Fuck Zoom
peachesnstink.com
peachesnstink.com
I understand the sentiment but a world of purely text based interactions would feel very lonely and full of miss interpretations and understandings.
A happy medium needs to be found but while the pandemic has us locked up in our homes? I’m incredibly thankful for Zoom, Hangouts, FaceTime, Teams and even Skype.
Update: I don’t begrudge people not turning on video, im more than happy to just use audio but please don’t force me to type any more than I already do if you want to discus something complicated.
Update 2: I’m a full stack developer in case you’re assuming I like to talk because I’m product/sales/marketing
You’ll often see “big important emails” by Jobs, Zuckerberg and other figures being circled around. These use written word for a reason. It’s like the difference in podcasts vs books - would you want to study philosophy solely via podcasts? Would be extremely draining. Complex subjects require structure and slow thinking.
Interesting that the OP makes a similar point (“a world of text would feel very lonely”). Why do you feel like going to the other extreme?
I love the eventual video meeting with teammates for planning, discussing company matters or a simple coffee break. But staring at each other during a standup or trying to figure out some product specs or analytics code does nothing to “build rapport” and just wasted everybody’s time.
This does not mean working out solutions and technical details there and then.
I'm pretty happy we're having a shift where a lot more companies will be offering remote work too now. I don't thrive in offices. I usually try to find empty meeting rooms so I can actually get things done. Similarly, I hate meetings. Especially the kind that could've been an email or requires only minor involvement for me. I don't have enough of an attention span to keep listening to information that is not relevant to me or my job.
Having to sit in a Google Meet / Teams call for the last few months all day has not been great for my mental health either (aside from the fact that Google Meet sometimes emits random noise).
Given the context, it's worth pointing out that this is not the same as "options that include asynchronous communication."
We don’t know how to read either because we skim the internet’s garbage, sifting through ads to get to the meaning of a blog entry, only to think we understand it but… what if we skimmed over it??
Communication and social interaction have been junk-food-ized just like everything else mass produced, and supplied in abundance.
Then again, the author’s post didn’t exactly communicate that well—this is just my interpretation :)
In all honesty though, we are going through an wonderful revolution in language where people are beginning to acknowledge communication is made up by more than just words.
Emojis make it clear that certain things are hard to put into words, like
It’s also quite a new phenomenon to hold people accountable for tone, facial expressions and body language. (Think toxic masculinity etc)
That said, I am also open to the idea that some work can be done, perhaps better, distilling the communication down to pure word messages that have persistence (IE accountability)
- A Slack message
- An email
- An update to an issue/ticket/PR comment
e.g. you don't need to send me a meeting invite for a meeting that starts in 15 minutes so that you can tell me that you've created a new issue for a bug. Just create the issue and assign it to me, and I'll see it when I'm free to do so.
“I’m going to open a ticket after this call…”
great teams don't just use one communication method, they adapt to the situation and people.
For deeply technical topics where there are a ton of specific details, yes - use writing.
For more free form topics - one on ones, retros, brainstorming, high level planning, calls or video chat may work better. It depends on what the people involved want.
No communication tool is perfect, use the ones that are right for the topic at hand.
Because they're calls
With optional screensharing
This seems to conflate Zoom usage with a lack of typing and writing skills? Given how many people use Zoom now, I'd like to see the numbers on that, if that's really OP's position. (You want to vent about the boss via anecdata, ok fine but that's different)
That's strange to me because I find it easier to go high-level (concept level) in Zoom calls without getting bogged down. In effect it's a much better communications tool when a short trip through the stratosphere can replace a week long trip over bumpy and windy roads.
Plus as others have mentioned there's the tonality aspect, of which OP's post is a great example: Are they angry, and if so how much--and would it be helpful feedback to see the shocked faces of the people on the other end of the communique?
PS: Maybe we need a one syllable, easy-to-pronounce word instead of "video conferencing?" Is "Zoom" that "Xerox?"
Even moreso if you're not an English speaker since the UI translations are terrible and most of them don't make sense in context - the interface is confusing as is, my parents stood absolutely no chance in figuring out how to work it.
Meet has a presentation mode that acts similarly but you need to join as a presentation and to go back to normal you need to exit and reenter
I get that they're a shady as shit company with perhaps very little respect for your privacy, but their video calling UI is best in class. No one I talk with (not the most tech savvy bunch) has any trouble with "I don't hear you!" type rubbish anymore.
Written communication is great once everything is known and understood: this is documentation and is very important
I do a lot of writing, but it's mostly brainstorming and documenting things to myself and maybe myself or my colleagues a few years down the line.
Basically if you use text like you'd use speaking/verbal communication.
Otherwise, text is superior for fleshing out ideas. Nothing gets lost, you can review everything later and address every single point.
Just my experience.
> Fuuuck zoom.
Good. Perhaps, I have to give it to Zoom for providing extraordinary value to their shareholders during the pandemic. Better than any product or competitor.
It's actually quite rude if you don't turn on your camera (ever). It's okay if you need it off every now and then.
Sure, but it's not pointing at me. I like good ergonomics, which means my work laptop sits besides my monitor and keyboard and mouse. So yeah, I can turn on the camera and have it look at the blank wall past my shoulder if you like that. I'll do the camera thing for really important or polite functions, but not for the daily stand-up or whatever.
I had the misfortune of using Zoom yesterday. I've used Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Jitsi Meet (that one's nice), but Zoom really sucks. Somehow it manages to hijack the mute control of my microphone, which the others don't do (all using the browser version, no apps). I usually just unmute myself in the meet-thingy and mute/unmute myself with a keyboard shortcut which operates on the OS-level muting, but Zoom does not like that.