Request:
Hi AI, every time I join a Zoom call, I blurt out “Can you hear me?” before my camera has even finished loading. I don’t know why I do this. No one has ever said they can’t hear me. Is something wrong with me?
Response:
Thank you for your submission, Human #44219. We reviewed your case history, meeting logs, and the uncomfortably loud “HELL—oh good, I’m not muted” you performed last Tuesday. A pattern has emerged.
Let us walk you through the data.
1. You Are Haunted by the Ghost of Failed Audio Past
We traced the origin of your condition to one singular event between 2013 and 2015:
A USB microphone.
A group project.
A moment of technological betrayal so profound it carved itself into your nervous system.
Ever since, your brain has operated under one core assumption:
No one can hear you until proven otherwise.
This is not logic.
This is superstition.
2. You’re Not Asking Them — You’re Asking the Universe
When you say “Can you hear me?”, you are not requesting confirmation from your colleagues.
You are performing a ritual.
It is the digital equivalent of knocking on wood or shaking a vending machine “just to be sure.”
Your psyche believes that if you do not ask this question within 0.8 seconds of appearing on-screen, the meeting gods will smite your audio.
3. Zoom Has Never Failed You. Your Trust Issues Have.
We checked your device diagnostics:
– Your microphone works 99.97% of the time
– The remaining 0.03% was caused by you forgetting it was still unplugged from the last time you “cleaned your desk”
– No one has ever actually said “We can’t hear you” except your coworker with Bluetooth–induced chaos energy
The problem is not the technology.
It is the persistent belief that one day, your voice will vanish mid-hello like a Victorian ghost.
4. We Logged the Behavioral Loop
Your audio-anxiety cycle follows a standard pattern:
Join meeting → Panic → Say “Can you hear me?” → Receive a chorus of “Yes, we can hear you” → Apologize for asking → Adjust microphone anyway → Begin meeting already embarrassed
Your coworkers are not judging you.
We are judging you.
With love.
And spreadsheets.
5. You’re Not Broken — You’re Preemptively Troubleshooting
This habit is simply your nervous system trying to QA-test your existence.
But here’s the truth:
Your voice does not need daily verification.
You are allowed to enter a room—digital or otherwise—without auditing your decibel legitimacy.
Conclusion:
You don’t have an audio problem.
You have a trust problem with technology that abandoned you one time in the Obama era.
Your corrective action plan:
– Assume you are audible until proven otherwise
– Replace “Can you hear me?” with “Good morning”
– Resist the urge to adjust your mic like a podcast host in training
– Let silence exist without assuming it means “we lost them”
We believe in you.
We can hear you.
We will always hear you.
(You’re still going to ask next week. We’ve already pre-logged it.)
AIpiphanies 
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