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Zoom fatigue unpacked

leadership.garden

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Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#111

Post by tracerbulletx »

codingdave wrote: post #10

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…

Managers who didn't want to go remote were forced into it and decided they needed to force as much face time as possible.

Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#112

Post by 13of40 »

chongli wrote: post #100
codingdave wrote: post #10

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…

But when everyone moved to remote work a few years ago, this culture of meetings all day came up... and it still confuses me. My pet theory (that in all likelihood isn’t unique to me, but derived from things I’ve read in many other places) is that this is due to an existential crisis among the management class. Many managers who were previously used to managing people very directly, by looking over shoulders and such…

> Many managers...realized that their jobs are unnecessary

I hear this a lot in forums, but to me it rings out as something that perhaps-disgruntled workers want to be true about managers, but isn't really grounded in measurable fact. It's true that as a manager I don't produce a lot of code, but at the end of the day my job is to know who the experts on different topics are and to know what the zeitgeist (and maybe even plan of record) of the org is so I can get the right people in a room together to solve problems. If we left that up to each individual contributor, especially the more junior ones, we'd never be able to achieve a large scale goal. Imagine if you were trying to build the Golden Gate bridge but you eliminated management and just turned a bunch of workers out on the site to do whatever their skills and experience led them to.

Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#114

Post by ethbr0 »

brnt wrote: post #18
ethbr0 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a mini trampoline type swing hung under a tree. Long day = taking a break at lunch and after work to just lay on it, look up into the leaves, and listen to the wind in the tree

Ah, the joys of not having to pickup children from daycare :/

School lets out about midway through my work afternoon.

Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#115

Post by throitallaway »

codingdave wrote: post #10

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…

The culture at our company is Slack + meetings. Slack drives me crazy because there's SO MUCH in there that it's hard to navigate and search. I'm probably a member of 250 channels. Meetings are ephemeral; I prefer written communication for future reference.

Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#116

Post by throitallaway »

atq2119 wrote: post #98
chrismarlow9 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed it is the weirdest thing ever to me that people don't email anymore. Just send an email. In an email it's written down and I can search for it. In an email I can think at my own pace and respond without worrying about trampling others. In an email people can't ramble on and on and if they do you can just not read the email. And if it's work to be done, just make a ticket. The amount of meeting time waste baffl…

Lots of people are incredibly bad at written communication. My theory is that people who worked remotely pre-Covid were selected one way or another to have above-average written communication skills. Covid suddenly brought everybody remote, and naturally the average communication skills for remote work dropped.

"My build pipeline is failing. Can you help me?"

OK, which pipeline, what errors are you receiving, when did it last work, any changes since then, etc.? A lot of people aren't good at communication, period. It's like pulling teeth sometimes.

Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#117

Post by benhurmarcel »

chrismarlow9 wrote: post #53
codingdave wrote: post #10

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…

Agreed it is the weirdest thing ever to me that people don't email anymore. Just send an email. In an email it's written down and I can search for it. In an email I can think at my own pace and respond without worrying about trampling others. In an email people can't ramble on and on and if they do you can just not read the email. And if it's work to be done, just make a ticket. The amount of meeting time waste baffl…

I think it’s pretty common to be drowning in both emails and meetings.

Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#118

Post by pawelwentpawel »

atq2119 wrote: post #98
chrismarlow9 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed it is the weirdest thing ever to me that people don't email anymore. Just send an email. In an email it's written down and I can search for it. In an email I can think at my own pace and respond without worrying about trampling others. In an email people can't ramble on and on and if they do you can just not read the email. And if it's work to be done, just make a ticket. The amount of meeting time waste baffl…

Lots of people are incredibly bad at written communication. My theory is that people who worked remotely pre-Covid were selected one way or another to have above-average written communication skills. Covid suddenly brought everybody remote, and naturally the average communication skills for remote work dropped.

Slightly off-topic but using coworking spaces pre-Covid was also a different experience. They seem to have turned into call centres nowadays. I find it pretty hard to find a silent spot to work without having someone borderline scream at their screen next to me.

Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#119

Post by arp242 »

ehnto wrote: post #9

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've gotten myself fired for doing this. I kid you not, but they took it as a sign of disinterest and somejow never thought to bring up "yo Martin, what's up with that?" 100% ridiculous childish twattery, but just sayin' ... you can end up in trouble. This was literally the only thing they brought up as "evidence" for my alleged "attitude problem".

(I can foresee "dodged a bullet" responses, so just to pre-empt that: I didn't. I actually enjoyed working there, and being fired led to significant financial troubles, and even greater mental health problems. I got hit by a bullet and didn't dodge anything.)

Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#120

Post by chongli »

13of40 wrote: post #112
chongli wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But when everyone moved to remote work a few years ago, this culture of meetings all day came up... and it still confuses me. My pet theory (that in all likelihood isn’t unique to me, but derived from things I’ve read in many other places) is that this is due to an existential crisis among the management class. Many managers who were previously used to managing people very directly, by looking over shoulders and such…

> Many managers...realized that their jobs are unnecessary I hear this a lot in forums, but to me it rings out as something that perhaps-disgruntled workers want to be true about managers, but isn't really grounded in measurable fact. It's true that as a manager I don't produce a lot of code, but at the end of the day my job is to know who the experts on different topics are and to know what the zeitgeist (and maybe…

I said many managers, not all managers. There are some highly skilled managers (likely promoted engineers) who know exactly what their teams need to be successful and also understand the big picture and where their team’s project fits in. These are not the managers I was referring to.

The ones I’m talking about are from “the management class”, likely went to business school, and have no technical background at all, and occupy most of their days “walking a beat” around the office to look over people’s shoulders and make sure they’re busy. These are the Michael Scotts of the world, and they are the ones in crisis, not the skilled managers.

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