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GitLab offers a nice course about transitioning to remote work. One of the items in their guidelines about online meeting is not having hybrid meetings. This is

GitLab offers a nice course about transitioning to remote work. One of the items in their guidelines about online meeting is not having hybrid meetings. This is, all those attending must attend from their own device rather than the meeting room one (see Jabra) precisely for the reasons this feature tries to address.

benterix 2y ago
Rules are meant to be broken. I've participated in many meetings where, for one reason or another, some participants couldn't join in person. Making it easier - for them and for us - is a technical challenge, and not something to be decided by an arbitrary rule.
- djtango 2y ago
  Remote is extreme and is still not the norm. It is easier to baseline on things optimised for remote then relax than try to shoehorn in person into remote which is then doomed to fail. I worked for a company that was headquartered in London and had satellite offices in Spain and Germany. After we all went remote during the pandemic the EU offices said they felt so much more engaged with the rest of the company because they were no longer disadvantaged by default for not being in HQ and in person bad habits were penalizing them
  - unixhero 2y ago
    It was for 2.5-3 entire years
    - The_Colonel 2y ago
      Personally, it was an eye-opener for me to see what difference the personal contact makes. I now prefer companies which are in-person or hybrid (which doesn't optimize for remote).
  - pquki4 2y ago
    "doomed to fail" Its definitely doomed to fail if CEOs want you to think it's doomed. Your comment is handwavy with words like "feel" and "bad habits". There are real issues with remote work, but there are also ways to mitigate the downsides of it. It's easier for some people to just dismiss the idea entirely and pretend that in-office work is the better alternative without any problems. I have definitely seen that happen in my company and here.
    - djtango 2y ago
      Yes - my response was to the rejection that rules are to be broken. I have worked there fully remote jobs and the ones that did it best fully leaned into being remote. There is no hard or fast rule, I've been in a team social where I was the only person remote and it still felt relatively natural. I've done a fully remote follow a recipe and cook at home session which was also pretty fun. I've also been in places that do the bare minimum of what constitutes remote "oh we use Zoom and screenshare" and dictate to people where everyone is cam off. And the difference is night and day. I think that a little bit of cargo culting wrt remote etiquette is probably a net good thing because I posit many people still don't know what good looks like.
  - _joel 2y ago
    "Remote is extreme". Have you seen how many jobs on the boards are remote?
Rastonbury 2y ago
It gets complicated when half a team is in the office taking the same call from their desks, easier for Gitlab because they are full remote
- unixhero 2y ago
  This does not complicate matters.
  - emptysongglass 2y ago
    It does in ways you likely don't understand. At large enterprises with satellite offices, most of us don't want to sit at our desks and annoy our coworkers who are also in-office by taking calls at our desks. That leaves meeting rooms, which are at a premium. Full single device for everyone would mean either everyone loudly shouting at their desks from within their noise canceling headphones or the company giving everyone an office with a door. As even Google doesn't do this for their employees, this is the next best thing we can do to save the sanity of our coworkers and respect remote colleagues dialing in by including them in a shared room meeting.
    - paulryanrogers 2y ago
      Perhaps headphones, cubicles, or offices per person could help?
    - vultour 2y ago
      I worked for a large company with offices all over the globe where 95% of meetings were online. I worked there for several years and don't remember anyone ever complaining about the setup, even though we were in an open office.
    - kortilla 2y ago
      Why is anyone shouting at their desk in this scenario?
    - GeneralMaximus 2y ago
deathanatos 2y ago
… no? No! That's terrible advice. The meeting room (should) have a much higher quality mic than an attendee's laptop. You want that mic. Worse, when attendees use their mic, someone in the room asks a question, which remote viewers cannot/do not hear, because it is not picked up by the mic on the laptop. Or they join and don't mute, resulting in feedback loops. I do feel the need for Google's feature though: the pandemic has meant a reduction in offices, so now we're ending up in "co-working" spaces, which — despite this being the bread and butter of the business — have in my experience alarmingly poor quality meeting rooms. To the extent that those present have given up on them. Literally, we were in one with no cabling. We asked the company for a cable, and they gave us a DP cable, but the room was HDMI. In these situations, yeah, nobody is going to want to waste the time trying to deal with getting the coworking space provider to deliver a quality product, and features like the one here help make up the difference.
- joelanman 2y ago
  Each person would ask a question on their mic, they're not using one shared laptop
  - deathanatos 2y ago
    I have literally never worked in a place with coworkers who understand VC tech well enough to understand what you're suggesting and who are diligent enough to actually do that. Getting that level of cognizance, over the entire seated body of a conference room, for the entire meeting, is unicorn territory IME.
The_Colonel 2y ago
It's optimizing for the lowest common denominator. When a majority of the team is present in office, it's silly to downgrade the experience for everyone.
- fredstar 2y ago
  You are right, but sometimes hybrid is just a reality. For us it would be an absolute game changer when you do not have to rush to find an empty meeting room or phone booith.
Unfrozen0688 2y ago
[dead]

benterix 2y ago

Rules are meant to be broken. I've participated in many meetings where, for one reason or another, some participants couldn't join in person. Making it easier - for them and for us - is a technical challenge, and not something to be decided by an arbitrary rule.

djtango 2y ago
Remote is extreme and is still not the norm. It is easier to baseline on things optimised for remote then relax than try to shoehorn in person into remote which is then doomed to fail. I worked for a company that was headquartered in London and had satellite offices in Spain and Germany. After we all went remote during the pandemic the EU offices said they felt so much more engaged with the rest of the company because they were no longer disadvantaged by default for not being in HQ and in person bad habits were penalizing them
- unixhero 2y ago
  It was for 2.5-3 entire years
  - The_Colonel 2y ago
    Personally, it was an eye-opener for me to see what difference the personal contact makes. I now prefer companies which are in-person or hybrid (which doesn't optimize for remote).
- pquki4 2y ago
  "doomed to fail" Its definitely doomed to fail if CEOs want you to think it's doomed. Your comment is handwavy with words like "feel" and "bad habits". There are real issues with remote work, but there are also ways to mitigate the downsides of it. It's easier for some people to just dismiss the idea entirely and pretend that in-office work is the better alternative without any problems. I have definitely seen that happen in my company and here.
  - djtango 2y ago
    Yes - my response was to the rejection that rules are to be broken. I have worked there fully remote jobs and the ones that did it best fully leaned into being remote. There is no hard or fast rule, I've been in a team social where I was the only person remote and it still felt relatively natural. I've done a fully remote follow a recipe and cook at home session which was also pretty fun. I've also been in places that do the bare minimum of what constitutes remote "oh we use Zoom and screenshare" and dictate to people where everyone is cam off. And the difference is night and day. I think that a little bit of cargo culting wrt remote etiquette is probably a net good thing because I posit many people still don't know what good looks like.
- _joel 2y ago
  "Remote is extreme". Have you seen how many jobs on the boards are remote?

Rastonbury 2y ago

It gets complicated when half a team is in the office taking the same call from their desks, easier for Gitlab because they are full remote

unixhero 2y ago
This does not complicate matters.
- emptysongglass 2y ago
  It does in ways you likely don't understand. At large enterprises with satellite offices, most of us don't want to sit at our desks and annoy our coworkers who are also in-office by taking calls at our desks. That leaves meeting rooms, which are at a premium. Full single device for everyone would mean either everyone loudly shouting at their desks from within their noise canceling headphones or the company giving everyone an office with a door. As even Google doesn't do this for their employees, this is the next best thing we can do to save the sanity of our coworkers and respect remote colleagues dialing in by including them in a shared room meeting.
  - paulryanrogers 2y ago
    Perhaps headphones, cubicles, or offices per person could help?
  - vultour 2y ago
    I worked for a large company with offices all over the globe where 95% of meetings were online. I worked there for several years and don't remember anyone ever complaining about the setup, even though we were in an open office.
  - kortilla 2y ago
    Why is anyone shouting at their desk in this scenario?
  - GeneralMaximus 2y ago

deathanatos 2y ago

… no? No! That's terrible advice. The meeting room (should) have a much higher quality mic than an attendee's laptop. You want that mic. Worse, when attendees use their mic, someone in the room asks a question, which remote viewers cannot/do not hear, because it is not picked up by the mic on the laptop. Or they join and don't mute, resulting in feedback loops. I do feel the need for Google's feature though: the pandemic has meant a reduction in offices, so now we're ending up in "co-working" spaces, which — despite this being the bread and butter of the business — have in my experience alarmingly poor quality meeting rooms. To the extent that those present have given up on them. Literally, we were in one with no cabling. We asked the company for a cable, and they gave us a DP cable, but the room was HDMI. In these situations, yeah, nobody is going to want to waste the time trying to deal with getting the coworking space provider to deliver a quality product, and features like the one here help make up the difference.

joelanman 2y ago
Each person would ask a question on their mic, they're not using one shared laptop
- deathanatos 2y ago
  I have literally never worked in a place with coworkers who understand VC tech well enough to understand what you're suggesting and who are diligent enough to actually do that. Getting that level of cognizance, over the entire seated body of a conference room, for the entire meeting, is unicorn territory IME.

The_Colonel 2y ago

It's optimizing for the lowest common denominator. When a majority of the team is present in office, it's silly to downgrade the experience for everyone.

fredstar 2y ago
You are right, but sometimes hybrid is just a reality. For us it would be an absolute game changer when you do not have to rush to find an empty meeting room or phone booith.

Unfrozen0688 2y ago

[dead]