Some industries that adopted virtual meetings long prior to Zoom becoming mandatory are very used to doing voice-only conference calls. And they work! Nobody i

Some industries that adopted virtual meetings long prior to Zoom becoming mandatory are very used to doing voice-only conference calls. And they work! Nobody in those orgs thinks they are the equivalent of "not showing up." How do you think bankers, lawyers and CPAs got huge deals done in the 80s and 90s, despite everyone being in different offices and often in different cities? Lots and lots of conference calls. Video calls are a recent innovation made possible by tech. But many organizations have no functional memory of how to do calls prior to Zoom et al. And so some of them have created these bizarre sets of social norms around having to have video on to be "present", apparently unaware of the decades of doing it without video that worked extremely well with less fatigue. Personally, I love walking around (if only just pacing) while on the phone. The physical movement makes my mind work better and allows me to better process what the other person is saying. And that's how lots of people did it prior to video.