Something that’s always been painful when working with clients/your boss is spending half of every virtual meeting saying, “Can you hear me? Can you hear me?” It’s not just a waste of time but it just feels really frustrating towards everyone.
So much so that it’s shockingly common for bosses/clients to observe who they can work with better based on how easy it is to communicate with them—in terms of the sheer quality of the video connection. At worst, this is a tie-breaker between you and another candidate; at best, it helps you stand above the other.
Just think about a simplified example. You’re working with four freelancers. With three of them, you spend half the conversation saying, “Can you repeat that? I couldn’t hear” and restarting the call. With the fourth, it just flows smoothly. Which one would you give more work to and deepen your relationship with? It’s a tie-breaker, at the very minimum.
Even a stronger point is to pretend you’re hiring someone by the hour. You hire a math tutor via Zoom for your kids. Math tutor via Zoom #1 spends the first ten of every thirty minutes trying to get the connection working and in the final twenty minutes has to pause to restart his computer twice. Math tutor #2 connects at the right hour, you have one minute of cordial formalities, and you jump into the exciting world of math. Which of these two teachers would you hire, assuming the same competence as a teacher and the same fee?
This is rarely declared directly to you as a problem. It’s often hinted at “did you restart your modem?” so you need to read between the lines, particularly when it’s hinted at more than once. One time, bad luck; multiple times, it may be a pattern. And that is a negative pattern that could get worse.
There are a few ways to solve this problem. The most basic is to get a faster connection from your Internet provider. That’s the minimum—go for the faster plan, always. This makes the biggest difference.
A second way is to get a second connection as a backup. I once lived in a country where the Internet providers were very incompetent and just about once every 15 days, all Internet in the neighborhood was lost. So, I had two internet connections! It was always the case that when one connection died, the other one still worked. It’s a form of insurance.
A third way is that often, the problem isn’t your Internet connection, but your old computer. If you find yourself constantly need to reboot, or it freezing one time too many—it’s probably time to upgrade. View the upgrade as an investment. Very often, a brand-new cheap computer is much more effective than your old lugging-along computer. And one day, it will die. So, an added benefit to upgrading your computer early is avoiding the unexpected death of your computer which, of course, will happen at the least convenient time possible.
