America, the land of the free, and the opinionated. And in company culture, this is no different.

Over the years the US has grown and changed. A nation that over the centuries formed from the amalgamation of beliefs and cultures. Now let us be frank, there is a majority in certain beliefs and practices. Those groups can also sometimes come with rather large mouth pieces as well, but that isn’t always a bad thing. People’s moral and cultural compasses influence the world around us. Ultimately, we can create cults or communities. We can be harmful or helpful with how we choose to influence those around us.

When you combine that with economics, though, that’s when things can get tricky. The difficulties of mixing the cooperate world with morals and beliefs can get expensive. There are numerous instances of companies being sued for wrongful termination. Currently, Dave Ramsey’s company has recently come into the spotlight due to a lawsuit being filed against them by a disgruntled employee. The company culture has strict rules against certain extracurricular activities. Now usually people would think they would mean recreational drugs, but not in this case. As of March 8th, Ramsey Solutions has reportedly fired 8 employees over the last 5 years for engaging in premarital sex.

Caitlin O’Connor is the latest employee to deal with this situation. Now, while some of us may have seen this company culture and decided to just keep life and work separate, there’s another difficulty here. Ms. O’Connor has recently become pregnant, which leaves no doubt about her outside of work activities. Now there is a number of different emotions that happen here. A woman who is now pregnant is losing her job. This may be a person who has no desire to get married and now she’s thrust into unemployment for doing nothing but enjoying a part of life. It is a frustrating situation to say the least on her side.

In that frustration on the part of Ms. O’Connor, however, there are also similar issues on the part of the company. While they have set up this company culture and laid down rules for all their employees, they now have to uphold and find a replacement for this resource completely unexpectedly. It was not only clearly laid out in their company guidelines that they do not condone this behavior, nor its implications, but Ms. O’Connor openly admitted that she was aware of the implications of her actions as well. This company has built a community with expectations and is willing to uphold them. That is their right.

I remember growing up there was a cake shop in Colorado that refused to create a cake for a gay couple based upon their religious beliefs. It was back in 2012. In 2018 the Supreme Court ruled that the shop had the right to refuse service based on their beliefs, which to be honest was my expectation. However, in the process of this that particular his business has not flourished. Ultimately one has to decide whether they want to follow their beliefs in the face of economic hardship. It’s a true show of faith of course but also, is it practical.

Living your life, your way, is the point of this country. We have to remember to share that space with those who believe differently. Bringing no harm to others is one thing, but can we truly be a common people if we refuse to go outside of our own beliefs and morals?

Finally, a way to weasel out of those Zoom meetings with a believable excuse. The concept “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” has been around since roughly 1640, attributed to George Herbert. One thing humans “will” more often than not is getting out of something unpleasant or tedious. Cue the virtual work meeting. Is it unpleasant? Sometimes. Tedious? Often. Now Zoom Escaper has brought beleaguered or bored remote workers a way out of meetings, conferences, or even virtual happy hours.

This reminds me of the old fail-safe when you are on a date and have someone call you at a pre-designated time to make sure you don’t want to bail early. Likewise, in a live business meeting, you can always have a colleague knock on the door to call you away for an “urgent matter.” Now that everybody and their barking dog are working remotely, Zoom Escaper is the modern day equivalent of those planned distractions.

Zoom Escaper will play various sounds that make good excuses to leave the call temporarily: Barking dogs, a crying baby, and, bizarrely, a weeping man. It will even play sounds that will make the other video conference attendees insist on cutting the call short: Loud construction sounds, echoes, feedback, wind as though you are in a car, and a bad connection. The strangest and most antisocial sound it plays that may earn you a ticket to a virtual HR meeting, is that of loud and obvious urinating. Why, though? I find myself giggling as I type, but some people will no doubt find it useful on what I am hoping are rare occasions.

The Zoom Escaper is an installable tool run through VB-Cable that will interrupt your call with a litany of annoying sounds. Once you download VB-Cable and readjust your Zoom (or other video conferencing microphone and output settings), you can play the sound(s) on your call.

If you find it hard to believe that people would go so far to get out of a meeting, well you are likely fortunate enough not to have been to many “This could have been an email” meetings. Either that, or you are wide eyed and innocent, and haven’t seen the lengths people will go to to protect their autonomy, even when working from home. We shared about the proliferation of anti-snitchware devices designed to keep the company from spying in ever more sophisticated ways on remote employees.

I’m laughing, but a word of caution. Zoom Escaper, according to its creator, Sam Lavigne, “allows you to self-sabotage your audio stream, making your presence unbearable to others.”

Read that again. Now remember that should you choose to go this route to ditch your video conferences, words like “self-sabotage” and “unbearable to others” are not what hiring managers tend to look for on a resume. Unless, of course, you’re applying to be a Shock Jock talk show host or a political pundit. If you want to crack your friends up on a virtual happy hour, though, hey, go for it.

The year 2020 was nothing short of unusual. It showed us just how quickly things can change in a relatively brief amount of time. One of those changes came in the form of jobs. Many lost their jobs as unemployment skyrocketed. Others took this time to pivot and change jobs.

A study by Blind found that 48% of professionals voluntarily changed employers in 2020. The anonymous professional networking platform asked over 3,700 of their users a number of questions and complied data based on their responses.

Did you voluntarily change employers in 2020?

• 48% of professionals say they did voluntarily changed employers in 2020

Has the COVID-19 pandemic stopped you from trying to change jobs?

• 77% responded no, the COVID-19 pandemic stopped them from trying to change jobs
  • Half of both T-Mobile and Verizon professionals say the COVID-19 pandemic stopped them from trying to change jobs

Are you planning on getting a new job this year?

• Nearly half (49%) of professionals say they are planning on getting a new job this year
  • 80% of Deloitte professionals say they are planning on getting a new job this year
  • 69% of Visa professionals say they are planning on getting a new job this year
  • 63% of SAP professionals say they are planning on getting a new job this year
  • 0% of Roblox professionals plan on willingly leaving Roblox this year

The economy saw the loss of global working hours equivalent to 255 million full-time employees in 2020, yet voluntary job changes and skills development are still top of mind for employees. When asking about changing jobs, 1,799 (48%) reported “yes” while 1,958 (52%) reported “no” for a grand total of 3,757 responses. Here are the top companies that saw movement over the last year. The question posed was, “Did you voluntarily change employers in 2020?”

Amazon (52% “yes” – 48% “no” – total responses: 395)
Microsoft (42% “yes” – 58% “no” – total responses: 156)
Facebook (56% “yes” – 44% “no” – total responses: 155)
Google (46% “yes” – 54% “no” – total responses: 153)
Apple (61% “yes” – 39% “no” – total responses: 82)
Intel Corporation (40% “yes” – 60% “no” – total responses: 48)
Oracle (63% “yes” – 38% “no” – total responses: 40)
Cisco (53% “yes” – 48% “no” – total responses: 40)
Uber (38% “yes” – 62% “no” – total responses: 39)
LinkedIn (42% “yes” – 58% “no” – total responses: 38)
Indeed.com (35% “yes” – 65% “no” – total responses: 37)
Capital One (31% “yes” – 69% “no” – total responses: 36)
VMware (30% “yes” – 70% “no” – total responses: 33)
Salesforce (44% “yes” – 56% “no” – total responses: 32)
Intuit (43% “yes” – 57% “no” – total responses: 30)
Bloomberg (33% “yes” – 67% “no” – total responses: 30)
PayPal (45% “yes” – 55% “no” – total responses: 22)
Lyft (64% “yes” – 36% “no” – total responses: 22)
Expedia Group (64% “yes” – 36% “no” – total responses: 22)
ServiceNow (43% “yes” – 57% “no” – total responses: 21)
SAP (40% “yes” – 60% “no” – total responses: 20)
Dropbox (45% “yes” – 55% “no” – total responses: 20)
Walmart (32% “yes” – 68% “no” – total responses: 19)
NVIDIA (58% “yes” – 42% “no” – total responses: 19)
eBay (42% “yes” – 58% “no” – total responses: 19)
Adobe (32% “yes” – 68% “no” – total responses: 19)
Tesla Motors (39% “yes” – 61% “no” – total responses: 18)
Visa (41% “yes” – 59% “no” – total responses: 17)
Box (71% “yes” – 29% “no” – total responses: 17)
T-Mobile (38% “yes” – 63% “no” – total responses: 16)
Twitter (44% “yes” – 56% “no” – total responses: 16)
IBM (38% “yes” – 63% “no” – total responses: 16)
American Express (25% “yes” – 75% “no” – total responses: 16)
Netflix (36% “yes” – 64% “no” – total responses: 14)
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (43% “yes” – 57% “no” – total responses: 14)
Snap (77% “yes” – 23% “no” – total responses: 13)
Goldman Sachs (54% “yes” – 46% “no” – total responses: 13)
Airbnb (46% “yes” – 54% “no” – total responses: 13)
Cognizant (54% “yes” – 46% “no” – total responses: 13)
Verizon Media (17% “yes” – 83% “no” – total responses: 12)
Workday (33% “yes” – 67% “no” – total responses: 12)
Mailchimp (50% “yes” – 50% “no” – total responses: 12)
Samsung Electronics (67% “yes” – 33% “no” – total responses: 12)
ExxonMobil (33% “yes” – 67% “no” – total responses: 12)
Credit Karma (25% “yes” – 75% “no” – total responses: 12)
Square (36% “yes” – 64% “no” – total responses: 11)
Deloitte (55% “yes” – 45% “no” – total responses: 11)
Accenture (36% “yes” – 54% “no” – total responses: 11)
Cloudera (45% “yes” – 55% “no” – total responses: 11)
Splunk (70% “yes” – 30% “no” – total responses: 10)
Unity Technologies (20% “yes” – 80% “no” – total responses: 10)
Twilio Inc. (50% “yes” – 50% “no” – total responses: 10)
Zillow Group (40% “yes” – 60% “no” – total responses: 10)
Qualcomm (40% “yes” – 60% “no” – total responses: 10)
Pure Storage (40% “yes” – 60% “no” – total responses: 10)
Flexport (40% “yes” – 60% “no” – total responses: 10)
Activision Blizzard (60% “yes” – 40% “no” – total responses: 10)
Cruise (10% “yes” – 90% “no” – total responses: 10)

For the breakdowns of the other two questions, visit the raw data.