I'm 99% certain I lost a job I was really interested in, because my internet was experiencing service degradation during the video interview and it was affecting my stream.
this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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I can believe it. I imagine a potential employer would be concerned about that especially if it’s a work from home thing.
It’s too bad really, because it’s entirely out of your control for the most part.
I do all my work from home (free lance), but I always use wired Ethernet to minimize potential problems.
Ethernet won't help you, when your home connection is POS... Speaking from my own experience.
Yeah but isn't the point?
Dropping in and out during an interview or meeting with the customer is going to look bad either way. It's like showing up late or under dressing to the interview.
And I say this as someone who had to buy 2 mobile Internet connections and an expensive router with dual WAN, and fail over, to compensate for my shitty home connection.
I just wanted to clarify. Some people might get the feeling that once they connect via ethernet at home, everything is fine and bulletproof. Which might not be the case.
No shit
This also happened to me. I had an interview on the phone in which I got amazing feedback. I then had my second interview online and had trouble with my audio. After that, they ghosted me.
I understand that, in many ways, ghosting is normal. Still, that first call’s feedback made me think they wanted to hire me.
We shouldn't even need video. It's just a waste of bandwidth unless you are showing some slides for a presentation or something.
Agreed, glad my company doesn't require that. No one wants that.
Have you ever seen a slide that was not a waste of time?
Yes.
If a presentation is good, you should be able to glean all the relevant information from the deck alone.
Who wants to listen to an hour of drivel.
Diagrams for complex architectures or control flow is pretty helpful.
Yes I need to know as a mid level manager who is above and below me. My bad.
I like seeing people. It's already unsocial working from home.
I don't mind seeing people. I don't want to be seen.
Yeah I just don't want to be observed while I work. It distracts me. This is true even though I don't work from home. Maybe this is part of my cptsd, but either way, I find myself far more productive when I'm able to work behind closed doors
Engineer checking in. I don't need to see my coworkers. I grab lunch with the ones I like.
Socialize with people in your community?
One of the biggest problems we face today is not having friends outside of work.
Funny how the second coming of faceless AI doesn’t need to video call when it’s being tasked with making unicorns and rainbows that everyone loves to praise and take credit for, and then ask for a quick fix to get it over the line when it fails at a task.
Well yeah they're haunted.
And today another finding in the series: "humans are stupid".
Yeah, I believe it. People negatively judge on anything.
Is this a surprise though?
How am I supposed to feel about my coworker who has a broken headset and I only hear about 75% of what he says, (because it cuts out), and that his absolutely terrible microphone has me listening to him heavy breathing.
He could put in a free ticket to get a free headset, or just make everyone's life more difficult every single time they interact with him.
Or about my "wfh" coworker that is always 100% of the time in a car, or a loud af coffee shop so I have to repeat myself many times during, and after the meeting because they weren't paying attention.
The "glitches" if they are constant are a priorities issue not a freak occurrence.
He could put in a free ticket to get a free headset, or just make everyone’s life more difficult every single time they interact with him.
Hey, so have you or any of your coworkers ever voiced your concerns to him? Most people aren't recording themselves through their setup just to see how it sounds unless they're a professional announcer or something.
If you haven't, you're judging him for poor communication on your part.
Do people stare at the faces when in a work call and notice glitches? What information are you getting from that? I've always mainly looked at the presenter's screen share and/or other windows on my own screen because that's where the problem and information being discussed are.
"Video" calls? I regularly talk shit to my mother when her flip phone cuts out. She used to yell at me for putting her on speaker (because it degraded the quality of the call to her ears) until I got an iPhone, then it magically stopped being an issue (better microphones)? Now I put her on speakerphone on my MacBook. She doesn't even notice, and has said it makes me sound clearer. Like seriously, get a smartphone (you can even put it in zoom/old person mode, both Apple and Samsung are real good for that), and pair it to a good speaker with good mics and noise cancellation (or AirPods Pro or Galaxy Buds Pro or the Pixel ones) and it's like you're in the same room.
But yeah, it sucks to be thought of in a negative light because your tech isn't working at its best.
Have you heard of the concepts of Internet bandwidth and compression? This article isn't talking about poor quality microphones or cameras. You could have the best camera and microphone in the world, but it won't do you any good on dial-up, low speed "broadband", or unreliable connection to the Internet.