Remote Jobs That Promised Async Still Book Back-to-Back Meetings
71 posts across 24 communities in the last 30 days; 37% from r/remotework.
“We're working remotely. Most of my coworkers are based in the US. There are some bandwidth/audio issues and time zone issues because we're all using cloud services. Everyone speaks English okay, and that's not really the issue. But honestly, I completely don't understand how…”
“Early stage, just use email. Seriously. A shared inbox (even Gmail with a label) beats any help desk until you're past ~50 tickets a month. The overhead of configuring Zendesk or Intercom before you have volume is wasted time. For stuck customers, a quick Loom video where you…”
“If you have no idea if work is getting done, because you cannot see your employee, the issue is with your processes not the employee. [re: A Remote Employee Refused 160 Webcam Photos a Day. Her Employer Fired Her]”
Remote employees are experiencing a frustrating disconnect between promised async work cultures and the reality of constant meetings, distractions, and a lack of visibility. This leads to wasted time, increased mental fatigue, and a feeling of being micromanaged or distrusted, despite delivering results. The pressure to appear 'busy' in virtual settings is counterproductive.
SOURCES (60)
“thank you! seems like a lot of us have sat through the same meetings :D [re: I made a live meeting cost ticker. It’s very uncomfortable to watch.]”
“是什么会议持续这么久.偶尔一次特别重要的，那没办法。不是非紧急情况都主持人有问题。 [re: Meetings run for 4-5 hours straight with no breaks - is this normal?]”
“I call my job “remote resentful.” They allow two remote days but constantly remind us how *~blessed we are to have it, and then will randomly schedule “mandatory” meetings on our remote days and say the expectation is to be in person and that you are required to work the entire day in person for that one meeting, with no makeups for the remote days. I believe they only offer these remote days because parents (and others, but especially parents) have said they’ll quit if they have zero remote fle”
“We're working remotely. Most of my coworkers are based in the US. There are some bandwidth/audio issues and time zone issues because we're all using cloud services. Everyone speaks English okay, and that's not really the issue. But honestly, I completely don't understand how anyone in our meetings can follow each other. People talk way too fast, they don't take breaths between sentences, they don't slow down, they don't explain things clearly, and they don't under”
“Rotating the slot helps but the 11pm person still loses their evening. What worked better for us was not making them join live at all, a recording plus a short written recap so they catch up next morning [re: Built a small Outlook tool to rotate recurring meeting times so the same global teammates don’t always get stuck with the late-night slot]”
“I block a 1/2 hour at the end of each day to recap the day and find any to-dos from all the meetings I attended. But I usually end up missing the blocks and working on something else. [re: Do you block time to review and take notes for the week?]”
“I used to block out hours to make it look like i was busy. Just did it to avoid useless meetings constantly. Protected my sanity a little bit [re: Do you block time to review and take notes for the week?]”
“I’m “in person three times a week” wink wink Really I go in 3x a year. They’re starting to give me a hard time about it, but I’m not budging. [re: How “lax” is your companies hybrid or remote environment?]”
“Early stage, just use email. Seriously. A shared inbox (even Gmail with a label) beats any help desk until you're past ~50 tickets a month. The overhead of configuring Zendesk or Intercom before you have volume is wasted time. For stuck customers, a quick Loom video where you screen-share their issue saves more time than scheduling calls. Most people don't want a call, they just want their problem solved. I run support myself while building. Painful but the feedback loop is worth it at t”
“Remote project manager for corporate/ global so if my stuff doesnt get done its pretty visible. My manager isn't in my country. I work very flexible hours and just block my calendar when I'm out. So I can be at my kids events and games, but sometimes I'm working from the stands, or meeting at very odd hours. I would need to take a flight to the closest office if I had to badge in. [re: How “lax” is your companies hybrid or remote environment?]”
“Teams I was on would not want the meeting/sync/call times changed. Everyone got a schedule working and consistency from week to week, month to month, helped make it work. Some came to work at 3am and others at 9am and some others 5pm, and everyone had the meeting at the same local time every week. It would have been a total pain if my weekly meeting was at a different time every week, I wouldn't be able to create a work routine that stayed week to week. [re: Built a small Outlook tool to rot”
“Could be, but either way that level of monitoring sounds pretty excessive [re: Does anybody else have a boss who requires you to be on call with them all day?]”
“Pretty much, though a remote dev day is going to look like alot of meetings and watching someone type. [re: "Take your child to work" day for remote workers. How?]”
“That's the dream setup; anything more than that turns into backround surveillance pretty quick. [re: Does anybody else have a boss who requires you to be on call with them all day?]”
“I'll try to make this as short and sweet as possible. I work remotely in my very specific history-focused field. It's the same field of my studies. The organization I work for is a leader in the field. There are travel opportunities for work, and my boss isn't overbearing. I like my day-to-day work. However, there aren't many opportunities for career advancement. I've been working with the same people since I graduated college eight years ago. I was promoted once, but I'm”
“Calling it a trade-off is the right framing; otherwise the meeting magically becomes invisible labor on your calender. [re: Does anybody else have a boss who requires you to be on call with them all day?]”
“So you measure productivity by being sat in a seat. Christ. What happened to setting tangible targets and measuring them. [re: A Remote Employee Refused 160 Webcam Photos a Day. Her Employer Fired Her]”
“yep, people not paying attention is usually a sign the meeting isnt relevant to them [re: Cell phone use during meetings]”
“For grade 9, I'd just clear one non-confidental meeting with your manager and let them see the boring parts too, because remote software work is mostly calendar invites and Slack archaeology. [re: "Take your child to work" day for remote workers. How?]”
“An all-day Google Meet for retros is basically an open office with worse audio and no escape buttom. [re: Does anybody else have a boss who requires you to be on call with them all day?]”
“this is just for 2 people doing the same productivity work, one person is typing the other person just giving directions... people are overthinking this [re: Which Remote desktop solution is the most usable for multi-screen fullscreen co-working?]”
“This, "...function as a PMO for central team meetings.", reads to me as, "Be the note taker and send meeting notes and actions.". So, to do this well, if they really want more, I would build the agenda with the meeting owner or team, call out the agenda at the start of each meeting, work down each item, let folks talk, watch for sidebar and off track talk and ask that it be tabled, send a summary. Godspeed. [re: New to PMO and need Advice]”
“An all-day Google Meet for retros and planning is just an open office with worse audio and more tabs opeen. [re: Does anybody else have a boss who requires you to be on call with them all day?]”
“If you have no idea if work is getting done, because you cannot see your employee, the issue is with your processes not the employee. [re: A Remote Employee Refused 160 Webcam Photos a Day. Her Employer Fired Her]”
“No, but I’ve heard friends talk about having 4-hour calls with their bosses, and that’s just crazy to me. I feel like you could spend that time on way more useful things. What could you possibly have to talk about for that long?? [re: Does anybody else have a boss who requires you to be on call with them all day?]”
“I close my laptop after 10 hours a day. And leave meetings when they're over and I spend a lot of time to enable my team to be able to "only" work 40 hours a week by protecting them from all the stuff that rains down on us. For my team: I force them to bring me stackranked lists of things so I know what's getting done first and what falls off the table if it doesn't. The big mistake that a lot of people do is that they define things important equally but never stackrank the”
“I can feel it. While I am not sure, if you have meetings with your client, but if you do, do have a priority decided together in a call: Make the list of items that you think is the work we need to do. Access them together with client. Make a list, and send an email outlining the priority, have a discussion with team, and send client the timeline setting a clear expectation. Ensure you update them once a week at-least with progress. That way you will slowly start wining your client trust. And mo”
“If I have to use the restroom or get coffee, I am in a meeting for Teams purposes. [re: Can we talk about the toxic culture of needing to look Active on Slack/Teams 24/7?]”
“Senior PM in aerospace. When my work day is done, the computer goes off and my work phone doesn't come with me. I'll make the odd exception as needed for say different time zones or unexpected trouble (e.g. something is down in Production) but other than that I just try to stick to my boundaries and limit myself to 40h / week. [re: for those that work 40 hours a week, no fire drills - what do you do?]”
“Oh shit that’s smart! [re: Can we talk about the toxic culture of needing to look Active on Slack/Teams 24/7?]”
“Mine are coming down on me saying my computer on time is less than my productive time, yet my computer is always on during work hours! So how is that even happening?! I'm so tired of the micromanaging, yet I finish my assigned work before lunch. And then still have to find things to do until EOD. Now they're also saying try to plan bathroom times during breaks. I'm back office. It's hell. [re: Can we talk about the toxic culture of needing to look Active on Slack/Teams 24/7?]”
“I didn’t know you could change the setting? [re: Can we talk about the toxic culture of needing to look Active on Slack/Teams 24/7?]”
“Last week I got a meeting invite titled “Business Updates” and everything unfolded as expected. It wasn’t a meeting just for me though. I have no idea how many people were in the room since it was delivered through Zoom seminar - no questions or chatting back. I’m torn because I am in a strange position where I feel like my company did everything as professionally as possible but at the same time I worked for the company for 15 years and it’s very jarring going from daily activity and a very set”
“Last week I got a meeting invite titled “Business Updates” and everything unfolded as expected. It wasn’t a meeting just for me though. I have no idea how many people were in the room since it was delivered through Zoom seminar - no questions or chatting back. I’m torn because I am in a strange position where I feel like my company did everything as professionally as possible but at the same time I worked for the company for 15 years and it’s very jarring going from daily activity and a very set”
“Been remote for 5 years now. Every team I’ve been on the rule has been “Be available during core working hours, attend necessary meetings, keep the customer happy, deliver on time”.. outside of that when and how we complete our work is up to us. [re: Does anybody else have a boss who requires you to be on call with them all day?]”
“that's how it should be, constant calls just kill any chance of deep focus [re: Does anybody else have a boss who requires you to be on call with them all day?]”
“I sign out of Teams unless I'm joining a meeting. We got slack too but I have it on my phone. I never set it to away until I'm off shift. I use Caffeine in browser extension to keep my screen awake. I'm in IT idgaf. [re: Can we talk about the toxic culture of needing to look Active on Slack/Teams 24/7?]”
“We had a meeting room that was always open, a way to jump into collab any time, but never required and often dead. Then it died [re: Does anybody else have a boss who requires you to be on call with them all day?]”
“It isn’t new. It’s a work culture thing. [re: Can we talk about the toxic culture of needing to look Active on Slack/Teams 24/7?]”
“Dang, you get 10 minutes? I only get 5 before it turns yellow [re: Can we talk about the toxic culture of needing to look Active on Slack/Teams 24/7?]”
“We have a team call on Mondays and outside of that I can go weeks without speaking directly to him (although teams group chat is fairly consistent) [re: Does anybody else have a boss who requires you to be on call with them all day?]”
“Block your calender as Focus so the green dot isn't the only signal people see. [re: Can we talk about the toxic culture of needing to look Active on Slack/Teams 24/7?]”
“Omg yes! [re: Can we talk about the toxic culture of needing to look Active on Slack/Teams 24/7?]”
“I'm chairing a small committee where we're trying to get a program certificate approved. The other day, we met to review comments made on our proposal. I feel like every 5-10 minutes, I have to refocus people, INCLUDING MY CHAIR. Conversations can go in a lot of different directions, and I find myself having to say things like, "So...if we look at the document". I'm being considered for chair next year, so I feel like this is practice. Any thoughts? Is this the norm? Or is”
“This is so true and its actually worse now with remote work i think. When everyone is just a face on zoom the only thing that matters is if you click with the interviewer. I had interview last month where i answered everything perfect but the guy just seemed bored the whole time, never heard back obviously my last job i got because the manager and me both had cats and we talked about it for 15 minutes before the actual interview started. the whole system is broken but nobody wants to admit it [r”
“Tell your team/manager explicitly when you do focus blocks ("heads down on X 1-3pm, ping me if urgent") and set your Slack status/notifications to match, so if anyone questions the yellow dot you can point to an agreed way of working instead of silently stressing about it. [re: Can we talk about the toxic culture of needing to look Active on Slack/Teams 24/7?]”
“I have noticed a really exhausting trend in remote culture lately: the obsession with the green dot.If I step away for 10 minutes to grab water or clear my head, my status goes idle, and I instantly feel this weird wave of anxiety. It feels like we've traded physical clock-ins for constant digital presenteeism. True productivity isn't measured by how fast you can type a response to a non-urgent message, yet the pressure to constantly babysit the app is real.I’m trying to train myself to”
“They’re doing it all wrong You schedule half an hour, take 5 minutes and feet up for the rest of the time [re: Middle management really needs to stop scheduling 30 min meetings for 10 second updates]”
“So your take is that CEOs are doomscrolling tiktok and saw all these wfh people wasting time? [re: Remote Work - The Bad Apples spoiled the bunch]”
“my manager does 30 minute syncs for literally every minor update that could be a single slack message. so tired of it. last week we spent 20 minutes discussing (not even joking) background color shades on a slide deck that only internal directors will see. I just started joining these calls on mute and letting the meetassist bot do the transcription and summarize the main points - and they look even more ridiculous when summarized. last time it literally turned 25 minutes of circular talking int”
omg I love this! [re: Remote Work - The Bad Apples spoiled the bunch]
“i started doing that with transcript bots too and it's wild how much of these calls is just people thinking out loud while the clock runs [re: Middle management really needs to stop scheduling 30 min meetings for 10 second updates]”
“Ive been so lucky that my last few bosses when there's a lot of downtime I can read and/or leave early. Like brenda yea there's definitely some organization projects I could do but let's be real the only person that it benefits is me and to waste time to move a bunch of things to binders instead of the filing cabinet.”
“That's exactly the part that bugs me too. What makes the silent Zoom rooms awkward for you? I'm working on something around this and would love to hear how you work, if you'd be up for a short chat.”
“It's bad enough the TikTok crowd ruined remote work for the rest of us - Now not only are companies reluctant to even consider remote work - the ones that do are now loading remote workers down with work because of these trust issues. I never had "busy work" until you idiots came out everywhere bragging about "Now I can shower/work out/visit/have company/play with my pets/video games/catch up on tv shows/have sex" etc. Congratulations. Good job, you ruined it for the rest”