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submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

Leaked Zoom all-hands: CEO says employees must return to offices because they can't be as innovative or get to know each other on Zoom::Zoom CEO Eric Yuan discussed the benefits of in-person work in a leaked meeting.

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[-] ladicius@lemmy.world 355 points 1 year ago

Ice cream factory urges its employees not to eat ice cream.

[-] FoxBJK@midwest.social 124 points 1 year ago

Dog food company doesn't want to serve its food to their own dogs 🤔

[-] mustardman@discuss.tchncs.de 48 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
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[-] silvercove@lemdro.id 303 points 1 year ago

Zoom CEO says that his companies product is trash.

[-] hudson@sh.itjust.works 83 points 1 year ago

“No, no, you misunderstood! I’m just terrible at my job!"

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[-] echo64@lemmy.world 221 points 1 year ago

I'm going to choose to believe the CEO is actively trying to tank the share price for some reason. This is approaching get fired or sued by shareholders level.

[-] ramble81@lemm.ee 143 points 1 year ago

Either that or a forced reduction in workforce without having to do layoffs.

[-] CirrhosesTheGreat@lemmy.world 98 points 1 year ago

It’s this. All the tech companies overexpanded during COVID when free investment money was everywhere. Now they’re all over staffed and want employees to self select out of employment rather than announce widespread layoffs. Meanwhile ruining life for everyone who can’t afford to quit.

[-] StandingCat@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago

That and seeing corporate real estate tanking. Its in the best interest of anyone who owns an office space to encourage return to work to try to help prop up the market long enough to exit.

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[-] DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world 170 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Why tf do out of touch executives and managers always think that we want to make friends at work? I don't really care to know any of my coworkers, I just want to do my job in a professional manner, get paid well for it, and then either go home or close the laptop and leave my home office.

Also the only creativity that the office gives me is how to creatively get around the Internet restrictions they place on us, or how to creatively appear to be working when there's nothing to do.

If I wanted to make friends I'd go to a bar or something else that adults do together in groups, like bowling leagues.

[-] lechatron@lemmy.today 79 points 1 year ago

Why tf do out of touch executives and managers always think that we want to make friends at work?

Because it's the type of people they are, and they think everyone is just like them. I worked a corporate job for 10 years and saw a lot of people who made the company their whole identity. Their whole friend group was their co-workers.

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[-] HallowellNash@lemmy.world 142 points 1 year ago

Glad I'm not a stockholder, since the CEO basically says their only product, remote connectivity, stifles innovation and connection. What a world.

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[-] Arbiter@lemmy.world 142 points 1 year ago

They should try using Teams, should solve the problem.

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[-] soulfirethewolf@lemdro.id 117 points 1 year ago

CEO can't even eat its own dog food. How pathetic

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[-] Zummy@lemmy.world 112 points 1 year ago

The fact of the matter is when your company revolves around you being able to communicate and work from anywhere, it is a bad look for you tell people you can’t communicate effectively over the product you make. Anyone who knows business should know this and should know to keep their mouth shut and their policies focused on trying to destroy business.

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[-] unsaid0415@szmer.info 109 points 1 year ago

man i just spent 30m this morning telling jokes to my remote coworker over slack, I've seen him only once in my life, according to this CEO I couldn't have possibly gotten to know him.

Funny watching the CEOs trying to do the verbal splits, coming up with excuses where it's just "waah we're paying for an office that nobody uses :("

we have nothing to lose but our commutes

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[-] ToAllPointsWest@lemmy.world 96 points 1 year ago

Well that was an impressive way to destroy your entire business model

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[-] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 92 points 1 year ago

I don't get corporate blokes.

They spend their whole working hours finding ways to increase profits by reducing costs everywhere, to the detriment of the company even. Then we finally give them an easy way to reduce costs that make the employees happy, by removing the need for real estate. And they do a complete 180° to not do so?

Even if they have a lease of multiple years, not having to heat/cool the building nor pay the electricity is still cheaper.

Is it really about micromanagement?

[-] Zeron@lemmy.world 46 points 1 year ago

At this point i'm convinced it's more about the fact these higher ups have skin in the real estate game. They either know the people who lease their properties, or are heavily invested in the property itself. So they can't get past the mental block that is the sunk cost fallacy to just ditch it, or lose "good boy points" with their rich peers by saying they don't need the property anymore.

I guess it's also harder to brag to your rich friends how big your company is when you have less physical locations too, but at this point i'm just grasping. The amount of money these companies could save it massive, but they just absolutely refuse to do it for whatever reason.

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[-] vasametropolis@lemmy.world 90 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ya, this guy is toast. He just told the world he thinks his product sucks - the sane know he's wrong at least.

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[-] Facebones@reddthat.com 86 points 1 year ago

The number of jobs I've missed out on and lost exclusively because I'm not normative enough to tell milquetoast jokes around a water cooler with a bunch of people I know two facts about but treat like my best friend numbers in the 100s.

Fuck all these people trying to force the old ways forever just so they can exercise their social capital upon the rest of us.

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[-] Poob@lemmy.ca 85 points 1 year ago

Socialization is always brought up as an excuse not to allow WFH. The thing is though, replacing real socialization with work fucking blows. Talking to a coworker to get the latest TPS report isn't socialization. It's work. The only time you do any real socialization is after work ends. And there's nothing stopping you from going out to dinner with coworkers when you work from home.

[-] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 40 points 1 year ago

Arguably you're worse off if most of your socialization is from work. It just leaves you lonely and tired back home.

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[-] terminhell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 84 points 1 year ago

I don't want to 'get to know' my coworkers. I'm not there for friendships, or a pseudo family. I'm there to do a job and be paid for it.

But, this might just be my introvert side.

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[-] Clbull@lemmy.world 82 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's not about improving productivity, increasing innovation or 'sharing best practice', as a former workplace put it. Corporations are forcing a return to office work in an attempt to curb a post-COVID real estate crash - which we honestly need since we have far too many luxury offices being built and not enough homes.

For one place where I used to work, RTO drove down staff morale to an all-time low (already low due to high workloads and bad wages) and pushed the staff turnover rate in my department to 95%. They ended up having to outsource the function to an overseas firm.

[-] LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 43 points 1 year ago

Geez sure sounds like this real estate market should be like. Heavily controlled and limited by the government. So that objectively good things, like less daily commuting and therefore less greenhouse emissions, can happen without toppling society.

I will never work in an office again. I literally couldn't afford my rent and my food costs if I also had to afford a daily gas expense. I am very much not alone in this.

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[-] elbrar@pawb.social 76 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ya know, I'm not super happy with my salary (they're really bad at keeping up with inflation), but ... the promise of permanent WFH (we are actively getting rid of our last office, and hiring fully remote) with ability to live in ~half of the states without salary adjustment is basically keeping me complacent for now.

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[-] Grant_M@lemmy.ca 67 points 1 year ago

At first, I thought this was an Onion story

[-] Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me 61 points 1 year ago

I've been working remotely for over 10 years. Even without Zoom, it's never been a problem. I've met people and developed many relationships with just Slack. Heck I'm sure I'd manage that even with just email.

When I finally met everyone in person at the company retreat, everyone was super happy to know me in person. I was about exactly as they imagined.

Company culture is how you develop it. At every company I've worked with, I introduced social channels and established a continuous background chatter that's for people to share memes or whatever they want, to help establish a personnality that goes beyond "I just deployed X which puts project Y live on production". I have DMs with all sorts of people from all departments, just idle occasional chatter. It makes connections with other departments when you need their help. It works. I always somehow become the guy to reach out to for anything that doesn't necessarily fit a Jira ticket, or sometimes just need help making sure they file the right kind of ticket.

If it doesn't work, then either you have hermits that wouldn't be much more active in an office anyway, or the company is holding it back by discouraging or forbidding any sort of unprofessional or otherwise non-work related activity and the only way to socialize is in the break room in the office.

IMO idle chats on Slack are way less disruptive than in-person, it doesn't take you off your work stretch, you can send replies during Zoom meetings, you can even have textual side threads during a video meeting to go over details without holding the meeting for everyone. Sometimes I have hours long conversations going about projects on Slack, with everyone essentially just chiming in whenever they have new ideas or feedback. It gives people time to think and refine the specs without any "now or never" pressure.

Remote work works, if it doesn't work, it's a company culture problem not an office problem.

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[-] rafadc@hackers.surf 52 points 1 year ago

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190625005362/en/Zoom-Expands-Its-Lease-at-KBS%E2%80%99-The-Almaden-to-More-than-87000-Square-Feet

  • Hey, I need to expand my lease.

  • it is X amount of money

  • What if I commit 10 years

  • it is X/2

  • Deal!

  • Oh, he reduced costs and increased footprint. He is a genius!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/zoom-offices-hybrid-remote-work-11661977375

  • Well. Out workers are remote. What the hell do we do with the office?
  • Eeerrrrr. Ok let people have fun.
  • But we are starting to need ways of saving costs. What do we do?
  • The plan was always to return to office.
  • Let's do that, then.

Older than life. A situation changes and somebody whose personal interests are over the groups interests.

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[-] iforgotmyinstance@lemmy.world 47 points 1 year ago

It's purely about control. WFH is cheaper and more efficient.

[-] Arbiter@lemmy.world 46 points 1 year ago

maybe they should use teams

[-] AbsolutelyNotCats@lemdro.id 45 points 1 year ago

If my work told me i needed to be on the office even a day a week, i would be searching for another job immediately

They want even your time off

[-] cloud@lazysoci.al 45 points 1 year ago

Doesn't matter what you think, Big techs ceos are laughing their ass off every time their products gets mentioned and reach the frontpage. Purge their ads and remove their visibility

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[-] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 43 points 1 year ago

2010 is the year we started going full "remote work" and we sold our office building in 2012. Since then we have somehow managed to thrive and innovate like crazy. I am pretty sure these guys know that what they are saying is bullshit, at least as it relates to tech. Creatives, maybe, but in tech it is far easier to screenshare and discuss than it is to lean over some dude's shoulder to look at their screen...in dark mode...with nano fonts.

[-] saltesc@lemmy.world 41 points 1 year ago

I mean, the guy that heads Teams literally said meetings and subsequent overuse of Teams due to ease of making and doing meetings, is a productivity killer.

[-] killeronthecorner@lemmy.world 41 points 1 year ago

I agree. The problem is meetings.

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[-] root@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago

Dang, I just applied to a couple positions there. I'll go ahead and retract those :D

[-] foggy@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago

Someone is getting tired of paying for HVAC, electricity, and plumbing for a vacant office building 😢

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[-] books@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago

He's not wrong, remote meetings do suck for getting to know your coworkers, but that's not a great reason for rtw

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[-] James@lemmy.ca 30 points 1 year ago

His argument is essentially that people are not toxic enough in online meetings to innovate.

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[-] Gestrid@lemmy.ca 30 points 1 year ago

I mean, scientifically speaking, they're not wrong. Physical contact with another person causes trust to grow because it causes oxytocin secretion.

But it's still funny that the owner of a video calling company is telling people to go back to the office.

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this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
1780 points (98.7% liked)

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