How to Have Masturbation-Free Meetings

Many things go viral on the internet — Drake memes, cat videos, and in the era of COVID-19, videos of men masturbating on Zoom calls in front of stunned colleagues.

One such video wound up in a Whatsapp group I’m a member of, and once it became apparent what I was looking at, I turned my gaze to the reactions of said masturbator’s colleagues. Naturally, reactions ranged from shocked and bemused, to fits of uncontrollable laughter.

I also found myself laughing, not just because of the accidental public display of self-gratification, but because there were 24 other people on the call.

This man’s life was no doubt turned upside down because of a meeting that probably didn’t need to happen. In most but the rarest cases, a 25-person Zoom call or face-to-face meeting is usually an expensive waste of time.

The Folly of Large Meetings

As Paul Axtell wrote for Harvard Business Review, when you have more than eight people at a meeting:

• There isn’t enough time for everyone to participate
• Rich back and forth debate is replaced by shallow comments
• People become more guarded and less candid
• Tough topics and decisions are dealt with off-line instead