<story><title>What we lost</title><url>https://randsinrepose.com/archives/what-we-lost/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tolmasky</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t buy it. I remember real meetings. They were &lt;i&gt;far&lt;/i&gt; more exhausting than any zoom call. Completely draining.&lt;p&gt;I guess the novelty of shuffling rooms every 45 minutes is enough to keep some people feeling &amp;quot;active&amp;quot;. Or perhaps some people find it &amp;quot;exciting&amp;quot; to frantically have everyone check if there are any other nearby conference rooms with space since we&amp;#x27;re getting kicked out of this one because, unlike with a video call, the fact that everyone was &amp;quot;running 5 minutes late&amp;quot; cut into an actually scarce physical resource.&lt;p&gt;But here&amp;#x27;s my hot take: that feeling you have in video calls? It&amp;#x27;s you realizing for the first time what a meeting actually is: a waste of time. Without the chit chat and running across the hall, or the sky-high concentrated CO2 clouding your judgement, the meeting is distilled to its purest form. Since you&amp;#x27;re at home, &amp;quot;going to the meeting&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t an excuse to escape your current surroundings. And since you&amp;#x27;re not walking there, the calories being burned aren&amp;#x27;t there to make you feel artificially productive when nothing &lt;i&gt;meaningful&lt;/i&gt; took place. You&amp;#x27;re just finally seeing those 45 minutes slotted haphazardly into the middle of your day for what they really are. A waste of time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>d4nt</author><text>I’m reminded of this article: Why didn&amp;#x27;t electricity immediately change manufacturing? &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bbc.co.uk&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;business-40673694&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bbc.co.uk&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;business-40673694&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the same way that swapping steam engines for electric motors didn’t yield much benefit. Just swapping real meetings for zoom meetings feels like a backwards step. But the real benefits come when you _reorganise_ your production processes around the new technology. Sadly for many middle managers, their role is disappearing and their income is dependent on them not understanding this.</text></comment>
<story><title>What we lost</title><url>https://randsinrepose.com/archives/what-we-lost/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tolmasky</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t buy it. I remember real meetings. They were &lt;i&gt;far&lt;/i&gt; more exhausting than any zoom call. Completely draining.&lt;p&gt;I guess the novelty of shuffling rooms every 45 minutes is enough to keep some people feeling &amp;quot;active&amp;quot;. Or perhaps some people find it &amp;quot;exciting&amp;quot; to frantically have everyone check if there are any other nearby conference rooms with space since we&amp;#x27;re getting kicked out of this one because, unlike with a video call, the fact that everyone was &amp;quot;running 5 minutes late&amp;quot; cut into an actually scarce physical resource.&lt;p&gt;But here&amp;#x27;s my hot take: that feeling you have in video calls? It&amp;#x27;s you realizing for the first time what a meeting actually is: a waste of time. Without the chit chat and running across the hall, or the sky-high concentrated CO2 clouding your judgement, the meeting is distilled to its purest form. Since you&amp;#x27;re at home, &amp;quot;going to the meeting&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t an excuse to escape your current surroundings. And since you&amp;#x27;re not walking there, the calories being burned aren&amp;#x27;t there to make you feel artificially productive when nothing &lt;i&gt;meaningful&lt;/i&gt; took place. You&amp;#x27;re just finally seeing those 45 minutes slotted haphazardly into the middle of your day for what they really are. A waste of time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>odonnellryan</author><text>I agree completely. And often more frequent.&lt;p&gt;It is great that people don&amp;#x27;t like online meetings. It means less meetings.&lt;p&gt;I have had very enjoyable online meetings, when the meeting is useful.&lt;p&gt;If you are having meetings all day, if that is your job, I can see how it is annoying. But that isn&amp;#x27;t most people.</text></comment>