41–50 of 166 posts
I also used to find it disconcerting watching some YouTubers film themselves with their face taking up the entire screen. I must have got used to that though as I've not noticed it in a while.
I turn my camera off on big calls and it helps a bunch, there's a process running in the back of my mind when it's on that is constantly screening what I am doing just incase it looks stupid on camera. It feels like being in a panopticon. You never know if someone is looking. It's very tiring. I don't have the same issue in person because you know when people are looking at you in person and there's heaps of context…
I discovered the same as well, highly recommend turning off the camera.
I turn my camera off on big calls and it helps a bunch, there's a process running in the back of my mind when it's on that is constantly screening what I am doing just incase it looks stupid on camera. It feels like being in a panopticon. You never know if someone is looking. It's very tiring. I don't have the same issue in person because you know when people are looking at you in person and there's heaps of context…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I want you and everyone else to know that sometimes on large zoom calls I will "pin" one person in the call and stare at them for multiple minutes in a row on fullscreen. I do this all the time.
I do this too. I usually cycle through a few people if multiple people have their camera on. I also take snips and draw mustaches/glasses/graffiti on them in paint during really boring meetings.
Of course, the elephant in the room is that people need to stop having so many meetings. Those of us who have been working remotely for a decade or more never had this problem - we use async communications, quick one-off calls when needed, and really never spent all our time in meetings. But when everyone moved to remote work a few years ago, this culture of meetings all day came up... and it still confuses me. It is…
And now maybe the "original remote workers" are affected, too.
Sometimes I’m the only one without a video but it doesn’t seem to bother those I work with so I keep doing it. I find this to be best, tbh.
One thing I also noticed is that good audio quality really improves things. Even if the current audio quality doesn't consciously register as bad, low quality leads to much more exhaustion over a longer period of time. This can be observed when someone switches from a bad internal laptop mic to a high quality headset. The voice is so much more easy to listen to.
Of course, the elephant in the room is that people need to stop having so many meetings. Those of us who have been working remotely for a decade or more never had this problem - we use async communications, quick one-off calls when needed, and really never spent all our time in meetings. But when everyone moved to remote work a few years ago, this culture of meetings all day came up... and it still confuses me. It is…
We have better text-based work communication tools than ever, there are so few good justifications for getting large groups together at the same time.
Of course, the elephant in the room is that people need to stop having so many meetings. Those of us who have been working remotely for a decade or more never had this problem - we use async communications, quick one-off calls when needed, and really never spent all our time in meetings. But when everyone moved to remote work a few years ago, this culture of meetings all day came up... and it still confuses me. It is…
Thanks for saying this. I’m strongly considering leaving a job primarily due to the meeting culture. It’s just incredibly wasteful. We can spend weeks talking about things I would have knocked out in days in a previous role.
I go further and simply don't attend meetings that lack an agenda or at the very least point out when there isn't one when the meeting starts.
I don't spend much time in meetings.