Death by Teams

CatmanV2

CatmanV2

Member
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48,839
makeshiftUK said:
Teams as a tool is great. What's not great is the tendency of certain folks wanting to put '30 minutes' into diaries for a Teams call when a 5 minute phone conversation would more than suffice... meetings for the sake of meetings, with a stacked calendar almost being a badge of honour i.e. look how busy and productive I am. The irony.
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This. This and this all OVER

C
 
2b1ask1

2b1ask1

Special case
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20,283
One of my long term clients has moved production to a new factory (2-years ago now) and they were making a shambles of it. June last I made my first factory visit for the client and out of that the factory have engaged me directly. Many site visits in we moved to a weekly teems meeting an hour long. Christmas Eve I sent them an invoice for all of the teems meetings and clearly it has shocked them! Well I’m not doing it for my benefit, that’s for sure.

Teams Is a management tool where they can get all their minions to reassure them how good they are and what a splendid job they are doing. Personally I hate it. Id much rather be making or fixing something.
 
mjheathcote

mjheathcote

Centenary Club
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9,038
The problem is it's too easy.
The customer calls a meeting with everyone involved and you basically have to sit smiling until your turn. Wasting time. I'm not interested in any one else's problems or issues!
You just spend too much time not being productive sat in front of a camera, and run out of time to do the things you need to do.
Teams is great so you don't have to travel several hours, sit in a meeting room, and drive several hours home.
But it's now "let's have a meeting with everyone" instead of a focused telephone call and you can get on with some proper work.
How do you tell a customer who has given you several millions pounds of work they need to pull back on their meetings and even pre meetings!!
 
AKCH01

AKCH01

Member
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168
I hosted my first augmented reality meeting on Monday, felt very surreal being sat with a few fellow peers in a digital meeting space. Very close to the real thing but also very strange.
 
midlifecrisis

midlifecrisis

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16,250
New year's Day, we had a fault on a piece of equipment that was quite easily overcome but the watch manager was hêll bent on escalating it to senior management. I just texted my boss to say that there's a fault, I'm working on it, so that he wouldn't be ambushed by the Ops people. He called straight back. I ignored it and the other engineer answered it. All I could hear was, "no we don't need a Teams meeting to talk about it, we're investigating it. No, Martin (me) is working on it now, no he can't come to the phone as he's checking something out and talking to the Operator!'.

The problem is not the tools but those in management not letting people do their job and trusting them to do it.
 
zagatoes30

zagatoes30

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20,975
Like any other tool it's how you use it, personally I prefer the time I save commuting, I attend the meetings I need to and generally they are done in 15 mins rather than the 30 mins booked. Meetings that I am asked to attend for info only I have camera off and am on mute, these times I get on with my normal job.
 
allandwf

allandwf

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10,995
midlifecrisis said:
The problem is not the tools but those in management not letting people do their job and trusting them to do it.
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I can certainly relate to that in this work climate. Every box ticked, and every eventuality documented and covered, ar** covering. It takes away the need for training, common sense and actually knowing what you are doing. I have apprentices now who will hardly ever be hands on with the majority of their time taken on admin, at least 60% of their time now.
 
Felonious Crud

Felonious Crud

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21,213
midlifecrisis said:
The problem is not the tools but those in management not letting people do their job and trusting them to do it.
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So the problem is the tools? Just human tools rather than other kinds?

I noticed that I pasted some Teams musings in the good morning thread. So I pasted them here as well.
__
Another 8-hour strategy workshop thingy today on Teams. Luckily I have a fantastic bunch of colleagues so it doesn't really feel like a massive pita, which is nice. It also saves the faff of busting my bollox to drag my ** to some faraway land to do the same thing. Better for my liver, too. But I still miss seeing real 3d humans and I think the metaverse is **.

PS - wrong thread for the Teams bit. Maybe I'll paste it. So many decisions. I'll arrange a one hour call to run my idea up the flagpole and see who salutes it. Come and take a swim in my think tank, etc.
 
dickygrace

dickygrace

www.richardgracecars.co.uk
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7,342
I do feel very fortunate to never have to use Zoom or Teams. Parents evening was my introduction to it.
 
philw696

philw696

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25,535
Well I'm glad I now work on my own and self employed again that's for sure I have absolute freedom.
 
GeoffCapes

GeoffCapes

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14,000
Everyone has their own views on using 'virtual' meetings, I guess if they're worthwhile, they're worth having, if they're pointless they're not.

For me my two this afternoon save me travelling to Italy and Greece. Which for a holiday would be nice, but just for an hour or so meeting would be a ball ache.
 
Harry

Harry

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1,179
AKCH01 said:
I hosted my first augmented reality meeting on Monday, felt very surreal being sat with a few fellow peers in a digital meeting space. Very close to the real thing but also very strange.
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Sounds very Kingsman to me. Did you all wear Cutler and Gross spectacles?
 
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