If the head of Zoom telling his employees that they have to go back to the office because it’s hard to get anything done over Zoom isn’t the height of irony, I’m pretty sure it’s high enough up there that it can tap the real height of irony on the shoulder and ask it for a meeting.
Insider first reported on the recording in which Yuan told employees within 50 miles of an office that they must report to the office a minimum of two days a week. The announcement came at a companywide meeting on August 3, during which Yuan said that it’s difficult for Zoomies—the pet name the company gives to employees—to build trust with each other on a computer screen. Yuan also reportedly added that it’s difficult to have innovative conversations and debates on the company’s own platform because it makes people too friendly.
“Over the past several years, we’ve hired so many new ‘Zoomies’ that it’s really hard to build trust,” Yuan said in the audio. “We cannot have a great conversation. We cannot debate each other well because everyone tends to be very friendly when you join a Zoom call.”
Not sure that anyone needs the opinion of a guy who has spent the last 20 years writing a blog from various bedrooms an living rooms, but honestly, it’s been pretty great to see that employees are pushing back on these forced office returns. If you want to go back, great. Have at it. Carin has started going to her office most days, as she’s mentioned here. But what I like about her company is that, so far at least, it’s taken the you guys do what works for you approach. Each day, everyone who isn’t absolutely required in there can decide how they want to work based on what life has thrown at them. that kind of flexibility should be seen as a feature, not a bug. It should also be standard operating procedure for any company that truly gives a damn about its people.
Zoomies. That makes me think of dogs running in circles. For some reason, I can’t get that visual out of my head. Pet name indeed.
I was thinking the same thing when I read it.
By the way, how long have people been calling that dog running around thing the zoomies? I’ve only started hearing it in the last year or two and I’ve spent a good bit of my life around different dog people.
I have heard puppy raisers say it for a while…like I have visions of Guelph in my head. I think anyway.
I’ve read it on the internet and heard people on the news say it when they’re showing the wacky stuff at the end of the show. Never heard a person say it in real life.