Back when Zoom recalled all their employees to the office a couple years ago, that should have been the end for them.
Their product is designed to facilitate remote work and communication and they basically advertised to the entire world that, in their minds, it’s ineffective. That was a blunder of epic proportions.
It wasn’t a blunder if it didn’t negatively impact the company.
Fair point.
Most of the people I work aren’t even in the same timezone as me. Even when in the office, we use Teams for meetings for recording and note keeping.
I don’t know if they advertise that with zoom going to the office isn’t needed, but even going to the office something like this is useful.
And any alternative to fucking teams is good by me
Those are stealth layoffs. Short sighted, but it doesn’t spook investors.
This is a terrible opinion. Just because you work in a motorcycle shop doesn’t mean you suck if you ride a bicycle. If my grandmother had wheels she would be a wheelchair.
This is a terrible comparison.
There are people who prefer the office. There are meetings better held in person. There are things you cannot do in remote, such as working together on a blackboard.
There are people who prefer the office.
Truth, no argument here
There are things you cannot do in remote, such as working together on a blackboard.
Inaccurate, you can definitely have shared drawing space remotely.
But really, none of this has to do with the comparison you made. It’s like this thread has a bunch of middle managers in it trying to justify return to office mandates or something.
Some people really hate going to the office too, and there is the saying of ‘eat your own dog food’ it seems weird that zoom, a platform for remote work, would have a giant office building. You can argue servers blah blah, but I’m not convinced that’s a data center.
The issue is not that WFH works for everyone. The issue is that RTO was mandated for everyone.
Any company that mandates RTO should pay massively higher taxes to account for the externalities — we spend trillions in higher medical and infrastructure costs, not to mention the incalculable damage to families who are robbed of precious hours together for absolutely no reason. The boards of directors of these companies should be bankrupted and thrown into gulags.
It costs society nothing to replace C-suite management, since they’re all morons. Speaking from experience, the people graduating from (and teaching at) Harvard business school are so dumb, it figuratively blew my mind.
Well if the reason you’re riding a bicycle is because you’re so utterly shit at building motorcycles they either don’t work or you don’t trust riding them, then yeah, it does matter.
No, this is more like if you managed the main branch of the git source code in email.
I hate it when someone sends me a zoom link. It tries to download some file, while there’s a tiny link to the web version available… Why would I install some program if I can just use it in my browser?
Yep I really hate this dark pattern. Don’t hide the thing you built for me to use…let me choose! Being so transparently manipulative is gross.
why would I
Because it’s slightly easier and someone at zoom HQ gets to say "I’m in!"¹ to steal all your data and stuff.
¹you have an obligation to be sporting
Because then they can’t share their root backdoor with the highest bidders.
Anybody complaining about Zoom is only doing so because they have been forced to use Teams instead.
Of course there is no non-corpo option
Woop, another zoombie 😄
Because zoom in your browser sucks.
So you should download their thick client. Which also sucks because it seems to have memory leaks on Linux. And they are always adding new bullshit features no one wants. And then force you to update their software, when you are already running late for your morning meeting calls.
Edit: it’s better than the alternatives though…
If zoom sucks in browser mode, it’s because someone higher up decided it should, just like the “continue via browser” link should be hidden until you click to “open zoom app” once
It works fine in the browser in my experience.
It works just fine unless you have to share screen. I personally hate zoom app because it gets horrible on multiple screen.
The web version has literally none of these problems. But somehow it’s the one that sucks?
Because the conservatives who populate the C-suite just about everywhere in the world have decided that control is more important than worker satisfaction or productivity.
Remote work is only for the owner class, not for the plebs
Nah, it’s that they signed multi-year leases and have to justify spending the money.
More like their friends own the building and they own their friends’ buildings and they’re all doing each other a favor to keep commercial real estate from declining.
I know that’s probably the right answer. But it’s also… something-something… optics and feels, or something else in the headspace of those in charge?
Why? As tenants they’re still paying for electricity, A/C, heat, insurance, security, and office staff. And all that gets replaced with a beefier VPN and Zoom/Teams/Slack subscription, which a lot of businesses already had back in 2019. So, paying the remainder of the lease and having everyone work from home would still save money. Plus, I bet it would be possible to pay a reduced amount up-front in order to break the lease (say 75% of the remaining months), just so the building owner could (potentially) rent the space to someone else and double-dip. The fact that this isn’t the math everyone is doing, just plain stinks.
You’re not thinking 1 quarter at a time.
Surely it must be one or the other.
For tech jobs maybe. For any office type jobs that are associated with something physical being built, in person is better for everyone.
Yeah no duh, it’s not like Zoom is targeted at eg. manufacturing jobs or that anybody is even saying remote work should be the norm for everyone
Lots of manufacturers use suppliers in different regions and countries. So zoom still makes sense for them too.
Except that’s what you said.
Remote work is only for the owner class, not for the plebs
Really doesn’t leave much room for nuance.
“Except that’s what you said.”
quote where that is not what they said
You seem to have issues with either parsing or critical reading skills.
Weird hill to die on
At least their dead i guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Lmao do they actually occupy a huge building like this
They could occupy only a portion but pay to have their name on top.
They recently made everyone return to office so probably.
To be fair, they presumably had an office before Zoom existed in a usable state.
Facts don’t matter. Emotions do. Many decision makers feel that in-person is better, and that’s the end of the discussion.
Punch them every time you see them in person so they feel pain.
The state should not have a monopoly on violence because humans only respect violence.
Let me earn the respect of my community!
I don’t see it that way. To me it seems like existing managers do not know how to manage remote teams, and you can’t tell them “you should fire all the managers and hire new ones that do” because they will never fire themselves.
That’s what they said - managers feel like remote teams are harder to manage. Doesn’t matter if that’s actually true.
No. They don’t feel that. They KNOW that THEY can’t manage them. Just like if the manager does not speak German they wouldn’t hire someone that only speaks that language
That implies they are aware that remote teams can be managed more efficiently, but that they lack the ability. I don’t think that’s true, most managers don’t seem to have that self-awareness.
Why are there pens in the hammer factory? Just because you build a tool does not mean you should use it for everything.
Note: I’m not saying you should use Zoom for anything.
Pens weren’t supposed to replace hammers.
It’s a reference to the phrase “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
Maybe they got swords and hammers confused.
Penis Mightier.
I am full time on site and 90% of our meetings are still virtual. Zoom isn’t just for remote work.
Never get high on your own supply
Servers? IT? Maintenance? If only there was a place this could be centralized for efficiency….
It is funny to imagine every employee having a server rack and cooling system to add enough capacity though.
Servers? IT? Maintenance? If only there was a place this could be centralized for efficiency….
It’s in the C L O U D Michael.
Getting mad at Zoom staff for having an office feels like getting mad at Ford staff for owning a bike.
Hey man it was my turn with the bike today!
Or like getting mad at a Ford ceo for driving a Lexus
Do you mean Ford employees can’t afford car ? Damn.
:-/
Setting aside the Blood and Soil nationalism of the authorship (gotta read this thing while listening to Tomorrow Belongs to Me to do it justice), we’re absolutely in a race to the bottom with industry wages.
Renting a colo is cheaper.
But that building is definetly not where AWS lives! /j
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/zoom-brought-workers-back-office-means/story?id=102173259
They did not give an explanation that has any specific meaning, so here we go:
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Can’t let the commercial real estate market crash, therefore, unnecessary commutes are mandatory to keep Zoom’s own loan on its office in good shape.
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Muddle Managers and C Suite people need to be able to harass and lord over people in person, or they begin to feel unfulfilled and insecure. Your suffering is their joy. They need to be able to interrupt you and waste your time with unannounced in person distractions, and when this is intermediated by physical distance and you being able to not take an unschedule video call, they can feel their ability to terrorize and neg you at any moment slipping away.
Sure, what Zoom is doing with VC platform could radically alter all of society.
We could largely cut down on traffic, commutes, rework vacant office building, or large portions of them, into basically pseudo-arcologies with chunks of residential, cafeteria / storefront, and office levels.
But, they’re a B2B focused company, so that’s the literal opposite of what they want, what they want is the status quo, but with themselves as another subscription that other businesses have to pay for.
Rent seeking, as usual.
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Same reason 7-11 stores have locks on the doors
So they can lock during the night?
Or is 7-11 misbranded 24/7?
In some locales, they’re open 24-7.
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I don’t get all this work from home shit. I much prefer being in the office.
Good for you
Go away, Bezos
