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Comment by daniellarusso | Hacker News Reader

I have no issue speaking up when other people’s children are being disruptive during a Zoom meeting.

If they can walk, they can learn social protocol.

The delicious irony here is that social protocol asks adults in a mandatory remote meeting to not scold other people's children during an already trying moment.

I did not say scold. Also, this is prior to COVID.

> If they can walk, they can learn social protocol.

Kids can generally walk aged one. I think that’s too young to learn social protocol.

As a parent of a walking 18mo, a) it depends, sometimes it takes closer to age two, and b) they're absolutely too young to learn any social protocol at this age.

My 23mo has learned social protocol to get what he wants and when to violate it to get it even more quickly when I have no other options than to comply. But I'm not sure that any given Zoom meeting is important enough to mess up my son's breeding.

I also start to see a similar pattern in mine. At this point, she's figuring out barter. She'll approach me with some thing that belongs to me (or occasionally with something entirely random) that she picked up somewhere when I wasn't looking, expecting that I'll give her something she wants in return (especially things we don't let her play with, like a smartphone). She doesn't understand the concept of relative value yet, as evidenced by trying to exchange a scrap of paper for my glasses today.

> But I'm not sure that any given Zoom meeting is important enough to mess up my son's breeding.

Agreed. I'm lucky to be working in a place where my superiors all have kids, so this is implicitly understood.

Honestly it took our 4 year old months to accept that a closed office door meant she wasn't allowed in. What does OP expect parents to do when their kid needs them? Beat them? Lock the door and ignore the crying? Jeez.

As a parent of a young child, this was my immediate thought. There is zero linkage between the ability to walk and the ability to relate socially. They are completely different skillets that develop along completely different timelines. This is the statement of someone who knows nothing of childhood development. But yes, people should endeavor to keep their kids off the zoom.

> If they can walk, they can learn social protocol.

At the beginning of a conference talk a couple years ago, my 2.5-year-old demonstrated his ability to "learn social protocol".

2 minutes into the talk, he shouted "Don't talk in the lecture!" (and was promptly removed by one parent to the hallway).

While I don't necessarily disagree, I just don't know any child "developed" enough to comprehend what you are talking about. That's usually between 11-13 months. Try explaining the notion of "working from home" and "zoom conference" and daddy talking to a man in the box to a one year old.

LOL. The man in the box is so strange when you think about it that way.

It is as simple as making a stern face versus smiling and waiving (which I believe encourages the behavior).

Anecdotally, I disagree. I have never seen any parent successfully stop a 1-year-old child from doing something by any kind of face.

Not to mention if it's from a face on the computer screen.

Instead, just tell the parent to put the child in a different room.

Even that is usually not an option. You can’t put a 1-2 year old in a room by themselves for a meeting

Let me guess, you have no children of your own, right?

Stern face is going to make them burst into tears. Great strategy during a business call.

This has got the be one of the most delusional things I’ve read here

Am-I the only person that thinks kids derailing a meeting is funny?

Depends on the importance of the meeting and the status of the person who is responsible.

If you live in a corporate environment where status matters, your kids should better not detail a meeting where you are the person with a low status compared to the other participants. If status doesn't matter in your corporate culture you just have to be aware of the importance of the meeting. If you company is fighting for survival it is probably not funny to derail the discussion.

However, there are many unimportant meetings with people with the same status and I agree that if it doesn't become a pattern it can be a sweet/nice/funny distraction ;-)

imo the folks involved in a company fighting for survival during a pandemic are the exact crowd that need some sweet and funny distractions here and there.

I can definitely see how it would be annoying in the moment, but if your company is in a fight for survival and a kid wasting 15 of your minutes is an actual risk to that fight, there are probably deeper viability questions.

Kids derailing people's meetings are funny as long as you aren't party to it. Just like people getting splashed by a passing car on a rainy day is funny, as long as you aren't party to it.

Every once in awhile, sure, no biggie, definitely funny. But it's also already hard to keep meetings on topic and an efficient use of everyone's time. Anything that makes that harder is not ideal.

What's much less funny is the classical neighbour with a drill doing renovation in the middle of your job interview on Zoom.

Side question? Do you actually use the camera when doing a Zoom (or other) meeting?

Most of us don't where I work. Not only we don't necessarily look our best, and neither do our rooms, but most of the times the screen is used for other purposes. Usually screen sharing, a powerpoint persentation, or some work document.

At my work we always have the camera on unless it’s a large meeting (30+).

Indeed. I don’t even own a camera. People don’t need to see me to work with me.

I was the same working remotely for 6 months pre covid, seeing faces just isn't that important. Had to get one for job interviews though.

My boss tried to mandate cameras during video calls. I really don't want to look at my coworkers. I turned my camera on once and it looked like garbage and that was enough for me.

I always just pin whatever screen is being shared to be full screen so I don't have to look at anyone.

Yes. While zoom sucks for conveying body-language, being able to see someone’s unhappy, confused, or confidently-agreeing face makes certain kinds of meetings much easier.

Yes we all turn our cameras on in meetings, I believe body language is important. Can’t imagine working in an office without seeing the people you work with in some cadence

We also turn our cameras on - though I wish we didn't. There's no point. Between varying (often low) video quality and the lag between audio and video (and software recognizing it's time to switch the main screen), having all our faces on the screen is worthless, IMO. It only serves to make everyone self-conscious. And in many cases someone sharing their screen, at which point nobody is looking at the tiny faces in the corner anyway.

We mostly default to on but no one has an issue when people turn cameras off and they're pretty much off if there's a presentation anyway. Seems to work pretty well. Really, nothing pandemic related, we're spread across about a third of the world (or more, for some meetings) anyway.

A lot of people have fairly managed video setups at this point although not all do.

Yep I'd hate this no-video culture. Having said that, in bigger meetings, I usually turn it off.

Meh I don’t find the varying quality and field of view and lighting really makes it useful at all for body language. We usually have a big screen share as the main focus so the little talking heads are more of a distraction

I run an agency and I mandate no cameras, even on client facing calls. It's always a distraction, just focus on screen sharing an agenda and the data.

I do. I suspect people vary wildly by how often they do meetings and what they use them for. For me, most conversations are done in text, and most video meetings are regularly scheduled and 15 minutes long.

Having a webcam on for longer meetings is tiring, because I feel less free to change my position and move around. But it's okay for a short meeting. I make sure I look reasonable beforehand.

I'd have no issue telling you to mind your own if you tried telling me how to manage my kids.

Why are people so up their own ass about receiving advice and aide with their kids?

Do you get hostile and reject people helping you with flat tire, when you're lost, chasing down you escaped dog?

Do you jump to the conclusion that the offer is indictment of you're parenting?

Would you like it if I saw some code you were writing over your shoulder and I started correcting you and giving you advice on how you should be coding it differently? Maybe, but more likely you would feel defensive depending on my tone and/or how you interpreted my tone.

There's a whole paradigm that centers around exactly this. It is called pair programming. It is quite popular.

Indeed, and believe it or not, it is quite popular for 2 people to co-operatively raise kids as well. It's called "parenting".

Sarcasm aside, I think the main difference between pair programming and OP's scenario is that usually it's unsolicited advice that is unwelcome. Pair programming is usually consensual.

If you were at a gas station washing your car windows, you'd probably be annoyed if some guy drove up and started giving unsolicited judgmental advice about your tires.

If you were at the park playing fetch with your dog, you'd probably be annoyed if someone started giving you unsolicited judgmental advice about dog grooming.

Simple. The only people who try to help are people who don’t have children. Everyone is the perfect parent until they have their own children. Then they know to not speak as they understand that children are different and what worked for their kids may not work for others.

You can’t provide advice until you have a full picture of the situation.

I think the issue here is the general expectation that you should not be managing your kids during work time, including video meetings during work-from-home. You can be minding the kids, you can be working, you can't do both at the same time.

The "social protocol" expects that if all adults in the household are working then childcare services are a must-have; but as lifestyles and services are disrupted for Covid-related resons, this is becoming unworkable for a large number of families.

Did it ever occur to you that we are evading their (kids) space when working from home, not the other way around? It's that you have to learn the protocol, not them.

I think you mean "invading"¿

Oh yes, sorry for that.

This is exactly my thoughts. I'm still without children, and over the years I made my own little "cave" from where I can work, although my flat isn't exactly huge.

Some colleagues are not so lucky. Multiple young children, small flats, day-to-day logistics complications, significant others that are essential workers (as my wife, who is working extra shifts since this pandemonium started, and I don't have an idea what would I do if we had a child) or could not work from home... And same goes for business partners or clients. I don't even dare scrutinize them about what they are going through these days. Some of their loved ones may be impacted, or they are having a hard time by themselves, the least they need is me judging them because they have a needy kid.

I remember a couple of years ago I had an interview with a job candidate, online because some other circumstances (FYI he was hired and is a great chap). He was pretty anxious, I can hear and see that, and in the middle of the interview his six-month baby started crying. We could hear the wife trying to calm the baby down and seen him sweating peas. My senior colleague did the best thing at that moment, basically aborting the interview discussion altogether and started talking about children and parenting and so on. We offered the guy to take a break, but the baby calmed down soon enough, so we continued. I remember the relief I've seen when he realized we understand him and that we're on the same page. He became much more relaxed in the rest of the interview.

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