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.
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.
I want to start off by saying that I work from home and would like to continue doing so indefinitely. I also think these CEOs are chodes and aren’t really thinking about the point I’ll attempt to make next and typically do not care about such concerns.
Now, I do wonder what effect the loss of the “2nd place” (home, work, community being the “working definition” of places) for vast swathes of the American public will have in a country where the “3rd place” is already pretty non-existent.
In other words, we’re already quite an isolated society. What will a large percentage of us also working in isolation have on the country and on mental health in the long run?
I think there’s a potential that it could be a good effect or a bad one (or a mixture like most things), and I’m not sure which outcome is more likely.
We could become even more withdrawn from each other…or we could use the time we used to spend in traffic and with coworkers to build up local, community bonds instead. I suppose only time will tell, but I think it’s an interesting discussion that I haven’t seen talked about much yet.
I can say for certain that wfh has had a marked impact on my real world social interactions, but that’s not entirely a bad thing. What it means is that any conversation I have with someone is sparked by genuine interest rather than obligation after having bumped into them at the water cooler.
I think it has effected me in mostly bad ways so far, but it’s difficult to 100% decouple that from the awkwardness stemming from the pandemic that coincides with it. I worked remotely before the pandemic hit, but the lack of “office” + the lack of any social venue outside of zoom calls for many months exacerbated things.
Overall, I feel mostly these days like I’m going to have to get a hobby or a meetup or something going because even though I have a pretty low need for social interactions I’m finding myself barely scraping by these days.
What do you mean by this? Just about all of my hobbies are solo ventures, but I have heard many good things about meetups and user groups
I’m not a very social person but I find myself feeling like my social needs are barely being met nowadays.
Ah I see. You have any interests? As you mentioned, hobbies are always a good place to start, even if they’re not strictly “social”. If anything it gives you something to talk about, and maybe find some common ground with the people you meet.
Yeah, I’m into a bunch of different things. I had a friend group of sorts in this city but it frayed quite a bit during the pandemic and my wife and I are still kinda COVID weirdos (outdoor masklessness only, etc).
It’ll be alright.
I also work from home for several extended periods of time, while during others I need to be on site one or two days a week (sometimes it’s nice, sometimes it’s a drag to be on site).
I have to say, while I can work a 100% of the time from home, the nice parts of being on site is to get to know more personally the people I meet. I don’t deny the fact that this be successfully done remotely too, but I believe as humans we need social connections. Yes, we can make friends online (which can carry over IRL and I know that personally) and yes you can meet your partner online too, but it always felt (at least to me) that if you meet others in person, you accelerate the connection.
I mean, I had a fairly bad time in high school, but I had the time of my life on college and met most of my friends then. I’m not sure I’d have made as many friends if it had all been online.
Also, as someone wrote in another post today (but I can’t remember where so I can’t link it, sorry), sometimes people (perhaps new hires fresh out of college) are not experienced enough to know when to be vocal and object to flaws in a project and in person meeting can be a boon to acquire that skill.
It’s a tricky subject, since it’s not that WFH or doing things online prevents normal life evolutions, but perhaps can make them more scarce or slow, while in person events can precipitate them.
I agree that companies forcing things is not the way to go, but somehow it feels like doing things entirely online should happen more later in life, when you’re settled and not before when you need to learn and make connections who you’ll want to meet in person too.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk
It’s a fair point, but I think the answer is to take action necessarily to reintroduce a proper third space, including moving to more medium density mixed use developments.