The Situation: We normally all work in an office, unless someone is working from home, in which case they will remotely connect to meetings. Due to Coronavirus, we are all at home.
One of the high ranking development managers makes an announcement:
I have had feedback from my teams that they are now finding they are at their desks for large parts of the day due to back-to-back meetings.
I recommend starting meetings 5 minutes later, finishing 5 minutes earlier; ensuring a 10 minute break between all meetings.
Additionally, do not book meetings during lunch time. This is more important than ever.
Development Manager
Alright, let’s analyse this statement.
For him and his management team in the usual office scenario: they would be at their desks, then move into a physical meeting room for meetings which happen frequently throughout the day. That means they aren’t just staring at their screens, and also get a walk and change of location.
Due to the lack of meeting rooms (which have been slowly removed from us over time), and due to the fact that the Managers had them booked for all their meetings, Developers would then have to stay at their desk and hold a remote meeting instead. This meant that they are at their desks all day. They are at their desks programming, then stay at their desks for meetings. So this was a problem for most people in the office.
With the Coronovirus, everyone is now at home, and therefore everyone has to have remote meetings. We are all equal now. All the managers are all crying about being sat at their desks all day.
The reason why we (developers only) booked meetings during lunchtime – is when we needed a physical room, and it was the only time managers didn’t book their meetings. If anything, now we are at home due to Coronavirus, I think I don’t care as much about lunchtime meetings because I don’t eat consistently at home.
Do you think things will change when we get back to the office?
Or do you think – since the managers will be fine, they will forget about how the developers have to work at their expense?
Stranger Coding Tings 