a callout to a teammate who is a native of the south, where White Zinfandel (a local favorite) does, in fact, pair with pizza !

https://youtu.be/3g-PYjLmjGY

Quick change between 2 skits:

Since one presentation included the Dumbledore skit AND the Francois skit in back to back sections, there was only a 1-2 min pause between sessions. Not long enough to re-organize camera angles, set up props, change costumes and backgrounds. So this meant 2 camera angles and a green screen hiding the props (for shot 1 (Dumbledore) with a quick change, a move of the screen, and switching presenters from a different laptop (logged in as a guest) from a different lower angle (and background) to shoot the bistro scene. This was risky, but it worked. Shoutout to my co-presenter who filled the time with banter.

Here's a dry run:

Skit 3 of 4: Captain Roger Over

In pre-sale situations negotiating with a prospect is its own art form whether talking to an inexperienced buyer, or an expert procurement officer. Landing a deal takes finesse, skill and risk, plus inevitable back and forth exchanges similar to the banter between tower and pilot. No landing sequence would be complete with homage to Airplane! and Otto the co-pilot.

Inspirations and lessons:

1. Dialog: I'm a native English speaker who also needs help with local British phrases. For this, I used a phonetic script (no words starting in H) taped to the wall behind the computer for a low-tech teleprompter. The baritone level accent I had in mind was Python's Arthur, King of the Brittons version.

2. Crosswind: The scarf and flapping bag from the cuppa tea took some practice, and a stockpiling of every fan in the house positioned just off camera. No yellow scarf in the house, but lots of yellow tissue paper left over from the holidays. Bob's your uncle, crosswind. My version of onlyfans.

3. Costume & scenery: I have a blue pullover strikingly similar to Otto's uniform. The badge and wings were DIY with what juice was left in the sharpie after the sommelier shirt. Plastic lined the floor behind my chair for the planned cup full of water as a shoutout the scenes from Airplane. Not shown: plastic covering my desk to prevent data loss from splashing :)

Delivered Skit: Full screen video starting with a smooth, planned approach then a flight (or a deal, in this case) that starts to go sideways. Nothing proprietary here. This procurement dance happens constantly, and often in the shadows...which makes it a good parody target. Ben handled it smoothly, throwing in an ad-lib of a procurement officer compensated to save the company money. In this case, the motivation for a better deal is because the missus wants a new conservatory.

https://youtu.be/JcMXCfJ4YKQ

Skit 4 of 4: Sam the "Developah"

A popular lockdown binge was The Indian Matchmaker . We ran a 20 minute long, 6 participant demo skit containing a short bit with "a developer from Boston", representing the hard-to-find-and-source experienced developer. Dan played Sima. I channeled life-long Boston-area cultural energies.

Inspirations:

1. Accent: The classic Boston accent can be found in movies like The Departed or The Town. Some of the more over the top material like “ya know my buddies Sully, Sully, Sully, Sully” is an homage to one of my favorite local comedians in the Boston comedy club scene: Steve Sweeney (warning, if you look up his material, use your ear buds and/or make sure the kids aren’t nearby. His material is geared to adult audiences, and focuses on sarcastic, self-deprecating Irish cultural references). From spending many years in the tech industry speaking with people from all corners of the globe, I’ve shaved off the rough edges of my accent and reliance on motivational sports phrases (hit it out uh da pahk) which no one outside of metro Boston understands. I used to sound like Sam at one time in my life (and do, after some adult beverages) and even (from this exercise) realized I removed entire words like “pahlah”?from my vocabulary. This skit brought it all back. My Dad has vivid memories shared by his grandfather, of the days almost a century ago when my great-great grandfather had his wake held in the pahlah of the house my Dad grew up in near Boston. At the time, that’s was how Irish wakes were carried out, hosted in the house grieving, mixed with a multi-day block party. And, to this day, my Dad commonly refers to days of the week ending in “dee” just like Sam did. Mondee, Tuesdee, Saturdee and so on.
2. Virtual Background: the basement A tribute to the one and only?Wayne’s World. Originally set in Chicago I pasted in as much Boston imagery as possible but did leave a Bull’s Pennant in the shot as well as the original Shark/Shahk. Use Ya Blinkah?is an actual public safety campaign Mass Highways rolled out when LED boards went up because Boston is known for overly aggressive driving.
3. Riverdance:?The clogging and reel are actually 2 clips spliced together in Camtasia (also used to produce these videos). I was on a carpeted floor in my office and in socks, plus I clearly can’t dance. So, I recorded a voice note on my phone by watching this clip ?of the one and only Michael Flatley dozens of times to learn steps and catch 10 seconds of loud & clear clogging sounds. Then played / captured an equal amount of time from St. Anne's reel. Then added them as overlaid tracks in Camtasia and exported in a single audio clip. The same hack can be done in GarageBand. So when presenting, I had that audio clip open on my desktop in QuickTime, with external speakers adjacent to my external USB mic. One tap of the spacebar starts the music. When you’re about to start a skit and need walkout music, the less dexterity required, the better.?Vest and shirt with sequins were inspired by the Riverdance clip I watched many times. His stage presence is impossible to reproduce and something I've developed a whole new appreciation for. More about Riverdance appreciation near the end of this article.
4. Lobstah Salid: in this mega-sized serving bucket isn’t a thing. Plus if it was, it’d have to be purchased with a Cardiologist.?No, that’s actually an empty bucket of screws left over from building the Covid garden in my back yard.

Delivered skit: Dan is role-playing Sima, wrapping up one interview with a potential developer who might be a good match, then he interviews Sam...and keeps looking.

https://youtu.be/QuEC_AIyWsk

3 lessons and some inspiration:

A year of this has created some teachable moments and some humbling blessings to appreciate and stay grounded.

1. Remote anything is both easy and hard. Props help and can be DIY:

I discovered the fact that when presenting on zoom, you CAN’T see or hear anyone (other than maybe Ma, upstairs in da palah, watchin her favorit movie The Depahted, ovah and ovah). So this lack of immediate audience reaction can be very liberating and gives space to mix it up and be creative.

There’s a downside though. I also wanted to give a shoutout to the many, many live performers, actors, dancers, production companies, and any parents who found or still find, themselves trying to educate or support children or even adults to learn/teach remotely. Zoom removes the person to person connectedness with an audience, and it’s very difficult to hold attention and communicate information. Skits, props and personas and walkout music help with that, especially in the attention economy we live in. I found that even if your parody contains a mistake like an ill-fitting wig or accent that toggles between English-French-German-Dutch,?that's actually ok, it becomes a meta-parody or maybe a recursive parody of a parody.

The 2-dimension and low-res nature of Zoom lets you get away a lot. About $100 in supplies goes a long way. It also helps to have a party store nearby, whose business, like many, took a hit in lockdown.

2. Some F words to stop and start using in your vocabulary:

Stop saying fine: whether you are a people manager like me (for a global team) or you're a peer, or even work on the team that put a rover on Mars, stop taking 'fine' for an answer if that's what you get in response to 'how are you?'.

Better yet, if you do get it as a response, challenge it in a caring way. Pop this up as your virtual background, lean directly into the camera and ask your audience:

Are you fine, fine? or this kind of fine?

Start using these instead: I recently found two new F words that are under-used and under-appreciated are also survival skills to stay grounded during lockdown. Feierabend and Fake Commutes:

• Feierabend: a German-word describing the deliberate break time between end of work and start of leasure. The article contains a narration with the proper pronunciation :)
• Fake commute: a great way to add a fake commute every day to keep your spirits up.

3. Bad zoom is easy, good zoom takes practice: We are a zoom shop. Webex, Teams or other collab tools all have their advantages & positioning in the market. Virtual presentation in an attention economy is a struggle. When recording to the cloud, get very comfortable with the various settings and defaults. Many are client-side, so check with your zoom host.

Active speaker with shared screen gives the side by side from the Sam skit. Others may miss related rich content like chat, speakers, time stamps, etc. Plus, the online collaboration / future of work space is very hot at the moment. Webex just had a massive refresh & update so check with your IT admin for tips, tricks and licensing abilities.

3. Why bother? What's the return on all this invested time and money?

If my great-great-grandfather (someone who grew vegetables and worked in a tannery) was here today I’m sure I’d have trouble explaining what I do for work. He emigrated from Ireland to Boston like millions of others during the Potato Famine in the mid 1800’s. He grew vegetables behind the family house and sold them in the neighborhood (no waiting in line back then, either). When I have my hands in the dirt, there's a connection. It's distant, but it's there. Though the speed and style of life has changed in ways someone from that era couldn’t possibly recognize today, if he heard some clogging,?or heard a few bars of the melody in a reel, I bet he and I would connect instantly.?

The point:?the impact of all the props, wigs, skits, songs and laughs, is to find ways to connect person to person to those who are with us today (above the 'ol sod), even if they’re wicked fah away.?

I found this powerful, inspirational piece from the performers of Riverdance who, like those performers I saw a year ago on Broadway, had their lives and livelihoods impacted by Covid. I clearly have a long way to go, but would like to pick up these skills next.

Ar scáth a chéile

a mhaireann na daoine.

(Pronunciation) Gaelic: Under (or through) the shelter of each other, people survive

Here are professional Riverdancers from around the world. Live shows have been announced for late 2021!!?

Beth Wildes, owner of Eleve Danse Centre. Taught my daughter life lessons in performing arts and self-confidence through dance: hard work, focus, discipline and teamwork. Miss Beth also taught me a skill I applied in kickoff: when it’s your turn on stage, tune out all that discursive sh*t in your head, chin up, shoulders back and OWN. THE. MOMENT. I first danced on stage 2 yrs ago with other Dads when our daughters performed the Nutcracker. We were the comic relief before intermission, and the audible giggling from the audience was inspiring. The number included Naruto running, chest bumps, Angus Young Air guitar tributes, The Running Man, Butter-churning, the Robot, Sprinkler, Thriller, and some moves that don’t have names. After years of watching recitals, I was on stage myself, and had a whole new level of appreciation for the work, anxiety and planning that goes in the production, along with a sense of pride and achievement from the dancers when it's over.

I’m not alone in looking forward to the days when live shows return to the stage, and so until then,

I know where am I sinking my money once the lockdowns are over....

• If you're struggling at the face of a year 2 of lockdowns, I hope this gave you some laughs. Burnout is not a badge of honor. It's OK to ask for help if you need it, and please don't say you're fine if you're not.
• If you're a leader, presenter, teacher or parent let me know if these tips help, or if you have any to share. Work from anywhere is here to stay and we are all making stuff up as we go.
• If you're a performer, health care worker or anyone on the front lines, I appreciate your work and sacrifice. Thank you.