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Co-working with friends over video in virtual gather.town office

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Re: Co-working with friends over video in virtual gather.town office

#11

Post by chris_engel »

Working 10 to 12 hours straight with only one or two half an hour breaks is no goal one should thrive for. Neither working 80 hours a week.

Heck, it would even be against the law in my country and it favors companies over people...

We tried gather.town in my team (we develop web services for a big news site) and dropped it after a week or two. While some people seemed to like it, others disliked it very strongly. I personally disliked it as well:

It drew lots of resources of my PC. It was like having MS Teams constantly running in meeting mode. For me it felt childish to push a pixel avatar around in a virtual office. And also tiresome (its one more thing you have to keep in mind alongside your work). Having the camera on all the time is a no-go. And walking into the private space of a desk and talking to a person working there is as invasive and interuptive as it was before in the office. The app brought the worst of the office days into my remote days.

So all in all, it was a cute little game for a few minutes, but it made work feel miserable.

Re: Co-working with friends over video in virtual gather.town office

#12

Post by pjerem »

haliskerbas wrote: post #4
KMnO4 wrote: post #3

What the article didn’t mention is that trying to work with a camera constantly on is highly stressful for some people. If it works for you, great. But don’t assume it’s better than regularly scheduled meetings.

Thanks for mentioning this. I would get incredibly tense in a situation like this. Did I pick my nose? Did I spill water all over my shirt again because my bottom lip decided to give out? Does my bed look wrinkled? Did I smell myself? etc. etc. etc.

So every other human do this ? I’m not alone ? :)

Re: Co-working with friends over video in virtual gather.town office

#13

Post by rhacker »

I am 42. I am still coping with a question I've had since I was young and was able to get my first office job.

Why am I paid so much money to basically do data organization. I'm organizing data.

There are other people that build houses, grow food, prepare food. Then there are others that are simply entertainers - but that does provide societal value. I mean I guess in order to have entertainment, we have to have this giant other house of cards built upon just BILLIONS of people that just sit and think all day and talk to other people.

I'm just at a huge loss why we don't all focus on growing food and building interesting structures, ponds, waterfalls, arenas.

No, instead our society has billions of organizers of data. Eh, it's late and I'm tired right now maybe I'll feel more useful tomorrow.

Re: Co-working with friends over video in virtual gather.town office

#14

Post by dmos62 »

rhacker wrote: post #13

I am 42. I am still coping with a question I've had since I was young and was able to get my first office job. Why am I paid so much money to basically do data organization. I'm organizing data. There are other people that build houses, grow food, prepare food. Then there are others that are simply entertainers - but that does provide societal value. I mean I guess in order to have entertainment, we have to have this…

You make it sound like you work in a filing department and that you're being figurative at the same time.

Re: Co-working with friends over video in virtual gather.town office

#15

Post by kristiandupont »

rhacker wrote: post #13

I am 42. I am still coping with a question I've had since I was young and was able to get my first office job. Why am I paid so much money to basically do data organization. I'm organizing data. There are other people that build houses, grow food, prepare food. Then there are others that are simply entertainers - but that does provide societal value. I mean I guess in order to have entertainment, we have to have this…

I have similar thoughts. I basically make pixels change color all day long, and the effect of it is mostly that it changes the color of pixels on other peoples screens as well. Somehow that's valuable and while I understand why, it also seems deeply surreal at times.

Re: Co-working with friends over video in virtual gather.town office

#16

Post by dmos62 »

rhacker wrote: post #13

I am 42. I am still coping with a question I've had since I was young and was able to get my first office job. Why am I paid so much money to basically do data organization. I'm organizing data. There are other people that build houses, grow food, prepare food. Then there are others that are simply entertainers - but that does provide societal value. I mean I guess in order to have entertainment, we have to have this…

I often wondered why doesn't everyone want to be a construction worker. We've all seen what they can do. Make huge structures appear out of thin air. Change the way space is. It's magic. And all the gadgets. Gigantic hydraulic arms, cranes, tractors of all sizes.

Instead we're paid heaps for programming. Which kind of makes sense. In my mind, programming is about making sense of a mess. Untangling all the seemingly conflicting wishes, concepts and circumstances into something simple. Programmers live off complexity the way insects live off a compost bin. Or, to be more romantic, the way a lotus flowers in dirty water. We recycle, break down and refine. Apparently, it has its place.

Re: Co-working with friends over video in virtual gather.town office

#17

Post by robbedpeter »

kristiandupont wrote: post #15
rhacker wrote: post #13

I am 42. I am still coping with a question I've had since I was young and was able to get my first office job. Why am I paid so much money to basically do data organization. I'm organizing data. There are other people that build houses, grow food, prepare food. Then there are others that are simply entertainers - but that does provide societal value. I mean I guess in order to have entertainment, we have to have this…

I have similar thoughts. I basically make pixels change color all day long, and the effect of it is mostly that it changes the color of pixels on other peoples screens as well. Somehow that's valuable and while I understand why, it also seems deeply surreal at times.

Button button button, button button, click slide, button.

Re: Co-working with friends over video in virtual gather.town office

#18

Post by [deleted] »

rhacker wrote: post #13

I am 42. I am still coping with a question I've had since I was young and was able to get my first office job. Why am I paid so much money to basically do data organization. I'm organizing data. There are other people that build houses, grow food, prepare food. Then there are others that are simply entertainers - but that does provide societal value. I mean I guess in order to have entertainment, we have to have this…

[deleted]

Re: Co-working with friends over video in virtual gather.town office

#19

Post by hanniabu »

dmos62 wrote: post #16
rhacker wrote: post #13

I am 42. I am still coping with a question I've had since I was young and was able to get my first office job. Why am I paid so much money to basically do data organization. I'm organizing data. There are other people that build houses, grow food, prepare food. Then there are others that are simply entertainers - but that does provide societal value. I mean I guess in order to have entertainment, we have to have this…

I often wondered why doesn't everyone want to be a construction worker. We've all seen what they can do. Make huge structures appear out of thin air. Change the way space is. It's magic. And all the gadgets. Gigantic hydraulic arms, cranes, tractors of all sizes. Instead we're paid heaps for programming. Which kind of makes sense. In my mind, programming is about making sense of a mess. Untangling all the seemingly c…

Because it's not as fun as a kid using building blocks. You'd just be doing a single job over and over again into monotony and it's filled with permits, inspections, waiting, etc so projects get dragged out and you don't get thr same gratification as you would if it were done faster and all parts done by you.

Re: Co-working with friends over video in virtual gather.town office

#20

Post by boondaburrah »

teeray wrote: post #5
KMnO4 wrote: post #3

What the article didn’t mention is that trying to work with a camera constantly on is highly stressful for some people. If it works for you, great. But don’t assume it’s better than regularly scheduled meetings.

Yeah… I’ve found audio-only is far more conducive to ad-hoc conversation. The closest I’ve ever felt to virtually “hanging out” with people had nothing to do with the modern era of group video chat. It was back when I’d jump into Ventrilo / Teamspeak / Mumble. Sure, there were video games as well, but I’d sit in there doing homework and other random crap too.

Reminds me of a piece of software that was part of some human-computer interaction study that I can't find right now. I swear it was called "Glance" but that's proven to be ungoogleable

It was a mac menu bar icon (or systray icon) of a closed eye. You could click on and see a menu of who was "in the room" with you. However, if you hovered or interacted with this menu for a bit, the eye would open on everyone else's screen indicating that someone was "looking around." From this menu you could initiate a chat with whoever was also "in the room"

The whole idea was to try and emulate glancing up from your desk and catching the eye of someone who was also glancing up at the same time, so people wouldn't be interrupting people currently "in the zone" Thus you could create the feeling of working in the same space with people while teleworking, but not have to commit to the definite action of messaging someone in order to feel out whether it was good to talk with a "hey"

I think an always-open connection is good for this too, but I agree that I'd much rather it be audio-only.

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