Pants optional meetings not recommended
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@izzion said in Pants optional meetings not recommended:
I've actually done workouts during useless meetings quite often. If I were forced to have camera on, is probably set up a looping video of me looking bored at lite video quality. If I felt really serious, I'd write a small program that'd also swap randomly between different video loops, and even swap in some fake talking ones when I speak. And make sure that it's all low res and high lag.
But, really,
. I'm more inclined to just ignore their requests for video feeds during meetings.
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@izzion said in Pants optional meetings not recommended:
I don't think I've been in a work-related video meeting since the first couple of weeks, or so, of the pandemic. Although my boss has started working on-site and calling into our 1-1 status meetings from a conference room, which has the room camera on by default (maybe; but one or the other of us is sharing our screen, so I never see it). But nobody's ever said anything about my not using my camera.
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I'm only in one meeting I'd rather avoid per week, and that's the all-hands company "lunch meeting", which is video since we're remote. I leave my camera on because I don't care, even though I'm reading stuff/etc on the other monitor.
All of the rest of the meetings are actually meaningful and I'm engaged with them, because they're team meetings for our team of like 3 people. Or are called to figure out WTF is going on with something specific that I'm part of and have to deal with.
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@izzion that's a big zoom logo. Who sponsored this study?
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@izzion said in Pants optional meetings not recommended:
Jeff Toobin could not be reached for comment.
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So interestingly, we only recently (basically starting this year) started doing video team meetings. We've been a distributed team for the past 17 years and our customer is remote, too and we've always done phone meetings.
But recently we all got Teams (the customer a few months before us). In customer meetings no one turns on their camera (though more often than not someone is screen sharing).
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@Carnage said in Pants optional meetings not recommended:
@izzion said in Pants optional meetings not recommended:
I've actually done workouts during useless meetings quite often. If I were forced to have camera on, is probably set up a looping video of me looking bored at lite video quality. If I felt really serious, I'd write a small program that'd also swap randomly between different video loops, and even swap in some fake talking ones when I speak. And make sure that it's all low res and high lag.
But, really,. I'm more inclined to just ignore their requests for video feeds during meetings.This guy did it to write an article about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-VCzLiyFxc
I guess it attracted the wrong kind of attention, unless the guy now has a side-hustle selling this solution.
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For the longest time I didn't even have a camera to turn on. I do now have a cheap one that I got for an interview in 2018, it should still work. Last I used it was during that phone interview (didn't get the job). It has been in the closet since than. Nobody wants to see this ugly mug.
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@izzion said in Pants optional meetings not recommended:
None of our meetings require video. When we had "happy hour" it was encouraged, but as a rare occurrence I can prepare.
I don't wear pants or a bra. Of course I don't wear shoes, in the office I would wear shoes I could take on and off easy so I don't need to wear them when I am sitting at my desk or at a meeting. I leave shoes under my desk so even if I come to work in sneakers or boots, I change as soon as I get there.
I might brush my hair.
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What I've noticed is if a workplace uses video has to do with the default setting of the videoconferencing option used. My last job and my brother's job (edit: uses MS Teams which) defaults to camera off so pretty much nobody has video on. Which is annoying. When I met my local team members I knew nobody's face except the manager who is the only one (besides me) to turn his camera on. My current job uses Hangouts/Meet which defaults to camera on so most people have video on.
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@ObjectMike said in Pants optional meetings not recommended:
When I met my local team members I knew nobody's face except the manager who is the only one (besides me) to turn his camera on.
At my last job we had a photo directory of all employees. I originally snuck in my avatar here (just the headshot, no text) as my photo. Eventually someone noticed and the head of HR ambushed me to get a proper photo.
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@Dragoon said in Pants optional meetings not recommended:
@ObjectMike said in Pants optional meetings not recommended:
When I met my local team members I knew nobody's face except the manager who is the only one (besides me) to turn his camera on.
At my last job we had a photo directory of all employees. I originally snuck in my avatar here (just the headshot, no text) as my photo. Eventually someone noticed and the head of HR ambushed me to get a proper photo.
I use a white fluffy critter as my picture everywhere work. About half of the gigs I've worked had since killjoy that decided that no fun was allowed and that we had to have a real picture. Usually I just print the picture and take a photo of it on a wooden table and use that instead. In every instance so far, the killjoys deleted my photo after that.
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@ObjectMike said in Pants optional meetings not recommended:
What I've noticed is if a workplace uses video has to do with the default setting of the videoconferencing option used. My last job and my brother's job (edit: uses MS Teams which) defaults to camera off so pretty much nobody has video on. Which is annoying. When I met my local team members I knew nobody's face except the manager who is the only one (besides me) to turn his camera on. My current job uses Hangouts/Meet which defaults to camera on so most people have video on.
Most of my Agency is onsite. I have medical reason to not be onsite. There are a few employees I've only seen their avatar on Teams.
Most of them, I've worked with onsite before the 2020pocalypse. So while I love WFH, I do get a little lonely since obviously the rest of my team talk to each other IRL about things not related to work. When were all WFH, there was an effort to make water-cooler experiences. They were awkward, but we were all in the same position.
I am an introvert, so not interacting with other people is generally a positive. But I live with 5 other people, I am almost never alone.
Especially now that I cannot walk without assistance until my ankle heals.Commuting is draining but it was generally time to ignore everyone else. I wish, if I had to go back to the office it would be much closer.
I also worked the later shift at the office, so sometimes there would be me and only a few others on my entire floor. Sometimes, I stayed later to enjoy that. But not commuting means I can take my daughter to the playground as soon as I finish work.
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Why does every paragraph start with bold?
We're dealing with "Zoom fatigue."
Is this actually a real thing or are people complaining about meetings and having to talk to other people?
or we may not feel comfortable showing our bedroom or a messy kitchen..
Has this person used zoom or any other video call software? Most of them came with blurring and backgrounds out of the box.
Probably gonna get banned from the forum for this one but I find meetings with video on are more productive. Small meetings with two or three tend to be very productive regardless of video. Four to Seven are more productive with video but it's usually questionable why there is so many there unless it's a stand up of some sort. Eight or more is usually pointless regardless of video.
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Pants optional meetings
not recommendedconsidered harmful
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I have a Zoom call with the rest of the team (about 15 people) every two weeks. Video enabled. It's no big deal at that frequency. (Before we went remote, we had a meeting at the same time.) Sometimes there's a presentation, but it is usually a glorified stand-up; at that team size it takes about an hour.
I use background blurring, which works well for me. Helps ensure that nobody can see how infrequently I do dusting.
I also occasionally remember to attend a different set of calls that use Teams (with a somewhat larger group of people). I don't know what it is, but Teams is usually struggling with both audio and video. I mostly keep my camera off for those. (It's far worse than I remember Webex being, but I've not used that in many years as WTF-U never bought a license for that.)
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What's interesting to me is that nowadays nearly everyone who does have their camera on has the virtual background feature enabled. So I play contrary and keep the default background in - shelves full of bins with lego parts, though the lego bit probably isn't recognisable.
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@PleegWat said in Pants optional meetings not recommended:
What's interesting to me is that nowadays nearly everyone who does have their camera on has the virtual background feature enabled. So I play contrary and keep the default background in - shelves full of bins with lego parts, though the lego bit probably isn't recognisable.
Me too - so they see my overflowing bookshelves. For our team meetings, etc, I don't turn on my video. For 1on1s, I do.
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@dcon I find that my saturnine countenance is sufficient. Oversufficient, in fact. When a group of lesser can see my face, their adherence to my will is too complete, and somehow unsatisfactory.
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@Carnage said in Pants optional meetings not recommended:
I use a white fluffy critter as my picture everywhere work. About half of the gigs I've worked had since killjoy that decided that no fun was allowed and that we had to have a real picture. Usually I just print the picture and take a photo of it on a wooden table and use that instead. In every instance so far, the killjoys deleted my photo after that.
I've tended to use my avatar that you see here. The reason it looks like I bashed it out in, like, twenty seconds in MSPaint back in the day is that, well, I bashed it out in, like, twenty seconds in MSPaint back in the day. At work these days I use the pandemic version, where I scribbled a green Covid mask on it...
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@PleegWat said in Pants optional meetings not recommended:
What's interesting to me is that nowadays nearly everyone who does have their camera on has the virtual background feature enabled. So I play contrary and keep the default background in - shelves full of bins with lego parts, though the lego bit probably isn't recognisable.
My background when I'm working at home is a floor-to-ceiling curtain, with the (glass) balcony door behind it, and the (closed) outside shutters behind that. If I leave the shutters open, and it's sunny, then in the late afternoon, the sunlight piles in through the balcony door and the windows next to it, and through the curtain, directly into the poor PC's camera, leaving me in silhouette.
In the office, the background is whatever is behind me in the direction the camera is pointing.
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@Steve_The_Cynic said in Pants optional meetings not recommended:
leaving me in silhouette.
"And now Steve, working from an undisclosed location, is here to blow the whistle on all of y'all's bad coding habits"
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@Steve_The_Cynic said in Pants optional meetings not recommended:
@PleegWat said in Pants optional meetings not recommended:
What's interesting to me is that nowadays nearly everyone who does have their camera on has the virtual background feature enabled. So I play contrary and keep the default background in - shelves full of bins with lego parts, though the lego bit probably isn't recognisable.
My background when I'm working at home is a floor-to-ceiling curtain, with the (glass) balcony door behind it, and the (closed) outside shutters behind that. If I leave the shutters open, and it's sunny, then in the late afternoon, the sunlight piles in through the balcony door and the windows next to it, and through the curtain, directly into the poor PC's camera, leaving me in silhouette.
In the office, the background is whatever is behind me in the direction the camera is pointing.
If you combine this with a virtual background and a strong back spot, you can also have a halo.
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I wonder what %age of employees don't think their future will include these types of managers.
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@Shoreline There will always be hopelessly naïve people out there somewhere. In large numbers.
