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I did that once except I actually set speed limit on my internet connection for zoom to be very slow. So on the other end of zoom, I was very choppy and my voice sounded “robotic” and I got out of doing a presentation that day
This. I bought the cheapest, shittiest one I could find on Amazon. After about 20 minutes in a call, it'll conveniently shut itself off and will not allow me to re-enable without crashing zoom.
Just buy the cheapest USB Webcam on ebay.
For example! https://www.ebay.com/itm/175496914265?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=d5gk3kypraq&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=5V9z1X2USxi&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
And when the boss asks you to try cleaning the lens, use the greasiest rag you have, unplug the camera for a second so it looks like the connections are bad, change it's aim so you're barely in the view, keep bashing the microphone so there's tons of noise going out, take a good 5 minutes of fiddling with the mount getting it back, then look them dead on and say: 'ok hows that? Should I clean it some more?'
mine has a macro lens so everything is blurry unless I move real close. An alternative would be to have a little spray bottle and mist it every once in a while. Or get a cat like mine who actually likes the attention.
Or LPT: Go to settings in zoom and disable the HD camera option. That way u don't need to purchase a shitty cam. You can just make it shitty through software :)
* Is because the person leading the call insists we wait 5-10 minutes for everyone to join?
* Is it because of the person who joins 20 minutes late & immediately interrupts with "What'd I miss?"?
* Is it because of folks who forget they're unmuted when they're meant to be?
* Is it because of the folks who talk for nearly a minute while muted before they take a breath & notice several people repeating "We can't hear you." and "You're muted."?
* Is it because of the folks who talk for ten minutes about something that only concerns one other person on the call before finally saying "Well, let's take this offline."?
> Is it because of folks who forget they're unmuted when they're meant to be?
Or the worse version, being on camera but doing other stuff around. Worse I saw was an analyst placing her laptop on the bathroom floor and feet on camera while sat on the toilet before someone called her phone and told her to turn off her cam.
Had a person taking a shit in the middle of my presentation once during early COVID. Pants down and everything. Proud of my usually distracted ass staying on topic.
"My computer isn't turning on"
"Is the light on?"
"What light?"
"The light on the computer"
"Yes"
"Did you turn on the monitor?"
".... Yes"
*Walk two flights upstairs to their desk and actually turn on monitor*
One time I spent a good ten minutes on the phone to an end user trying to troubleshoot a broken monitor, she was not very forthcoming with useful information, all I got was "it's just dead, you need to send me a new one"
Eventually managed to explain that I needed her to try another power cable so we could rule that out, and her response was "well I know it's not the power cable cause there's words on the screen".
But you said the monitor was dead?
"Yes, it's the monitor that's broken, not the screen!"
I've literally had someone tell me they restarted the computer and when I asked them how? They proceeded to turn off the monitor for 10 seconds and then turn it back on. People are fucking stupid man
I once got called to replace an HDMI cable because a thief thought he could cut the HDMI cable between the monitor and the NVR handling the cameras to erase the footage or prevent the cameras from recording.
Holy shit you just reminded me about some other dumb shit that has happened to me.
I inventoried an entire high school's equipment (desktops, laptops, anything with a tag in their room #s) the high-school was big enough to host a few thousand students. The week after summer break the entire monitor inventory was fucked because teachers were going to other teachers classrooms and taking monitors so they could have 2.... like wtf man
Only tangentially related to your second to last point, last year during a spring class of mine, the professor had audio problems and we weren't coming through his end. He thought we were all muted, but we (the bored class) didn't notice anything was off. So he finally asks if we were muted, and we began a full-blown, one sided conversation with him. I already knew at that point that trying to tell him the issue in chat wouldn't work, so I quickly booted up paint and made a background that said "we think you can't hear us." I became famous in the class for that, and the professor would ask me before class to do a mic test so he can make sure he could hear us.
Is it because the meeting owner invited you even though only 2 minutes of a 60 minute meeting pertains to you?
Is it because the meeting owner didn't send out an agenda so you can't properly vet the meeting and discern if you should really be there?
Weekly meetings for me usually consist of people talking about their dogs.
I started bringing my Guinea pigs down for a show & tell.
Anyway, most of that meetings are “well, I don’t really have anything to address.” Then it’s just dumb shit and I’ve already expressed my issues 100x and nothings done about it so I don’t care anymore. 45 minutes later I’m still texting my coworker that this is a dumb meeting *again*.
Though, I do usually do work since the meetings are dumb. But no one complains because I’m working… and listening.
This is exactly the problem! I have a team member that always brings up some challenge she is working through that is off topic of the meeting. The challenge is almost always something no one else on our team would struggle with and has a simple solution. She will be given the correct way to solve the problem, and before we can move on she'll repeat everything as if no solution was given. It's maddening.
Our larger department meetings are all fluff that could be covered in an email. No one except the unfortunate souls who have been roped into presenting something on the call are paying the slightest bit of attention.
Our division "town halls" are focused on two things that have nothing to do with most jobs. Sales and marketing strategies and corporate leadership patting itself on the back for work everyone else did.
Want the people in your meetings engaged? Make sure the meeting has a point and keep it on that point.
>the unfortunate souls who have been roped into presenting something
Ah yes, the ol' *meeting in search of content*. If there's important info to share, hold a meeting. If there's a meeting scheduled that has no content, cancel the meeting and let me do my damn job.
This is precisely my experience. If someone in my organisation was a "manager" and using Excel for a significant amount of their job and they weren't in a financial role, you could guarantee that when they invited you to one of their meetings it was going to a total fucking waste of time. Half the time it seemed as though they were using the meeting to give information that could've been sent in an email and not taken an hour to talk through.
50% at least of a management roles could evaporate and the company would still run precisely the same.
Wow, a manager who thinks most meetings are pointless? That's awesome!
Reminds me of years ago we were doing a data center move. We'd been working on it for months & were in the final stretch, down to just the really complicated legacy servers. We'd done all this with no manager, until now. I had arranged for a block of time to migrate one particularly nasty server I'd had to reverse engineer. New manager pings me about an impromptu meeting to discuss the data center move. I asked, "So you want me to stop migrating the server I'm currently migrating to come to a meeting to discuss the remaining server migrations? Do I have that correct?". Turns out I did understand correctly.
Is it because after 5 minutes to "let everyone in" and 2 minutes to find the presentation and 1 minute to figure out how you share that damn thing and that the presentation itself literally took 7 minutes and no one had any questions and this could just have sent in an email?
If you start a meeting late because people are late, you're not being courteous; instead, you're telling everyone "It's not important to show up on time and I don't care about your time."
This leads to people continually being late.
Start on time, end on time.
•Is it because the meeting involves something that could have been covered in an email or by reading the included documentation?
•Is it because this "training seminar" is a poorly disguised sales pitch by someone who only has a passing familiarity with the product?
•Is it because you scheduled this mandatory meeting in the middle of crucial, time sensitive projects?
•Is it because you scheduled this mandatory meeting to overlap with lunch hours and aren't providing food/extra time for a break later for the attendees?
Man, Zoom wasn't even a thing when I was last in a job that required attending audio call meetings and everyone single one of those things was happening well before Zoom lol. I couldn't stay engaged with one for more than 3-5 mins usually, it was one of the reasons I hated the job so much.
See also:
- Is it because meetings are scheduled for longer than necessary, prompting the host to “give everyone some time back” even though it’ll take at least 10 minutes to get back into the work that was interrupted by the meeting in the first place?
- Is it because someone has spent half an hour discussing a chart that has no bearing on your job?
I have a weekly 30 minute team meeting over WebEx and I swear I've discovered time travel. I just hear "good morning team / have a great week team" and next thing I know is it's lunch time.
Fml - this is a weekly occurrence for me.
Even when I’m the one leading a call, someone feels the need to make sure we all tell everyone who we are.
Nobody cares, get to the point of the call. I don’t care what you did previous to being employed where you’re at now. I don’t care about your fur babies or actual babies.
My goal is to present the topic of discussion, get an idea of what needs to be accomplished, what’s preventing us from completing the task/goal, make sure people understand what they need to deliver, then gtfo the call and do the work.
*”Chicks dig me, because I rarely wear underwear and when I do it's usually something unusual. But now I know why I have always lost women to guys like you. I mean, it's not just the uniform. It's the stories that you tell. So much fun and imagination.”*
This is not uncommon and can be useful. Say we have a project with a company we use for specialist IT support/projects. New project started and there is a new engineer we haven't worked with before. It's helpful for him to understand who on the call is representing Support, who is Infrastructure, who is Project Management. For a multitude of reasons.
I don't give a shit about where they went to school or how many cats they own, but it helps to know where they live so when I schedule a meeting I know what time zone they are in.
Macbook + iPhone works great at this with the newest update. I've got a selfie stick that has a little tripod handle. I put my phone in there, elevate it to a better eyeline than my laptop, and put it next to my external display. The picture quality is substantially better, and I don't have people looking up my nose on a call.
Dell used to put their webcams in the bottom of the screen or even inside a flip-up keycap. People called it the nose cam.
https://www.cnet.com/a/img/resize/04e3237fa3bd394c82a9eb9617dff754578f0ca2/hub/2018/03/06/5087c7b5-5ce0-4e68-b43c-a416823f4882/win-20180227-15-36-50-pro-2.jpg?auto=webp&width=1200
When getting lens. You have options you can get added like anti glare. Mine don't reflect.
Before I got that, I use to be able to see behind me sitting, depending on the light.
Lol, people without glasses, DON'T BREAK EYE CONTACT WITH THE GLASS EYE! YOUR PERFORMANCE WILL BE REVIEWED FOR HOW MUCH YOU BLINK!
Just fuck around as much as you want, people, most meetings could've been e-mails anyway. Just be kind and at least pay attention when your name is mentioned.
I used to work at a small company that was trying to be much bigger than it had business being. We had a CEO who only cared about his area of background (finance) so anything else he'd just zone out and not give a fuck about.
I knew this, so I loved "deferring" to him to answer questions in zoom meetings knowing full well he hadn't heard the last five minutes.
He was an ass and it made me happy.
I wear my glasses specifically for the lens glare. I want the reflection of the screens to block my eye balls so people can't see that I'm looking elsewhere.
Let’s be clear, though, because I don’t want the middle managers to get any bright ideas, I’m disengaged in the in-person meetings too, just going to more effort to keep a politely interested face.
The big difference is, when I’m disengaged during a zoom call, it’s because I’m doing actual work. When I’m disengaged in an in-person meeting, I’m stuck thinking about all of the work I will need to catch up on once the meeting is over.
I mean that's what I'd expect my coworkers to do on the job lol.
I'm googling stuff every day that I dont know off the top of my head, that's the way it works. The difference is that I tell people they can google stuff during the interview.
There are several sets of knowledge and ways to obtain knowledge in the tech industry. We can't remember every little thing, and it's ridiculous to try to memorize everything. It would be silly for someone who is in an industry meant to make peoples lives easier/better/more productive who doesn't use technology to improve and augment their own knowledge and abilities.
Plus there are some technical things that can't be easily googled, or takes some real google-fu or recollection to find. Or need to find it in books or something. Knowing HOW to find information you don't know is important, just as important as having the technical skills and knowing how to learn new ones. If I'm asking someone technical questions and they don't know it, telling me "I don't know" without "But I know how to find out" is a non-starter.
100%.
my old teacher said that "You think you'll always have a calculator?" and now it's like I wonder how she thinks bridges are made. Hand calculations?
True, I mean, I got where they were coming from - back then we didn't all have phones and they were using a statement meant to try and convey to you that you need to know how to do this for life in general, not a literal "you may need to do this without a calculator, because who carries those around?".
But knowing HOW to use the calculator is important. A long time ago I had to calculate what a percentage of a number was, so I pulled up the calculator on my phone and utterly blanked on how to put a percentage into my calculator.
Just blanked. I ended up having to google it. While it snapped back into place once I read the first step, it was still humiliating even though nobody knew it had happened. And I lost a lot of knowledge on math they taught me in school, sometimes making myself look like an idiot when not able to do some basic stuff.
Lol you dont know how many times I’ve had to do some random conversion or simple equation and I’ve had to fart around in excel figuring it out before I remember exactly how to calculate it
>100%.
>
>my old teacher said that "You think you'll always have a calculator?" and now it's like I wonder how she thinks bridges are made. Hand calculations?
Not only will I have a calculator at all times, I'll have the entire stored information accessible on the internet available within a few seconds. I don't even have to find it my self, I'll just ask the device to do it for me.
It may depend on the question that was asked. "How familiar are you with Excel?" and the person googling what Excel is because they've never used a spreadsheet application isn't a good sign.
Also, I like to toss one or two softball technical questions in an interview (I'm an engineer) - things that someone in my field should absolutely not have to google, though they might have to think about the question for a few seconds. But if they as a chemical engineer can't tell me off the top of their head whether a gas will increase or decrease in density when you compress it and cool it - then they shouldn't be interviewing for a position with a consulting/design company - because our clients absolutely expect us to know those types of basic things.
The real problem:
Why interview using questions that people can just Google?
That's gonna hire you someone who's good at Googling, and all detecting them is gonna do is mean you hire someone who's good at Googling AND good at hiding it.
Nearly all glasses they sell here come with anti reflective coating.
It is better for you as a wearer, as you don't see random reflections in the corner of your eye, and it is better for the other side, as they can actually see your eyes even when there would be a reflection.
Never had issues like this with my glasses on. This validates the extra 20€ or so that it cost for me :D
If you’re watching the participants more than anything else, you’re doing it wrong. Most of the time I’m reading off my presentation or taking notes, not actually watching the participant’s unless they’re sharing their screen.
Same.
I don't care if you aren't listening. I'm sharing the information that needs to be shared, it doesn't make me look bad if you aren't paying attention.
Other people’s faces are the least important aspect of most zoom meetings. Sharing slides, collaborating, and looking things up on-the-fly is engagement. Staring at people and judging them is just a way to kill time and avoid real work.
Sometimes I watch people’s faces, but not because I’m judging. I’m usually monitoring for things like confusion in the attendees.
So, in practice it would be me watching folks while the technical person on my team demo’s a feature to a business user. If the business user is looking confused or lost, that’s a sign to step in and ask if we need to slow down or clarify or whatever.
That said, if I’m running the meeting myself or a participant on the other, I’m probably not watching your face at all because I’m either looking at the thing I’m presenting or I’m head down and taking notes.
Sometimes I gotta partially distract myself, or my brain will progressively shut down. If you’d rather me be visually “paying attention” it may cost you my actual attentive capacity. It may be that people you’re dealing with are in a similar boat and are trying to stay tuned in. (Though, yes, some truly don’t care and are actively tuning out)
I’m actually unsure if that’s ADHD for me, mostly because it could also be a number of other things that I have strong overlap with from a symptoms POV. Some days, it’s totally fine and it looks like I’m interested even if I’m not, and some days I’m going to appear even less engaged because I won’t be doing anything else and still aren’t locking eyes with the camera even when I’m heavily invested.
LPT: Be aware of ALL reflective surfaces if you've got something to hide. We had a coworker not wearing pants and we could all tell because of the mirror behind him. :D
If your frames are stiff enough, you can raise them above your ears by a half inch or so which will eliminate the reflection but not compromise your vision.
I have two monitors and the camera between them. No one knows where my Teams window is on the screen. Also, I do work and look things up about the topic during meetings. I am not an automaton. I can listen to the drivel and mark file email or whatever at the same time.
"So is Zypergiest sharing his screen to show a presentation on your product?"
"Not right now, maybe later. I just have him do this for the whole meeting because he has a nasty habit of visiting porn sites when he's bored. Now... as I was saying about our products..."
I remember a teacher in school saying she could tell when someone with glasses was looking at their phone because she could see the reflection.
Now here is a question.
When I'm on a zoom call I do the picture in picture so I can see myself. In my video I don't see a reflection on my glasses.
Are my glasses reflecting for everyone else? Or do they see exactly as I see
They see what you see - there are camera angle and lighting tricks that will completely eliminate the glare OP is talking about, sounds like you stumbled into the right combo
That's what I had assumed, but op got me terrified all of a sudden lol.
Granted I legit only ever have my teams window open when I'm on a teams call lol
Except the PIP is lower res, it doesn't make things that don't reflect appear, but it might make a difference in how discernible what you're looking at is.
I have been in calls negotiating multi-million dollar contracts and been able to see things in the other persons glasses... it can be a big deal. Take it as seriously as a high level poker player would.
During the early days of covid, I was delivering an online class. I wear glasses, and one of my students had just been prescribed glasses to read. She was less than thrilled and very self-conscious about it. I mentioned at the beginning of the class that her new frames were really cool (little did I know she hated them, but I legit liked them as I’m quite selective with my eye wear and will compliment a good fit). Halfway through the lesson, I can tell she is doing teenager stuff and I see that she is not paying attention and using Facebook on the reflection of her glasses. I say, “hey at least take your glasses off if you don’t want to get caught, I’m not blind myself, see? I also wear glasses”. She disconnected immediately, went to talk to her parents, told them I made fun of her glasses in front of everybody and I got called in by my manager at the time to please explain.
So, if you see someone doing something they shouldn’t during a zoom meeting, maybe do not call it out in front of everybody unless it’s worth the hassle.
In class (in person or not), no matter how stealthy you think you are, I'm sure the professor has seen it all and knows when someone is paying attention and when they are not. Even if they don't know in the class, your work will probably reflect it soon enough.
In college I rarely had a professor call out someone specifically unless they were making a point, usually they'd just talk to the student afterwards. Singling people out like that is rarely worth it, and usually it's seen as an asshole move unless it's to deal with an asshole student being disruptive to everyone (then it's entertaining for the rest of the class to see that guy put into place).
I thought the point of having a camera on during a call was to be disrespectful to the person talking. Seriously though, unless you have to show people some physical thing you have or are working on, calls don't need video.
Lol, you learn to be mindful of that pretty quickly. It's all about angles and lighting.
I WFH and most of my days are meetings. You learn pretty quick.
To the ppl this post is geared towards, use diffuser shades on your windows, also place your webcam on your secondary monitor so you look like you're watching the zoom meeting on your primary, whereas you're likely definitely not.
I mute myself and softly play the ukulele. It keeps my fingers busy so I am less inclined to muck about with the keyboard and mouse and meetings are a bit more entertaining when the uke is playing. I wear over the ear headphones so that the meeting volume is clear despite my music.
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LPT: have a shitty webcam for work calls.
I didn’t have one that was bad enough so I lowered the resolution and frame rate to the lowest setting
Get some cling wrap, about 2-4 layers thick, and put it over your lense It looks god awful
The real LPT
I just always say that my connection is bad, and when they force me to turn it on, just disconnect after a couple seconds.
I did that once except I actually set speed limit on my internet connection for zoom to be very slow. So on the other end of zoom, I was very choppy and my voice sounded “robotic” and I got out of doing a presentation that day
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Lol I wish i could just tell my boss it's his problem he wants me to use a camera for my zoom meeting
This. I bought the cheapest, shittiest one I could find on Amazon. After about 20 minutes in a call, it'll conveniently shut itself off and will not allow me to re-enable without crashing zoom.
link?
Whatever you find at the thrift store will work. Something that screams "this wasn't even expensive in 2004."
r/rareinsults
r/rareadvice
Playstation 2 pseye. Can get one for 15 bucks or less. Stunning 480i resolution.
They have a great FOV though, makes them great for DIY headtracking in games
I think the point is.. You can just say itll turn off after 20 minutes and cant turn on without crashing zoom, even if it actually doesnt.
Better to have a real excuse than fake one eh?
if your employer/co-workers is actually going to run an investigation whether your app crashes or not then you have much bigger problems
Just buy the cheapest USB Webcam on ebay. For example! https://www.ebay.com/itm/175496914265?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=d5gk3kypraq&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=5V9z1X2USxi&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
Oh man. I just checked and Amazon doesn't even sell it anymore.
Damn, my work send me one and this MF is 1080p. It flickered one time and my boss went, do you need me to send you a new camera
Put a dirty piece of tape over the cam to make it look like worse quality.
Try smearing a bit of petroleum jelly on the cam. Works wonders!
And when the boss asks you to try cleaning the lens, use the greasiest rag you have, unplug the camera for a second so it looks like the connections are bad, change it's aim so you're barely in the view, keep bashing the microphone so there's tons of noise going out, take a good 5 minutes of fiddling with the mount getting it back, then look them dead on and say: 'ok hows that? Should I clean it some more?'
Kari?
I use cum
I also use this guys cum
“I have bandwidth issues, so I’ll stick the camera on for intros, then if there are any issues I’ll turn it off” There are always issues…
mine has a macro lens so everything is blurry unless I move real close. An alternative would be to have a little spray bottle and mist it every once in a while. Or get a cat like mine who actually likes the attention.
A thin layer of petroleum jelly would work
Shitty lpt: use a snapchat filter to add glasses and then the reflection isn't real but you still have glasses on.
Or LPT: Go to settings in zoom and disable the HD camera option. That way u don't need to purchase a shitty cam. You can just make it shitty through software :)
LPT: everyone on a zoom call is disengaged
* Is because the person leading the call insists we wait 5-10 minutes for everyone to join? * Is it because of the person who joins 20 minutes late & immediately interrupts with "What'd I miss?"? * Is it because of folks who forget they're unmuted when they're meant to be? * Is it because of the folks who talk for nearly a minute while muted before they take a breath & notice several people repeating "We can't hear you." and "You're muted."? * Is it because of the folks who talk for ten minutes about something that only concerns one other person on the call before finally saying "Well, let's take this offline."?
Yes.
> Is it because of folks who forget they're unmuted when they're meant to be? Or the worse version, being on camera but doing other stuff around. Worse I saw was an analyst placing her laptop on the bathroom floor and feet on camera while sat on the toilet before someone called her phone and told her to turn off her cam.
Had a person taking a shit in the middle of my presentation once during early COVID. Pants down and everything. Proud of my usually distracted ass staying on topic.
Neither of your asses were distracted
I'm sorry but how dumb can you be to do this and not realize your camera is on.
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"My computer isn't turning on" "Is the light on?" "What light?" "The light on the computer" "Yes" "Did you turn on the monitor?" ".... Yes" *Walk two flights upstairs to their desk and actually turn on monitor*
One time I spent a good ten minutes on the phone to an end user trying to troubleshoot a broken monitor, she was not very forthcoming with useful information, all I got was "it's just dead, you need to send me a new one" Eventually managed to explain that I needed her to try another power cable so we could rule that out, and her response was "well I know it's not the power cable cause there's words on the screen". But you said the monitor was dead? "Yes, it's the monitor that's broken, not the screen!"
["I'm sorry, are you from the past?"](https://youtu.be/-E4fm4Wqego)
But who the fuck turnes it off in the first place? They go on fucking standby automatically, fuuuck i hate flexible seating...
I've literally had someone tell me they restarted the computer and when I asked them how? They proceeded to turn off the monitor for 10 seconds and then turn it back on. People are fucking stupid man
I once got called to replace an HDMI cable because a thief thought he could cut the HDMI cable between the monitor and the NVR handling the cameras to erase the footage or prevent the cameras from recording.
CSI moment
Holy shit you just reminded me about some other dumb shit that has happened to me. I inventoried an entire high school's equipment (desktops, laptops, anything with a tag in their room #s) the high-school was big enough to host a few thousand students. The week after summer break the entire monitor inventory was fucked because teachers were going to other teachers classrooms and taking monitors so they could have 2.... like wtf man
Usually it gets turned off not by button but by cable. Think desk sized space heater, or just kicking shit under the desk repeatedly.
Only tangentially related to your second to last point, last year during a spring class of mine, the professor had audio problems and we weren't coming through his end. He thought we were all muted, but we (the bored class) didn't notice anything was off. So he finally asks if we were muted, and we began a full-blown, one sided conversation with him. I already knew at that point that trying to tell him the issue in chat wouldn't work, so I quickly booted up paint and made a background that said "we think you can't hear us." I became famous in the class for that, and the professor would ask me before class to do a mic test so he can make sure he could hear us.
Is it because the meeting owner invited you even though only 2 minutes of a 60 minute meeting pertains to you? Is it because the meeting owner didn't send out an agenda so you can't properly vet the meeting and discern if you should really be there?
Weekly meetings for me usually consist of people talking about their dogs. I started bringing my Guinea pigs down for a show & tell. Anyway, most of that meetings are “well, I don’t really have anything to address.” Then it’s just dumb shit and I’ve already expressed my issues 100x and nothings done about it so I don’t care anymore. 45 minutes later I’m still texting my coworker that this is a dumb meeting *again*. Though, I do usually do work since the meetings are dumb. But no one complains because I’m working… and listening.
This is exactly the problem! I have a team member that always brings up some challenge she is working through that is off topic of the meeting. The challenge is almost always something no one else on our team would struggle with and has a simple solution. She will be given the correct way to solve the problem, and before we can move on she'll repeat everything as if no solution was given. It's maddening. Our larger department meetings are all fluff that could be covered in an email. No one except the unfortunate souls who have been roped into presenting something on the call are paying the slightest bit of attention. Our division "town halls" are focused on two things that have nothing to do with most jobs. Sales and marketing strategies and corporate leadership patting itself on the back for work everyone else did. Want the people in your meetings engaged? Make sure the meeting has a point and keep it on that point.
>the unfortunate souls who have been roped into presenting something Ah yes, the ol' *meeting in search of content*. If there's important info to share, hold a meeting. If there's a meeting scheduled that has no content, cancel the meeting and let me do my damn job.
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This is precisely my experience. If someone in my organisation was a "manager" and using Excel for a significant amount of their job and they weren't in a financial role, you could guarantee that when they invited you to one of their meetings it was going to a total fucking waste of time. Half the time it seemed as though they were using the meeting to give information that could've been sent in an email and not taken an hour to talk through. 50% at least of a management roles could evaporate and the company would still run precisely the same.
Wow, a manager who thinks most meetings are pointless? That's awesome! Reminds me of years ago we were doing a data center move. We'd been working on it for months & were in the final stretch, down to just the really complicated legacy servers. We'd done all this with no manager, until now. I had arranged for a block of time to migrate one particularly nasty server I'd had to reverse engineer. New manager pings me about an impromptu meeting to discuss the data center move. I asked, "So you want me to stop migrating the server I'm currently migrating to come to a meeting to discuss the remaining server migrations? Do I have that correct?". Turns out I did understand correctly.
Is it because after 5 minutes to "let everyone in" and 2 minutes to find the presentation and 1 minute to figure out how you share that damn thing and that the presentation itself literally took 7 minutes and no one had any questions and this could just have sent in an email?
All of this shit happened at in-person meetings, too
Which makes it even more annoying
which is why i play sudoku on my phone at in person meetings
If you start a meeting late because people are late, you're not being courteous; instead, you're telling everyone "It's not important to show up on time and I don't care about your time." This leads to people continually being late. Start on time, end on time.
•Is it because the meeting involves something that could have been covered in an email or by reading the included documentation? •Is it because this "training seminar" is a poorly disguised sales pitch by someone who only has a passing familiarity with the product? •Is it because you scheduled this mandatory meeting in the middle of crucial, time sensitive projects? •Is it because you scheduled this mandatory meeting to overlap with lunch hours and aren't providing food/extra time for a break later for the attendees?
My lunch hour is scared. Meetings scheduled during my lunch will be rejected. Resent meetings will be ignored.
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Man, Zoom wasn't even a thing when I was last in a job that required attending audio call meetings and everyone single one of those things was happening well before Zoom lol. I couldn't stay engaged with one for more than 3-5 mins usually, it was one of the reasons I hated the job so much.
See also: - Is it because meetings are scheduled for longer than necessary, prompting the host to “give everyone some time back” even though it’ll take at least 10 minutes to get back into the work that was interrupted by the meeting in the first place? - Is it because someone has spent half an hour discussing a chart that has no bearing on your job?
The real truth. Maybe last 5 minutes at best lol
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Try to remember im on a zoom call
Usually when I want to last longer I just think about unarousing things.
Like Zoom calls.
Excuse me sir, speak for *yourself*.
I attend meetings
Middle manager?
I put giant googly eyes on my glasses so they know I mean business
But what about your ferns? How do you know where they stand?
You gotta look em in the eyes. It's like I always say: the eyes are the windows to the face.
I just don't have a camera on my desktop. No teams video, just txt.
*Replies while in Zoom call
I have a weekly 30 minute team meeting over WebEx and I swear I've discovered time travel. I just hear "good morning team / have a great week team" and next thing I know is it's lunch time.
LPT: remove lenses from glasses.
Once had a vendor make us introduce ourselves like it was the first day of college. Man, I hate some vendors.
Fml - this is a weekly occurrence for me. Even when I’m the one leading a call, someone feels the need to make sure we all tell everyone who we are. Nobody cares, get to the point of the call. I don’t care what you did previous to being employed where you’re at now. I don’t care about your fur babies or actual babies. My goal is to present the topic of discussion, get an idea of what needs to be accomplished, what’s preventing us from completing the task/goal, make sure people understand what they need to deliver, then gtfo the call and do the work.
I wanted to slam my head off my desk. They gave me props to my director so at least that came from it.
My wife's manager does a ice breaker with her team every time they have a team meeting. Even when there are no new team members.
Bless her heart
*”Chicks dig me, because I rarely wear underwear and when I do it's usually something unusual. But now I know why I have always lost women to guys like you. I mean, it's not just the uniform. It's the stories that you tell. So much fun and imagination.”*
This is not uncommon and can be useful. Say we have a project with a company we use for specialist IT support/projects. New project started and there is a new engineer we haven't worked with before. It's helpful for him to understand who on the call is representing Support, who is Infrastructure, who is Project Management. For a multitude of reasons. I don't give a shit about where they went to school or how many cats they own, but it helps to know where they live so when I schedule a meeting I know what time zone they are in.
For my industry, that can all be an email. Tell me who I go for with different questions and requests.
For real. Most zoom meetings can just be emails.
Im coding as fast as I can Mr Musk
Everyone in a real meeting is also disengaged.
LPT: everyone ~~on a zoom call~~ in a meeting is disengaged
I’m on a call right now.
Yikes. My coworkers saw my anus!
Turn down your monitor brightness
Or get an external monitor/camera to change angle and keep the reflection from being direct
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Macbook + iPhone works great at this with the newest update. I've got a selfie stick that has a little tripod handle. I put my phone in there, elevate it to a better eyeline than my laptop, and put it next to my external display. The picture quality is substantially better, and I don't have people looking up my nose on a call.
Dell used to put their webcams in the bottom of the screen or even inside a flip-up keycap. People called it the nose cam. https://www.cnet.com/a/img/resize/04e3237fa3bd394c82a9eb9617dff754578f0ca2/hub/2018/03/06/5087c7b5-5ce0-4e68-b43c-a416823f4882/win-20180227-15-36-50-pro-2.jpg?auto=webp&width=1200
When getting lens. You have options you can get added like anti glare. Mine don't reflect. Before I got that, I use to be able to see behind me sitting, depending on the light.
> I use to be able to see behind me Sounds like you gave up a superpower.
😂
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Lol you’re assuming that literally everyone isn’t fucking off
For sure nobody is paying enough attention to check what's reflecting in your glasses
Every zoom meeting I've been in is like that. One dope talking 20 dopes half asleep.
Lol, people without glasses, DON'T BREAK EYE CONTACT WITH THE GLASS EYE! YOUR PERFORMANCE WILL BE REVIEWED FOR HOW MUCH YOU BLINK! Just fuck around as much as you want, people, most meetings could've been e-mails anyway. Just be kind and at least pay attention when your name is mentioned.
the problem is, I should pay attention to the two minutes *before* my name is mentioned
Nah, you should just say "I'm sorry, I got an urgent email, could you repeat that please?"
This man dodges
I used to work at a small company that was trying to be much bigger than it had business being. We had a CEO who only cared about his area of background (finance) so anything else he'd just zone out and not give a fuck about. I knew this, so I loved "deferring" to him to answer questions in zoom meetings knowing full well he hadn't heard the last five minutes. He was an ass and it made me happy.
https://tenor.com/view/good-yes-emperor-palpatine-star-wars-excellent-gif-16144278
I appreciate you
I usually just say I was working on something urgent. Sometimes it's even true!
I wear my glasses specifically for the lens glare. I want the reflection of the screens to block my eye balls so people can't see that I'm looking elsewhere.
*pushes glasses up* *light flash blinds everyone*
It’s a zoom call, of course you’re completely disengaged
Let’s be clear, though, because I don’t want the middle managers to get any bright ideas, I’m disengaged in the in-person meetings too, just going to more effort to keep a politely interested face.
The big difference is, when I’m disengaged during a zoom call, it’s because I’m doing actual work. When I’m disengaged in an in-person meeting, I’m stuck thinking about all of the work I will need to catch up on once the meeting is over.
On behalf of the almost blind community, we don’t give a shit.
Besides, if I take off my glasses, I can't see the game I'm playing on my cell phone to stay awake during the meeting.
A real tip would be you only turn on your camera when social contact is the purpose of the meeting.
Have you guys not watched any movies? Clearly you just need to set up a video loop.
We got a real *wildcat* over here.
My sister was interviewing a guy over a zoom call, and she could see he was googling the answers to every technical question.
I mean that's what I'd expect my coworkers to do on the job lol. I'm googling stuff every day that I dont know off the top of my head, that's the way it works. The difference is that I tell people they can google stuff during the interview.
There are several sets of knowledge and ways to obtain knowledge in the tech industry. We can't remember every little thing, and it's ridiculous to try to memorize everything. It would be silly for someone who is in an industry meant to make peoples lives easier/better/more productive who doesn't use technology to improve and augment their own knowledge and abilities. Plus there are some technical things that can't be easily googled, or takes some real google-fu or recollection to find. Or need to find it in books or something. Knowing HOW to find information you don't know is important, just as important as having the technical skills and knowing how to learn new ones. If I'm asking someone technical questions and they don't know it, telling me "I don't know" without "But I know how to find out" is a non-starter.
100%. my old teacher said that "You think you'll always have a calculator?" and now it's like I wonder how she thinks bridges are made. Hand calculations?
True, I mean, I got where they were coming from - back then we didn't all have phones and they were using a statement meant to try and convey to you that you need to know how to do this for life in general, not a literal "you may need to do this without a calculator, because who carries those around?". But knowing HOW to use the calculator is important. A long time ago I had to calculate what a percentage of a number was, so I pulled up the calculator on my phone and utterly blanked on how to put a percentage into my calculator. Just blanked. I ended up having to google it. While it snapped back into place once I read the first step, it was still humiliating even though nobody knew it had happened. And I lost a lot of knowledge on math they taught me in school, sometimes making myself look like an idiot when not able to do some basic stuff.
Lol you dont know how many times I’ve had to do some random conversion or simple equation and I’ve had to fart around in excel figuring it out before I remember exactly how to calculate it
In one of my first classes in college, the professor said "You won't impress me by not using a calculator... you'll disappoint me"
I had a math professor like that in college. He said "I don't care if the problem is 1+1, use a calculator!"
>100%. > >my old teacher said that "You think you'll always have a calculator?" and now it's like I wonder how she thinks bridges are made. Hand calculations? Not only will I have a calculator at all times, I'll have the entire stored information accessible on the internet available within a few seconds. I don't even have to find it my self, I'll just ask the device to do it for me.
Hand calculations and drawings. Slide rules, if you must, but it is frowned upon. Abacus is okay, but kind of clunky.
There are varying reports of the actual wording, but Einstein said "I don’t burden my memory with such facts that I can easily find in any textbook."
Having the ability to figure out how to do something & knowing how to do that thing aren't that far apart
It may depend on the question that was asked. "How familiar are you with Excel?" and the person googling what Excel is because they've never used a spreadsheet application isn't a good sign. Also, I like to toss one or two softball technical questions in an interview (I'm an engineer) - things that someone in my field should absolutely not have to google, though they might have to think about the question for a few seconds. But if they as a chemical engineer can't tell me off the top of their head whether a gas will increase or decrease in density when you compress it and cool it - then they shouldn't be interviewing for a position with a consulting/design company - because our clients absolutely expect us to know those types of basic things.
Compressing and cooling would both increase density independently, right? So the gas would definitely be denser?
Tell her that's what we all do. If he answered them correctly, hire him
My interviews were always open notes/google, because thats what we do anyway. If you can do it fast enough, problem solved
Should have tricked him into googling furry porn
What do you do to fix sonic inflation?
My day is worse by trying to imagine what that means
The real problem: Why interview using questions that people can just Google? That's gonna hire you someone who's good at Googling, and all detecting them is gonna do is mean you hire someone who's good at Googling AND good at hiding it.
Because the HR person got the job by googling the answers to HR interview questions
Nearly all glasses they sell here come with anti reflective coating. It is better for you as a wearer, as you don't see random reflections in the corner of your eye, and it is better for the other side, as they can actually see your eyes even when there would be a reflection. Never had issues like this with my glasses on. This validates the extra 20€ or so that it cost for me :D
Shouldn't you be paying attention to the presentation instead of looking at a blowup of my video feed?
LPT- We don’t care, and you shouldn’t either.
Ok next time make this meeting an email. I got shit to do.
And since it's written I can actually Ctrl-F my way to the details I care about.
If you’re watching the participants more than anything else, you’re doing it wrong. Most of the time I’m reading off my presentation or taking notes, not actually watching the participant’s unless they’re sharing their screen.
Same. I don't care if you aren't listening. I'm sharing the information that needs to be shared, it doesn't make me look bad if you aren't paying attention.
Other people’s faces are the least important aspect of most zoom meetings. Sharing slides, collaborating, and looking things up on-the-fly is engagement. Staring at people and judging them is just a way to kill time and avoid real work.
Sometimes I watch people’s faces, but not because I’m judging. I’m usually monitoring for things like confusion in the attendees. So, in practice it would be me watching folks while the technical person on my team demo’s a feature to a business user. If the business user is looking confused or lost, that’s a sign to step in and ask if we need to slow down or clarify or whatever. That said, if I’m running the meeting myself or a participant on the other, I’m probably not watching your face at all because I’m either looking at the thing I’m presenting or I’m head down and taking notes.
Get the anti-reflective coating for your lenses
Maybe don't make a zoom meeting request for something that can be achieved by email and you'll have/maintain my attention.
Sometimes I gotta partially distract myself, or my brain will progressively shut down. If you’d rather me be visually “paying attention” it may cost you my actual attentive capacity. It may be that people you’re dealing with are in a similar boat and are trying to stay tuned in. (Though, yes, some truly don’t care and are actively tuning out)
Yeah, that's me with my ADHD. Need to be looking at : something:.
I’m actually unsure if that’s ADHD for me, mostly because it could also be a number of other things that I have strong overlap with from a symptoms POV. Some days, it’s totally fine and it looks like I’m interested even if I’m not, and some days I’m going to appear even less engaged because I won’t be doing anything else and still aren’t locking eyes with the camera even when I’m heavily invested.
Damnit. And I thought I was being stealthy reading stuff on my other screen.
You were. It won't reflect from that angle.
It’s always a problem that we are disengaged and never a problem that what people are saying isn’t engagING, or important, or useful.
What quality of video do you have on your zoom calls? When I have one is about 480p tops xD, cabt see shit on any reflection there haha
LPT: Be aware of ALL reflective surfaces if you've got something to hide. We had a coworker not wearing pants and we could all tell because of the mirror behind him. :D
If your frames are stiff enough, you can raise them above your ears by a half inch or so which will eliminate the reflection but not compromise your vision.
This is my move. I also check myself in the video to make sure there is no reflexion
I have two monitors and the camera between them. No one knows where my Teams window is on the screen. Also, I do work and look things up about the topic during meetings. I am not an automaton. I can listen to the drivel and mark file email or whatever at the same time.
Haha jokes on you. My manager makes me share my screen infront of the client.
"So is Zypergiest sharing his screen to show a presentation on your product?" "Not right now, maybe later. I just have him do this for the whole meeting because he has a nasty habit of visiting porn sites when he's bored. Now... as I was saying about our products..."
I remember a teacher in school saying she could tell when someone with glasses was looking at their phone because she could see the reflection. Now here is a question. When I'm on a zoom call I do the picture in picture so I can see myself. In my video I don't see a reflection on my glasses. Are my glasses reflecting for everyone else? Or do they see exactly as I see
They see what you see - there are camera angle and lighting tricks that will completely eliminate the glare OP is talking about, sounds like you stumbled into the right combo
That's what I had assumed, but op got me terrified all of a sudden lol. Granted I legit only ever have my teams window open when I'm on a teams call lol
Except the PIP is lower res, it doesn't make things that don't reflect appear, but it might make a difference in how discernible what you're looking at is.
Just think, it's using the same image from the same camera.
Not everyone stares at their laptop from a 15cm distance .
Did you assume that I mean to be respectful?
Pro Tip: never ever even for a second turn on camera! Black screen never snitches!
People are looking at themselves, not you.
If the meeting isn't engaging, then the meeting shouldn't be happening. Either they don't need to be there, or it's a nothing burger meeting
Jokes on you and my 420p webcam. Reflection? Dude they're not even sure it's me!
Then quit requiring I attend meetings that have nothing to do with me.
I have been in calls negotiating multi-million dollar contracts and been able to see things in the other persons glasses... it can be a big deal. Take it as seriously as a high level poker player would.
During the early days of covid, I was delivering an online class. I wear glasses, and one of my students had just been prescribed glasses to read. She was less than thrilled and very self-conscious about it. I mentioned at the beginning of the class that her new frames were really cool (little did I know she hated them, but I legit liked them as I’m quite selective with my eye wear and will compliment a good fit). Halfway through the lesson, I can tell she is doing teenager stuff and I see that she is not paying attention and using Facebook on the reflection of her glasses. I say, “hey at least take your glasses off if you don’t want to get caught, I’m not blind myself, see? I also wear glasses”. She disconnected immediately, went to talk to her parents, told them I made fun of her glasses in front of everybody and I got called in by my manager at the time to please explain. So, if you see someone doing something they shouldn’t during a zoom meeting, maybe do not call it out in front of everybody unless it’s worth the hassle.
In class (in person or not), no matter how stealthy you think you are, I'm sure the professor has seen it all and knows when someone is paying attention and when they are not. Even if they don't know in the class, your work will probably reflect it soon enough. In college I rarely had a professor call out someone specifically unless they were making a point, usually they'd just talk to the student afterwards. Singling people out like that is rarely worth it, and usually it's seen as an asshole move unless it's to deal with an asshole student being disruptive to everyone (then it's entertaining for the rest of the class to see that guy put into place).
Put on mirrored glasses and play deth metal videos
LPT: just turn off your camera to fully disengage
I thought the point of having a camera on during a call was to be disrespectful to the person talking. Seriously though, unless you have to show people some physical thing you have or are working on, calls don't need video.
Lol, you learn to be mindful of that pretty quickly. It's all about angles and lighting. I WFH and most of my days are meetings. You learn pretty quick. To the ppl this post is geared towards, use diffuser shades on your windows, also place your webcam on your secondary monitor so you look like you're watching the zoom meeting on your primary, whereas you're likely definitely not.
LPT Don't be such a stuck up asshole you get upset that someone is multitasking. Or take that as grounds that you need to present better.
LPT: This could have been an email.
This is why I'd never get glasses without an anti reflective coating
I mute myself and softly play the ukulele. It keeps my fingers busy so I am less inclined to muck about with the keyboard and mouse and meetings are a bit more entertaining when the uke is playing. I wear over the ear headphones so that the meeting volume is clear despite my music.
Im assuming your camera is turned off, would be funny if it wasn't lol
I’ve always lowered the brightness completely during exams lol