Starting 2021 Off Right: Taking Down the Distressed Broccoli Emoji 

As with all other years, the holiday period is always a natural time to pause and reflect. 2020 was a year. I have a solid list of what will I take with me into 2021 and what will I leave behind, and while this list is personal and not for sharing, one thing came to mind that I thought I might not be alone in is my desire to retire the distressed broccoli emoji from Microsoft Teams. He will most definitely stay behind. 

Have no idea what I’m talking about? Maybe you don’t have access to the Microsoft Teams platform and therefore did not have the benefit of experiencing it’s functionality, or maybe you are not into emojis-at-work. On the latter point, I would argue the presence of emojis at work has never been more important to the mental health of the modern day (home) officer worker who spends an ungodly amount of time behind that damning square box.  

Like what a colleague proposed? Give it a thumbs up. Proud of the teamwork you accomplished with the team, send them a high five. LOVE an innovative idea, show it some love.

Anyway, as the functionally of Microsoft Teams got better throughout 2020, and the return to office date kept slipping from within our reach, our reliance on the video conference tool began to grow. For anyone with a curious mind, it was only a matter of time before stumbling upon the generous selection of the [completely ridiculous] emoji/sticker options. Once I found the suite of Broccoli people, it was a true jackpot moment! Game over. No going back.

I am sure Teams can tell from some equally-fancy-as-it-is-creepy user data how many times I’ve used the Broccoli people, as they became known. In particular, this guy got a lot of play:

 After all, like I said, it was a year.

So, here we are. The first working day of 2021 and I am calling on Microsoft Teams to retire ‘Broccoli Sad’ as the scroll-over-emoji name self-describes. Because we all hope that 2021 looks a lot more like this:

 

And A LOT less like this:

 

Oh and while you’re at it Microsoft, you need a shrugging emoji - please add that. Something like this:

 

The broccoli person with the question mark just doesn’t do the trick.