Leaked Zoom all-hands: CEO says employees must return to offices because they can’t be as innovative or get to know each other on Zoom::Zoom CEO Eric Yuan discussed the benefits of in-person work in a leaked meeting.

  • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Why tf do out of touch executives and managers always think that we want to make friends at work? I don’t really care to know any of my coworkers, I just want to do my job in a professional manner, get paid well for it, and then either go home or close the laptop and leave my home office.

    Also the only creativity that the office gives me is how to creatively get around the Internet restrictions they place on us, or how to creatively appear to be working when there’s nothing to do.

    If I wanted to make friends I’d go to a bar or something else that adults do together in groups, like bowling leagues.

    • zefiax@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Depends on the type of work. Workshops and strategy sessions are definitely better in person than online for me.

      • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Okay so what are you getting from either of those that you can’t get from attending the same on Teams/Zoom etc.?

        Workshops also just feel like school and the presenters always talk too fast, quiet, or accented for my hearing and ADHD to make it worth me going to one, some dedicated study time always was the better route for me.

        Meanwhile strategy sesh’s are just conversations with an end goal, nothing difficult about that at all.

        One thing people who are against work from home have to realize is that not everybody functions the same, some people do better remotely, others need the office.

        I just wish we could be treated like adults and work in the way we feel most comfortable and efficiently without being mistreated over it and without being astroturfed against it by entities like the Wall St. journal and Bloomberg, sorry rich people but I just don’t give a fuck about your corporate property values.

        • blockhouse@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Okay so what are you getting from either of those that you can’t get from attending the same on Teams/Zoom etc.?

          I don’t get the “Bill, we can’t hear you; you’re on mute” twenty times per hour. Or the guy who doesn’t realize he should be muted but isn’t, and the chat is flooded with his background noise. I don’t get to whisper snarky comments about the presenter to my coworker whom I’m sitting next to. I don’t get to spontaneously engage people hanging around the coffee stand between sessions.

          There are tangible differences between remote and in-person. As much of an introvert as I am, and as much as I love working remotely, I recognize that I do better collaborative work when I’m in-person. YMMV, but mine doesn’t.

          • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Does your company not do water cooler sessions for your team? Also you can message people during presentations online to gossip. I just did it yesterday to make fun of some idiotic desperation move our execs are getting ready to pull.

            When people say “you can’t do X remotely” what they actually mean is they either put no effort into it or they can do it, but it doesn’t feel the same to them, which is a completely different statement.

        • zefiax@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Okay so what are you getting from either of those that you can’t get from attending the same on Teams/Zoom etc.?

          Firstly real human interaction. There is a lot of team building that can occur just from having lunch together. Second, just physically being able to put sticky notes or drawing lines and watching someone else do so without having to have someone try to point out where exactly they put something to you in a virtual whiteboard is way more efficient.

          Workshops also just feel like school and the presenters always talk too fast, quiet, or accented for my hearing and ADHD to make it worth me going to one, some dedicated study time always was the better route for me.

          Firstly if you just have a presenter talking to you, then that doesn’t sound like a collaborative workshop. Workshops might have someone who guides the discussion but never just presenters otherwise that’s not really a workshop and more just a presentation that can be done online.

          Meanwhile strategy sesh’s are just conversations with an end goal, nothing difficult about that at all.

          I am not sure what kind of strategy sessions you are having but when you are setting things like commercial STRAP for divisions of 20K or more employees, you need more than just a conversation. You need to draw out roadmaps, have working sessions, even the human interactions through lunches and dinners plays a big part.

          One thing people who are against work from home have to realize is that not everybody functions the same, some people do better remotely, others need the office.

          It’s not black or white. I am a remote worker who travels regularly. Would I ever give up being remote. No. More than half my job can be done from home and I am not wasting my time travelling to the office. But that doesn’t mean I don’t acknowledge when something is just better in person. Not everything is perfect remote and not everything needs to be done in the office. You can have a mix of both and choose based on the requirements of the task.

          Additionally, the type of people who are in positions to set organizational strategy are usually the types of personalities that do function between in person because they are typically extroverted personalities. It’s not like I am suggesting you bring a developer to an on site session. I am talking about leaders.

    • whatisallthis@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Because the #1 reason why employees will stay at a job that underpays them is because they like the people they work with. And you can’t form those bonds remotely.

      • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I agree with the first part, disagree with the second part. You absolutely can form bond remotely, some of my closest friends are online-only. I’ve even met some of my online-only friends IRL once or twice. I’ve become close with online-only coworkers too, honestly closer than I was with a lot of people in the office.

        Remote work does work. Return to office is just a power grab by companies and real estate sunken cost fallacy.

      • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yes you can, what on earth are you talking about? I’ve been remote for 5 years now and I have close relationships with most of the people I work with, especially the devs on my team. Sometimes we’ll debug an issue or discuss something and then afterwards bullshit for a while on the phone.

        Are people really this inept? You can have remote relationships especially if you make time for it.

      • Lysergid@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        But it doesn’t make sense. If I would have people which I like so much in the office would, you know, go to the office. If I don’t wonna go well… then I don’t like those people enough and there can’t be bonds anyway. We will just come, say hi, do job, go home. What a great creativity boost

      • SubPrimeBadger@lemmynsfw.com
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        1 year ago

        Definitely disagree on this one. Worked a job across the pandemic that was completely virtual and I never met my coworkers in person. A number of us left about 6 months ago due to layoffs but we all flew out to meet up with each other last week and hang out. That’s almost an entire department of folk that now work in different companies taking the time and personal expense to travel and hang out with each other so I’d say a meaningful bond was built. It absolutely can happen, managers just need to be informed on how to do it. If any org should be prepared for this it’s Zoom. This is just being super lazy on the part of Zoom and having a lack of confidence in their own product.