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Zoom fatigue unpacked

leadership.garden

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Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#121

Post by technological »

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…

One thing people need to stop is having office hours where people just join the meeting and do their work. Anyone interested will be looking at it

Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#122

Post by bazmattaz »

neilv wrote: post #52

> Take notes: Taking notes can help you remember important points and reduce cognitive load. I often do this in online meetings, but have two not-entirely-solved problems with it: 1. People might think I'm not paying attention when I am, especially in 2-person meetings. (They might hear the typing, and my gaze might shift at times. When I do need a sec to type an action item or something that takes longer than a paus…

Hey regarding the first “problem” I’m the exact same.

If it’s someone new to me who doesn’t know me I’ll often slip it into conversation that I’m taking notes;

“So you’re saying that the xyz project is going to need abc? Ok cool, I’m just gonna add that to my notes here real quick” - I’ll do that early on a call.

Or I’ll read back the important points I took in a real obvious way.

I think I do this because it bothers the shit out of me if someone is obviously typing away on slack or whatever and not properly engaging in the meeting and I don’t wanna be seen as that guy

Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#123

Post by bazmattaz »

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 :/

Oh man the struggle in the real. I quit zoom at exactly 5pm and run downstairs and out the door for daycare. I’m at daycare around 5:20 and to pick up the little one to come home, cook, eat, bath and bed time.

The lack of time to decompress after the day (like commutes used to help with before I went fully remote) can be gruelling at times

Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#124

Post by bazmattaz »

shortcake27 wrote: post #30
dtx1 wrote: post #8

The whole mirror fatique thing is really interesting. I get enormous social anxiety on virtual calls and am constantly checking my mirror. I hate teams for that reason, i can't properly see what I am transmitting while Google meet is showing me Exactly what I'm sending in HD. I think I'll have to experiment with removing that and see if it reduces my anxiety

It’s a catch 22 for me. When it’s there, I can’t stop looking at it to ensure I look ok. When it’s not there, I’m stressing because I don’t know how I look.

Ha ha this is me. I tried to hide my face on the call before but then I’m nervous that I might have sauce on my beard or something

Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#125

Post by icedchai »

baxtr wrote: post #76
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…

Agree. I'm shocked by how much some people despise email. "You still use email?" Yes, I do, and I believe it is really effective...

Some people use Slack for things that should be an email. 50+ line messages, unnecessary notifications, scheduled messages.

Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#126

Post by icedchai »

lelanthran wrote: post #73
MengerSponge wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of us is as dumb as all of us

Not all of us is as dumb as all of us, if catch my drift. If someone wants to pay me $$$ to basically sleep with my eyes open, then that's on them. I'm smart enough to allow them.

Yup. I shut off my camera and browse HN.

Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#127

Post by jayd16 »

shrimpx wrote: post #96
tiffanyh wrote: post #34

Less meetings / more async isn’t always the best answer. Most people are terrible at written communication, and much better at spoken (which makes sense since most speak more than write). So even though it’s terribly unfortunate, for the masses, more times than not - meetings have a total net-gain effect vs async written.

By the way, since the beginning of time, open source was happening asynchronously on email and IRC. Linux, one of the most complex and most useful pieces of software that exists, was done over asynchronous text. There are innumerable examples of builder success when working async. The synchronization obsession comes from managers and execs.

How is this compelling compared to the countless projects that used meetings? All it proves is both can work, not that one is better than the other.

Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#128

Post by nine_zeros »

TexanFeller wrote: post #101
drozycki wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t use email at work anymore because it is siloed to the original participants. Someone on the inside needs to know to forward the whole thread to anyone who needs the information after the fact. This info is lost forever when participants leave the company. With Slack I can search through conversations where the participants are long gone. It is not the end all be all of communication, but the auto-documentatio…

> I don’t use email at work anymore because it is siloed to the original participants. For many people that's a selling point. I practically beg my teammates to ask questions in the team slack channel instead of DMing me, but they never do. I think it's stage fright and wanting to reveal ignorance to as few people as possible amplified by various higher up people joining the channel. Also compounded by tons of people…

The stage fright comes from a place of lack of psychological safety. Too many mediocre managers see asking questions as poor performance.

Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#129

Post by shrimpx »

jayd16 wrote: post #127
shrimpx wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the way, since the beginning of time, open source was happening asynchronously on email and IRC. Linux, one of the most complex and most useful pieces of software that exists, was done over asynchronous text. There are innumerable examples of builder success when working async. The synchronization obsession comes from managers and execs.

How is this compelling compared to the countless projects that used meetings? All it proves is both can work, not that one is better than the other.

We have plenty of proof that you can build successful large-scale software without synchronization or zoom or in-person meetings.

A successful project that makes use of synchronization doesn't prove that synchronization itself is successful. At best it proves that synchronization may not destroy the craft entirely.

I admit that synchronization may add something to the development of business software, but we have plenty of business software that doesn't use synchronization, like Gitlab, Tailscale, etc.

Re: Zoom fatigue unpacked

#130

Post by operatingthetan »

throitallaway wrote: post #116
atq2119 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Even that is better than someone pinging you "hi." It's such an immediate red flag in communication skills.

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