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 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.

    • lechatron@lemmy.today
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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?

      Because it’s the type of people they are, and they think everyone is just like them. I worked a corporate job for 10 years and saw a lot of people who made the company their whole identity. Their whole friend group was their co-workers.

    • 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.

      • 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

      • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        Except that you absolutely can if the company has a good remote culture.

        The company I was at prior to the pandemic and all throughout the height of the pandemic had such a culture. Even before the pandemic our work chat had rooms for different teams, different products/projects, and general subjects including non-work-related ones. And the chats were active and lively. And during the pandemic it only got more so. There was a very strong bond between coworkers, including new people first onboarded as WFH.

        After we got bought out by a new company and they mandated 100% from the office, I left (as did over 50% of the years of experience in the dev teams). My new company is actually still hybrid/remote, with most people working from the office occasionally but anything including 100% remote being allowed at least after initial onboarding.

        But I actually think this company is really bad at remote culture. There are a handful of public chat rooms but they almost never get used, and there’s nothing off-topic at all. It creates a feeling that reaching out to someone is a bigger hurdle than it was at my last place, and greatly reduces collaboration.

        At my last place, working collaboratively was the norm and it translated extremely well to remote work. Here everyone is much more siloed and I don’t think it works as well. Especially if your goal is to create interpersonal bonds.

        • whatisallthis@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          I think that any study you find over the past 30 years will show that while online relationships can be meaningful in some cases, the average person will not form as strong a connection as they would in person.

          • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Because they aren’t putting effort into it and neither is the company.

            If you can talk to someone you can form a relationship with them. Period. This is not hard to figure out.

            Remote culture requires putting effort into it. You have regular online events with the team just for fun and you ask people to stay after the scrum for an open floor once a week or so, etc. You invest in the social aspect of remote work.

            Studies can say important things but they can’t contradict lived experience and their methodology can also be flawed or biased.

            • whatisallthis@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              I’m not limiting this to work.

              And of course you can have a relationship with someone remotely.

              But overall, for the average person, in-person relationships are going to be stronger. Friends, family, romantic relationships, hobbies, work, you name it.

          • Resonosity@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            The term for this is parasocial relationships, and you have truth to your claims

              • Resonosity@lemmy.ca
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                1 year ago

                Huh, weird. The Twitch chats I hang out with and I tend to use “parasocial” as a term in which people develop a relationship with others that people haven’t really seen or spoken to. I’ve seen them and myself use the term to talk about how chats have relationships with streamers themselves, which aligns with your definition, but I’ve also seen it used between Internet users that have minimal interaction with others aside from texting.

                I’ve made friends online via Xbox that I have on other social media and that know my face/voice/background, but I try to secure more of my anonymity these days. I wouldn’t consider those relationships as parasocial, but in some ways, depending on how the relationship evolves and grows or decays over time, I’d say they dip in and out of being parasocial and tangible.

                Perhaps parasocial might be better thought of as a class of relationships people share that are digital and that don’t manifest IRL in any meaningful ways (excluding face/voice/identity).

                Maybe the idea I’m getting at here has a term coined for it already. I’d be willing to change my vocabulary if you suggest something!

      • 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.

    • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      I bet their real goal is to shed employees without having to do layoffs. They know some of these people will refuse to come back (or moved far away) and therefore can be fired with little press or blowback.

    • 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.

        • eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          1 year ago

          I found that keeping up with people over video works better when you’re in the same time zone. When I was managing teams at +8 hours and -12.5 relative hours, communication and trust just weakened steadily over time and creative collaboration stalled. Spending a week there in person usually got things unstuck.

          I know people on split engineering teams between LA and Seattle who prefer all virtual and it’s worked long term. LA to NY I think would be a heavier lift.

          And, of course, this whole discussion is always dominated by software engineers; there are lots of jobs that involve actual manipulation of matter where in person collaboration is essential to communicate skills.

          • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Oh definitely, timezones do throw a wrench in things a bit, but there are easy ways around that usually, splitting engineering teams like the way you described is a pretty good workaround.

            I completely agree that jobs that just can’t be done remotely obviously shouldn’t be, but any job that can be should have the option available. I just feel like most of the work from home backlash comes from people who cannot do their jobs from home and managers/executives that just want someone to babysit, usually in order to justify their own professional existence. It just seems like a lot of “crabs in a bucket” behavior.

      • Rocinante@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Even if that is the case I don’t find myself caring enough to want to work in the office when going to work has such a huge impact on time and money wasted commuting, and plays such a huge role on where people can live. Its hard to care when it’s such a drain on personal time and expenses.

        • zefiax@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I prefer working remote as well and not suggesting going back full time. I just think there are some things that are better in person. Fortunately my work provides a good balance where I am remote 50 - 80% of the time but can fly in to different locations for a F2F when necessary.

          • Rocinante@lemmy.one
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            1 year ago

            I think when I look at when it comes to remote is that as an employee what an employer sees as better in person is not better for me. But, I can see why an employer would see in person as better. As an employee I need to be paid even more to make it worth it, since it is overall a con in my time.

    • jecxjo@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      Because if your social life is tied to work you’ll stick around longer during the day and potentially do more work. You’ll also opt to stay at a job that pays less or has worse benefits because it means leaving your friends.

        • jecxjo@midwest.social
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          1 year ago

          I don’t remember where this quote is from but i think it’s useful.

          We are not friends. Our interaction is because I’m paid to be here.

          Something like that. I’m all for having comradery and if you happen to be friends then that’s great. But often times, and i know I’ve fallen victim to this, we work too much and dont have social lives that exist outside of work.

    • bug@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      I know it’s very popular online to brag about being an asocial shut-in, but believe it or not some people like their jobs and like the social aspect of the office. The problem is the bigwigs applying the same rule for everyone either due to being out-of-touch with normal humans or just through greed, but don’t assume your experience is universal!

  • unsaid0415@szmer.info
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    1 year ago

    man i just spent 30m this morning telling jokes to my remote coworker over slack, I’ve seen him only once in my life, according to this CEO I couldn’t have possibly gotten to know him.

    Funny watching the CEOs trying to do the verbal splits, coming up with excuses where it’s just “waah we’re paying for an office that nobody uses :(”

    we have nothing to lose but our commutes

    • cheesemonk@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The most frustrating part of the pro office talking points for me is the line about meeting in person being easier. My team is spread across four states, I’m either on a zoom meeting at my house where there is always a quiet room from which to take a meeting at a comfortable desk. Or I’m in the office, an open office with hot desks where you can’t leave keyboards, mice, computers, etc overnight and you have to reserve a conference room to take a zoom meeting (all meetings). Now I’m wasting time setting up my desk every day, reserving rooms for all my meetings, kicking people out of the rooms I reserved. Huge loss of productivity for the Corp. I’m not staying late because you wasted so much of my time, I gotta hit the road to beat traffic.

      • unsaid0415@szmer.info
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        1 year ago

        Don’t forget the “commuting to an office just to talk on Zoom to somebody 400km away in his own home”

      • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        you have to reserve a conference room to take a zoom meeting (all meetings).

        Work in an office, they said. It will be easier for meetings, they said.

        It’s crazy how shortsighted and dumb companies are.

        • bitsplease@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          It’s not that they’re shortsighted and dumb (well, many are, but that’s not why they’re spouting this BS), they know those reasons are full of shit, they just need some excuse that sounds better than “we signed a 4 year lease and so we’re going to make that your problem” or “the CEO is getting lonely and misses being able to walk around the office among all his minions”

        • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          True. Even with like 20 - 30 meeting rooms there are always people posted up in all of them. Even if you reserve a desk or room, someone will be there.

          Their excuse is usually “I reserved a different one but someone’s in that one now.” So you have to take someone else’s, and they inevitably interrupt your meeting. At the beginning of this chain of room theft is probably an executive who doesn’t even know how to sign up for a room.

          Being at home is like 3x better now. I don’t care about free coffee or food. I buy exactly what I want at the supermarket.

    • aidan@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Eh, for certain people they definitely are less productive online(unfortunately including me), but I’m sure some others are more productive online.

      • Kittenstix@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I think the issue is the one-size-fits-all mentality, it leaves no room for each person to do what works best for them.

        My wife’s company only rents one of the 4 floors it used to, for those who wanted to return to offices and it’s worked out perfectly, they maintain a space for necessary in office meetings, a place for presentations while only paying a fraction of their old lease.

        • limelight79@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          We’ve been work-from-home since the pandemic kicked off, so about 3.5 years now. They’re working on renovating our office building (and shrinking the footprint we occupy in it), so we’re going to be work-from-home until at least the spring, at which time we’ll have to report a max of one time per week. Supposedly a remote work policy is under development as well, which is what I’m hoping for.

          I will say, though, I went to an in-person strategy session for a club I’m in back in May. No zoom at all. What I had forgotten was the hallway conversations, the discussions over dinner, and being able to collaborate like that. It was much easier to talk to my counterparts in the club and see how they were addressing issues, for example. I softened my stance on the full work-from-home idea after that - for certain things, like brainstorming, an in-person meeting is hard to beat. But, our day-to-day work, including the quarterly meetings where we pass motions to revise the club bylaws - those can be (and still are) done virtually.

      • seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        That’s why they should give people the option to work from home. You can choose which one is best for you.

      • Azzu@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        The question for me is, is maximizing productivity the most important thing?

        • seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          I think you have to have a good work-life balance. If you are only focused on maximizing productivity, you risk burnout. I’m not a manager, but I’ve certainly seen burnout lots of times.

    • kshade@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, it’s really weird seeing these blanket statements from the CEO of Zoom, of all things.

      I’ve grown up with ICQ, IRC and forums, later worked with a very distributed, international volunteer team and made connections just fine, even though we barely used voice chat (it was still the Skype days) and nobody ever actually saw me or knew my real name.

      Those people and connections weren’t somehow less real to me than the superficial, safety-first chit-chat you sometimes get into at work. On the contrary. This obviously isn’t everybody’s experience, but maybe, just maybe, the CEO should “get” this instead of being out of touch with what he’s selling.

      Maybe he was left on read one time too many.

    • LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      My coworkers and I are constantly sending each other jokes and memes when any of us are work from home. Sometimes the official company chat will just be everyone communicating through gifs.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        It’s incredibly rare anyone actually uses the Team’s chat for actual work purposes. If I need to talk to someone for work purposes I usually send passive aggressive emails.

        They’ve just added to the bottom of that email signatures.

        [Company name], certified a great pace to work 2023 - 2024

        We’re just wondering who certified that, the general consensus is that it’s probably BS.

    • Atomic@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I think he has a point. So many great ideas at my company were birthed sitting around the table while eating breakfast or drinking coffee.

      People ask me stuff they they wouldn’t have sent a ticket about because “it’s not a big issue” and by looking into some of it we find way better methods of dealing with types of workflows.

      It’s not the meetings where we find the best ideas. It’s during the coffee breaks. But you need you coworkers to have coffee breaks with so you have something to talk about.

      That being said. I’m not American and we don’t have the American office landscapes or office politics.

      • Marcbmann@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        My company is complete work from home. The issue is that people can’t imagine coworkers talking to each other and being friends while working remotely.

        I spend half of most days in spontaneous voice chats with coworkers where we have these exact same moments. Spontaneous discussions leading to ideas that change the way we do things.

        It’s not exclusive to being in an office. You just need to adapt to a new work style.

        • MarkHughes4096@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          3/4 of the team I am on work from home, 2 of us full time, We have weekly scheduled meetings with no agenda other than to catch up and this is where ideas can come up, We haven’t all been in an office together since before the lockdown yet we continue to thrive. I also have most of each Friday blocked out to work with one of the team on whatever he happens to be working on that day. We just jump in a meeting and do stuff. And like you we are all open to just spontaneous chats at any time either by text or call. It works perfectly well.

          I guess you also have those chats where you pull other people in during the conversation, Oh, Suchandsuch will have input, send them an invite to this meeting etc :)

          I love it, I get peace and quite when needed to code, and all the interaction I need to make the job work.

          • ccunix@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            We have a daily SUM which is supposed to last 15 minutes. It is usually over an hour, but work makes up at best 20 minutes. The rest is just us chatting.

            We also have regular calls with other teams which follow a similar pattern.

            It is easy to have “water-cooler” chats while working remotely.

        • severien@lemmy.world
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          It’s not exclusive to being in an office. You just need to adapt to a new work style.

          I’ve spent 2 years in WFH during COVID and haven’t seen this working in any of the teams (even though there were attempts).

          One problem is just that remote calls suck a lot, especially if you have latency and audio issues. People talking over each other, then saying “sorry” and waiting 20 seconds, audio too high or low or just poor quality etc.

          • Powerpoint@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            I’ve spent longer than that and I’m not sure where the issue is. It works fine for us. Perhaps it’s a US thing with poor internet quality?

            • EssentialCoffee@midwest.social
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              1 year ago

              I’m in the US and haven’t had any issues with being remote and calling a coworker to chat for a bit. It’s not any different than using a phone.

          • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            It’s crazy how people have been talking on the phone for like a hundred years and talking over each other was something that was easy to work out.

            But put the same technology on a computer and suddenly people forgot how to talk on the phone.

            • BURN@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Group calls weren’t the norm until recently. I fucking despise group zoom calls. I normally will just not contribute at all because it’s impossible to be heard. Someone else will always talk over you. This is the 3rd team I’ve worked remote on, and it hasn’t worked on any of them so far.

        • killeronthecorner@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Same here. What I hear from people who can’t innovate, collaborate, insert-activity-here, etc. while working remotely is that they have competency issues in their workforce.

          Companies building great things creatively and remotely are not exceptional, and antisocial behaviours when working remotely are a problem with the person, not the technology. But it’s easier to blame the tech than admit your colleagues or team are dysfunctional so “back to the office!” It is for most. I’ll pass though.

      • SlopppyEngineer@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        But that means the great idea moments are during unproductive times. People at the office must be allowed to be unproductive. If there is strict no talking and no coffee breaks allowed and strict clocking in because time is money there isn’t much innovative benefit to being in the office.

      • malloc@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Sounds like a small company you work at with tight nit group.

        In the states, a good portion of jobs out there are soulless corporate jobs with predefined work. It’s just a grind.

        Let’s be honest. If I discovered good ideas at a soulless corp, I wouldn’t be using those ideas at soulless corp.

      • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I miss coffee breaks.

        But the kind of bad managers who insist on a RTO are also the kind who don’t understand it’s the break time, stupid.

        All the people I’d want to talk with over coffee left before I did.

      • Powerpoint@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I have tons of spontaneous calls all day on teams when remote. These moments still happen and don’t require an office. These companies that fail to adapt will be left in the dust.

      • SolarMech@slrpnk.net
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        1 year ago

        That said, working from home has so far saved me a lot of both time and money. This is a thing to consider as an employee when considering who to work for (or if your boss takes it away, if you still want to work there after essentially having a benefit revoked unilateraly).

        Public transit pass. Actual time for transit which for me was around 90 minutes a day (7.5 hours a week!), more complex lunch logistics (time or money), etc.

        A quieter workplace, no need to book rarely available rooms to take calls/meetings. There were upsides.

        My first remote job had almost no issues at all. We already knew each other and we still took time to discuss issues via calls. New job not so much. We tend to be pressed for time so only focus on obvious “work” and then works suffers because of a lack of communication/common vision.

      • severien@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I agree, but wouldn’t underestimate meetings. People say that you’re losing productivity, but IME the largest losses of productivity are caused by working on the wrong things, because of too little communication. Sometimes it’s things that are not needed anymore, sometimes it’s just aspects of the feature which are not important (e.g. overengineering) because of lack of context.

        I’m not saying all meetings are always needed, but in larger organizations the sync between people and teams is very important.

    • heartlessevil@lemmy.one
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      The product sucks for work and productivity purposes. It can still be useful for meetings where productivity is not a factor (social, medical, many other situations.)

      I don’t really care which teleconferencing software I use but without zoom I would lose access to several medical providers and need to travel a couple hours to them which is untenable.

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    I don’t get corporate blokes.

    They spend their whole working hours finding ways to increase profits by reducing costs everywhere, to the detriment of the company even. Then we finally give them an easy way to reduce costs that make the employees happy, by removing the need for real estate. And they do a complete 180° to not do so?

    Even if they have a lease of multiple years, not having to heat/cool the building nor pay the electricity is still cheaper.

    Is it really about micromanagement?

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      At this point i’m convinced it’s more about the fact these higher ups have skin in the real estate game. They either know the people who lease their properties, or are heavily invested in the property itself. So they can’t get past the mental block that is the sunk cost fallacy to just ditch it, or lose “good boy points” with their rich peers by saying they don’t need the property anymore.

      I guess it’s also harder to brag to your rich friends how big your company is when you have less physical locations too, but at this point i’m just grasping. The amount of money these companies could save it massive, but they just absolutely refuse to do it for whatever reason.

    • Ironfist@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Right? They are also losing the opportunity to hire top talent from remote locations. I guess we found something that is more important to them than profits: their ego.

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      an easy way to reduce costs that make the employees happy

      That’s the problem, right there.

    • SCB@lemmy.world
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      They can’t just reduce their costs, because they’re locked into contracts and/or the corp real estate market is in the trash can

      I’d be willing to bet sunk cost fallacy does play a big part, as a result, but I also think senior leadership there just struggles to manage remotely and thus they assume others do too.

    • cyd@lemmy.world
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      Why would you expect Zoom to push for 100% working remotely over Zoom? So if my company makes mobility scooters, I’m not allowed to walk?

      • bh11235@infosec.pub
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        If you’re the company CEO and you’ve spent years shouting a marketing pitch of “scooters! Scooters! Scooters instead of walking! Scooters! They’re the future!” then yes, it’s a bad look if you walk, never mind if you issue a company wide walking mandate.

      • some_designer_dude@lemmy.world
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        I’d push for WFH and say that if work sucks over Zoom, “innovate” until it doesn’t. Kind of our bread and butter.

      • Zrybew@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        No, the argument is that instead of improving the product by dog-fooding, he just gave up and told people to go back to the office.

        The fact his product is not solving all the collaboration needs should be a business opportunity, but his underlying message is that he doesn’t know how to leverage it, and will not try anymore.

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    Socialization is always brought up as an excuse not to allow WFH. The thing is though, replacing real socialization with work fucking blows. Talking to a coworker to get the latest TPS report isn’t socialization. It’s work. The only time you do any real socialization is after work ends. And there’s nothing stopping you from going out to dinner with coworkers when you work from home.

    • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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      Arguably you’re worse off if most of your socialization is from work. It just leaves you lonely and tired back home.

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      I don’t know, the fact that 4 of the 5 other members on my team live at least 2 time zones away from me keeps me from socializing with them after work ends.

      (I do not want to leave this job, fwiw.)

      • Poob@lemmy.ca
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        Very fair. That said, going into the office isn’t going to help that.

    • malloc@lemmy.world
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      So true. But personally it feels like an extension of work when I go out with coworkers. Some of them we have nothing in common, different age groups, and even different generations. The only thing in common is: work.

      I like to keep it separate. Have my own friends outside of work for socialization. Work people likely never to meet my circle of personal friends.

      • Poob@lemmy.ca
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        Valid. I’m not huge on going out with coworkers either unless we click on mutual interests.

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      LoL right?

      I mean the company clearly benefited from the pandemic and people working from home. Why would they want that to stop??

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        1 year ago

        Money. This guy is getting leaned on to send the message that wfh is a mistake. There is about 2.5 trillion in corporate real estate debt floating around and when contracts are negotiated conditions are made. Government and invested business are shitting bricks and doing everything they can to force occupation of otherwise obsolete buildings.

  • terminhell@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    I don’t want to ‘get to know’ my coworkers. I’m not there for friendships, or a pseudo family. I’m there to do a job and be paid for it.

    But, this might just be my introvert side.

    • kava@lemmy.world
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      Some of the best relationships in ny life have been with people I’ve worked with. It’s the one thing I miss a lot since we started working from home.

      Still not worth going into the office, lol. The freedom is too good. But working from home does sort of mess up the work/life balance. I’m basically always on call these days and don’t have a set routine.

      Sometimes that means not working much for a day or two and then working until 11pm on others. Whereas at the office I typically left at a quarter to 5 and turned work off in my brain until tomorrow 9:30am after the first coffee at work.

      Having said all that, I encourage people to try and be friendly with their coworkers. Networking and friendships are valuable things. Both for your career and also just fulfillment. I found that the consistently best way to get raises and promotions in a company is simply to have most people you interact with like you.

      And that really isn’t hard to do, just takes a bit of authentic conversation and positive vibes. Seriously. If you want to make more money and advance your career - be likeable. It will get you a magnitude more than hard work alone. (Although of course hard work doesn’t hurt)

    • Fades@lemmy.world
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      No it is not your introvert side it’s the side that knows your value. You know you can provide the same (or more!) value out of office than you do trapped in some fucking open floor plan that’s constantly loud and distracting.

      This is just corporate bullshit for “go fuck yourselves we want more control over you and want to do it in our fancy building again”

      They want to usher in bullshit like THIS: https://www.businessinsider.com/jpmorgan-chase-employees-describe-fear-mass-workplace-data-surveillance-wadu-2022-5?op=1

      and THIS: https://web.archive.org/web/20230329152820/https://www.businessinsider.com/jpmorgan-chase-is-tracking-zoom-calls-workplace-activity-using-wadu-2022-5

      • kava@lemmy.world
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        If they wanna do crazy tracking they don’t need you in the office. They can just force you to install Spyware on your computer and send you a Logitech Webcam that needs to stay on.

        I’m glad I’ve always worked for sane companies. At the end of the day, you gotta treat the employees like adults. If you feel they aren’t doing enough, fire them. Don’t try and micromanage. But megacorps probably do see some minor bonuses to productivity otherwise they wouldn’t do it.

        It’s just not worth the headache for regular companies, I think.

  • Facebones@reddthat.com
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    The number of jobs I’ve missed out on and lost exclusively because I’m not normative enough to tell milquetoast jokes around a water cooler with a bunch of people I know two facts about but treat like my best friend numbers in the 100s.

    Fuck all these people trying to force the old ways forever just so they can exercise their social capital upon the rest of us.

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    Ya know, I’m not super happy with my salary (they’re really bad at keeping up with inflation), but … the promise of permanent WFH (we are actively getting rid of our last office, and hiring fully remote) with ability to live in ~half of the states without salary adjustment is basically keeping me complacent for now.

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    https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190625005362/en/Zoom-Expands-Its-Lease-at-KBS’-The-Almaden-to-More-than-87000-Square-Feet

    • Hey, I need to expand my lease.

    • it is X amount of money

    • What if I commit 10 years

    • it is X/2

    • Deal!

    • Oh, he reduced costs and increased footprint. He is a genius!

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/zoom-offices-hybrid-remote-work-11661977375

    • Well. Out workers are remote. What the hell do we do with the office?
    • Eeerrrrr. Ok let people have fun.
    • But we are starting to need ways of saving costs. What do we do?
    • The plan was always to return to office.
    • Let’s do that, then.

    Older than life. A situation changes and somebody whose personal interests are over the groups interests.

    • Saneless@sh.itjust.works
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      Typical corporate.

      Upper manager goal is Y (not using the letter before it anymore thanks to dippy boy). But we’re Y -3% this quarter

      Solution? Treat workers like shit until it’s Y. Doesn’t matter if it makes them unhappy, they leave, or next year’s results suck. Now now now

      • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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        You missed the point tho. This is actively costing them a lot of money. They’re just doing it to save face and maintain control.