OOH, FIXED IT!

I like to think I come across at least as competent.

You know. There goes Matt. He can be unusual, even avant-garde sometimes, but at least he knows what he’s doing. At least he’s not going to do something that makes him look like a complete buffoon.

-

My ‘integrated camera’ on my work laptop has stopped working. It happened around three weeks ago - all I get is a fuzzy grey square where my face should be.

Mind you, the actual mirror does that to me sometimes. B’boom!

Anyway, it’s been broken - the camera, not the mirror. I did all the things you’d do: I checked the Device Manager, I updated the drivers, I checked for privacy mode, and I opened similar apps that use the camera. Nothing but blankness. It kept saying everything was working.

When you work from home of course, this ‘integrated camera’ is the only way anyone can ever see you. So most meetings I’ve been on in the last couple of weeks, I’ve explained as well as I can that my camera’s not working, including much of the detail I’ve already mentioned.

Then today, in a meeting, as I was explaining this yet again and my manager and his manager were both suggesting helpful fixes, I happened to notice that the slider lock, the catch I’d thought was for the lid of the laptop, was on. It wasn’t covering the camera, but it was on, and it suddenly occurred to me that if I flicked it, if I just pushed it half a centimetre to the right… my face would appear in a burst of bright light.

You know when you know something? And you’re 100% certain that you’re right; that of course, the universe has to work this way, it always has, does, and will? There was an inevitability about what that switch did. And I knew it. I just couldn’t bring myself to click it.

“Anyway,” I said, moving the conversation on. “I’m sure I’ll figure it out. It’s no big deal.”

“You could always ask DevOps to take a look,” said my colleague, “You might be due an upgrade I guess.”

“I’m sure I’ll sort it.”

“And you’ve definitely updated the drivers?”

“Yeah.”

“Uninstalled? Reinstalled?”

“Yep. Anyway…”

“Must be a setting somewhere.”

“Yeah, um, must be. So anyway…”

Perhaps you’re a different kind of person to me. You’d have clicked it and fixed it and owned up straightaway to not having seen it. You would have embraced the fact that you’d been a little foolish, maybe even apologised and laughed about it.

“Ooh! Fixed it!” I can hear you say, delight and wonder spreading across your face. Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle, “What did you do?” - own the silly mistake, and the moment’s gone. Good for you. I wish I had your acting skills and confidence levels.

I just left it alone until after the call. Sure enough, the camera popped into life, and there I was, back on screen. I think I’ll just not mention it at my next meeting and hope nobody asks me how I fixed it.

“What was wrong with your camera in the end Matt?” someone might ask.

“Oh,” I’ll wave it away dismissively, “Just incompetence.”

And that will hopefully be the end of it.