“Mr. Witness, you’re on mute.”
“Mr. Attorney, I can’t hear you. You’re breaking up.”
“Ms. Witness, do you have a headset available to you?”
“Ms. Opposing Attorney, can you mute yourself during direct examination. There’s some background noise and it’s hard to hear the testimony.”
“Let me unlock the meeting so we can re-admit the witness.Looks like he was kicked out of our meeting.”
The list of court reporter requests of Zoom participants can go on and on. The above are just a few of the common requests we face in today’s new normal of Zoom, Skype, Teams, WebEx, and other remote platforms for depositions and court proceedings. Remote/web conference deposition proceedings have been something I’ve done for over ten years but obviously not on a daily basis, and I’m very adept at working through glitches of one kind or another. The legal community has really done an amazing job shifting to embrace and learn about the ins and outs of the remote platforms in order to get work done through this crisis.
Don’t get me wrong — I am ecstatic that we are back to some semblance of normalcy as far as workload goes. The alternative of the early days of this 2020 pandemic is a no-go for me. My passion for court reporting has never waned — the best part of my profession is writing down and capturing the spoken word verbatim for my valued clients! There are many benefits of working remotely as well: no travel time to the job, allows more time on deposition preparation, higher visibility to potential clients, technology skills of utilizing remote platforms and learning new skills are enhanced, no physical contact with others and so no exposure to germs, cost-effective when your client is budget conscious; to name just a few.
That being said, I do find some days can be exhausting by the time the end of the day rolls around. Seems I’m not the only one. It’s a thing and it’s real! Apparently that fatigue has been termed “Zoom Gloom.” Have you experienced it yourself? Have you heard this term before?
According to an article published by the Harvard Business Review, “If you’re finding that you’re more exhausted at the end of your workday than you used to be, you’re not alone. Over the past few weeks, mentions of ‘Zoom fatigue’ have popped up more and more on social media, and Google searches for the same phrase have steadily increased since early March.”
The article continues on to cite that the fatigue is because we humans need to focus more intently on the remote conversations in order to absorb the information. This is so very true and relevant for court reporters, as our job is to take down the testimony verbatim. I had an attorney explain to the witness, after a clarification request by me, the following: “You and I can communicate rather efficiently utilizing Zoom. However, our court reporter has a very important job here and that is to take down every word that is said today. That means you must enunciate, speak clearly, and wait for the question before you give your answer in order that she may transcribe all of our words verbatim.” Attorneys do understand and appreciate our role in the legal proceedings!
Forbes has this to say about this Zoom affliction: “To communicate, humans rely on synchrony, the interaction of our words, movement, gestures, and timing between each other. With video calls, that interplay becomes tricky—our physical distance makes it tougher to pick up non-verbal cues. And limitations of the technology (inevitable glitches, audio delays, and an inability to process cross-talk) make real-time feedback difficult.
“According to researchers, being on a video call requires more focus than in-person interactions. On video chats, our brains put in much more effort to process and make sense of facial expressions, body language, and vocal cues like pitch and tone. And this gets exponentially harder when a video call has more than two people; we attempt to communicate and connect the way we would in person, but become overwhelmed with asynchronous cues. This struggle to synchronize is what is so draining.”
From reading additional articles on this “Zoom Gloom,” I feel like the the people most affected from the fatigue are those people who have never worked remotely before, unlike court reporters. The freelance court reporter’s day is always changing and shifting: new location, new clients, new witnesses, editing, proofreading, and so much more. We are a unique group in that we are so resilient, independent, and can work anywhere we have an internet connection basically!
When the pandemic first came on the scene early this year, I implemented several activities into my schedule in order to stave off possible depression and/or other mental health concerns, as depression is prevalent in my family history. Stanford Medicine cites that if someone has a parent or sibling with major depression, that person probably has a 2 or 3 times greater risk of developing depression compared with the average person (or around 20-30% instead of 10%). I’ve been hyper-vigilant about knowing my body and looking for changes. With all of the background regarding Zoom Gloom and since Zoom depositions are here to stay for the foreseeable future, we court reporters do need to initiate some extra strategies for our mental health in order to combat those few times when we may experience the gloom.
Here’s my list of activities and/or steps I’ve engaged in to help me combat the remote deposition fatigue.
Start a new hobby or up your game on your current love.
Stretch your artistic side and engage in a fun hobby or activity. One of my loves is crocheting and knitting. I’ve been creating and completing new makes on a regular basis since March — so fun! It also has the side benefit of keeping my hands in shape for our beloved profession. One of my friends commissioned me to create some heirloom baby blankets, booties, and stuffed toys. Then, she also shared some sweet pics with me of the recipients of the gifts — such a sweet memory for me! When I crochet or knit, I want to be able to forget about work and try not to think about the deadlines or what’s coming up the next day. I always like to insert my AirPods in and listen to some music or binge-watch that great PBS Masterpiece television series. It’s a great way to lose yourself and totally relax at the end of the workday.
Move your body.
My husband and I love to take walks in our neighborhood and nearby parks. The change of scenery and sounds of nature are so calming at the beginning and end of our days. Also, so many benefits of walking: lower stress, improved mood, better memory and cognitive function, lower blood pressure and cholesterol — all promoting a longer life.
Pet ownership.
While there may be mixed research results on the benefits of pet ownership, I’m an advocate for them. My little Ruby Rey is one of the great joys of my life, especially as I am an empty-nester. I love the fact that this little girl needs me for basics. She has that unconditional love and pure happiness for me and my spouse! My Corgi has that bold personality of most dogs of her breed and she has lots to say! Because she can be vocal at times, she is relegated to the bedroom while I’m reporting during Zoom depositions.
Make time to play/vacation.
Last summer we did lots of research and agonized over whether an RV might be something we’d like to do in the future. Well, we bit the bullet and went ahead and ordered one. It was delivered to us in late January. Not a great time of year to take delivery of the RV . . . When the pandemic hit and no work for several weeks, we felt it was the perfect time to be self-contained and see the country. The only problem was that all the national and state parks were closed. Of course, we tried to make the best of things and carried on at home during quarantine. Once the restrictions lifted a bit, the decision was made to go visit our son who lives in Wisconsin. Again, being self-contained in the RV, it made it so easy to stay safe within our own little space. We ended up going to Door County and absolutely loved it! Rest and relaxation is so important to decrease burn-out.
Change your remote location.
One of the benefits of remote depositions, of course, is that court reporters can be anywhere that has a great internet connection. Your clients never need to know that you’re in an RV, at your children’s home, your parents’ home, or that vacation spot you’ve been dying to travel to. For my most recent Zoom depositions, a lot of attorneys are not in their home office but, rather, visiting their parents or other relatives. Over the Labor Day weekend, we decided to go visit my husband’s parents for a week. All the jobs on the calendar were remote, so I just packed up my equipment and off we went! My father-in-law had everything ready for me to go with a dedicated room and an ethernet cable so I could be hardwired with no fear of having connection issues. On a side note, after we left he decided to upgrade his internet to Fiber, purchased a CAT 7 cable — all to entice us to come back and stay again soon!
So that’s my short list of things I do to combat the Zoom Gloom. If you’re experiencing the fatigue, you should look for ways to combat it too. Reach out to a close friend, family member, or anyone if you need help managing your feelings and emotions. NCRA will be hosting some free webinars on self-care in October. Look for that information coming soon to your inbox. You can go to TheJCR.com and get more information about the webinars too.
Take care and be well, court reporters!
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