I Decided to Join a Zoom Call

Today I joined my first Zoom meeting for one of my current courses; however, it didn’t go as planned. From my limited understanding, the way the app works when you first enter it, is you can either sign up for a Zoom account, or immediately join a call. I chose to do the latter, and turned off video before joining the class. But that also meant no one on the call knew who I was . . .

Just then, the teacher somehow manually turned on my microphone, so that ANY sound I made could be heard through the call. I didn’t know how to respond, or how to turn it off. Luckily, I was alone at the time, and could shut my lips and not reveal a peep of who I was. The teacher sent me a message through the app—at least I think so; all I heard was ding, because I had turned my phone face down in fear that the teacher could somehow turn on my video settings like before, with my mic. I think the purpose of the message was for me to say my name without the other callers hearing, but I wasn’t going to risk picking my phone up to check, and besides, I didn’t even know how to check messages. If I didn’t talk soon, the teacher threatened to ban me from the call. But at that point, I really didn’t know what to do. If I revealed myself then, everyone present would know how I’d flubbed up, and I’d probably never hear the end of it. Is there some kind of Zoom etiquette I don’t know about? How are you supposed to introduce yourself as a first timer, especially when others are already talking? I suppose if I’d bothered to make an account with a username or profile pic, I wouldn’t have had a problem, but I’d thought I could remain anonymous—at least for my first call. I should add that this was not the first call for everyone else, I had just skimped on all the previous ones.

Then the school head joined... 

The teacher explained the current situation and how there was an anonymous participant listening in. For all they knew, I was an illegal hacker who was there to glean information through the Zoom meeting. The school head immediately called for my banishment, and five seconds later, it was over.

I tentatively picked up my phone again, just to be certain. I also wanted to see if that message from earlier was still there, as I’d never read it, but that too was gone. I still don’t know what I would say if I could relive those torturous ten minutes. I’m thinking I should probably send an email to my teacher to explain what happened, but I don’t know how I’d write that either. 

I guess I might as well uninstall Zoom from my phone, as I’m never going to try that again.

EDIT: I sent that email, we'll se how it goes.

The image I used was reposted illegally so many times, I couldn’t find the original source.