this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
-44 points (13.3% liked)

Unpopular Opinion

6078 readers
128 users here now

Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!


How voting works:

Vote the opposite of the norm.


If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.



Guidelines:

Tag your post, if possible (not required)


  • If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
  • If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].


Rules:

1. NO POLITICS


Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.


2. Be civil.


Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...


Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.


5. No trolling.


This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.



Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I can't believe how many virtual meetings in the last three years that people are still sharing their screens.

People seem to share their screens in 3 situations:

  1. Showing or explaining a document. Whether it be a slideshow or written document, people seem obsessed with idea that no one else knows how to read or that they write just as incompetently as they present.
  2. Explaining procedure. I get it, things can be complicated. Learn to screen record.
  3. Collaboration. Most conferencing apps have a whiteboard or other document creation apps have real time collaboration. You just don't want to use these things because you want to be in 100% control of what's being written down. You don't want a meeting, go do your own things, if you feel obligated to turn it into a meeting you just want attention.

We all have a limited time on this earth. We're not going to remember or care about the meetings in a year or two. Go find something meaningful to do with your life. Stop sharing your screen, and even better yet, don't have the meeting at all. We're not going to look back at the end of our lives and wish we'd had more meetings.

all 18 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 59 points 6 months ago (2 children)

yup this is a dumb opinion

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Also an unpopular one.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You want play people to put in extra work to make a video and then play that video instead of presenting? Because you wouldn't present something to a group of people during an in-person meeting?

You didn't even make a cogent argument.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

That's the fastest way you can prove you're an asshole in the office.

I worked at a place where a manager refused to meet with his subordinates and instead would make and then send them videos of what he expected them to do. That did not go over well. They were all super insulated by that move.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago

Screen sharing is the whole point of a meeting. You get real-time feedback and clarification. If you aren't sharing a screen then the meeting should have been an email.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

Yeah I'm not gonna show you all my 3D CAD model as I'm not an incompetent fuck. Imma just tell you how it looks and you will imagine it.

Fair enough, this is unpopularopinion, but have you ever heard of engineering?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I don't use teams, but hard disagree. My team screenshares all the time for pair programming, and even for regular meetings, screen sharing a slide deck or basic agenda is helpful for focusing conversation. I have presented before without sharing a screen and things go off the rails really quick. Focusing attention on the topics being discussed helps keep things as brief and efficient as possible. Presenting an agenda and topics also shows professionalism and that you are trying to respect people's time by keeping things focused.

If it's an actually useless meeting... Just don't go? It's not that hard.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

This reads like

  1. Chatgpt
  2. ChatGPT
  3. CHATGPT
[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Well, this is certainly one of the takes of all time...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Did you mean one of the worst takes?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

"one of the X of all time" is a meme that's meant to evoke "damning with faint praise" by omitting a vital word (such as greatest of all time, etc.), yes.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

I think whatever meetings you're attending are probably meetings you should start skipping unless they directly impact your role. I'm getting a general sentiment that you feel like they're a waste of time, or some kind of organisational baggage.

Either way, your point on screen sharing is very most certainly unpopular. I personally think it's extremely useful, particularly for cross functional work where either team is completely unfamiliar with the other's chosen collaboration software

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Do you just not wanna be in the meeting? Sharing your screen is pretty useful

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

I know my context here is different, but sharing my screen is an easy and quick way to show how to do something. I use discord constantly to show what setting to change, or what order mods should be in for friends, or how to set up that V rising server with the save file from last time, or how to fix that weird bug that my buddy describes and I immediately recall and know how to fix.

There are times a proper video or document are better, but I'd argue only when you're showing or teaching a process to a large number of people, over a spread out period of time, like a doc on how to set up your company email for new hires or something like that.

If its a short demo in a meeting for a simple process or temporary issue, its just a huge time saver to be able to just show people how to do it right then and there. Plus a screen share can be flexible enough to answer unexpected questions or issues that a static doc might not, like if tim has his start menu on the side, or mary doesn't have the right directx version installed and you gotta swerve to fix the edge cases. Hard with a static doc or premade vid, easy with a screen share.

If it can be explained in a premade video or a slideshow it probably doesn't need to be a meeting anyways. Just send it out and deal with issues as they arise.

Of course I come at the concept more from a basic IT perspective so ymmv, but for me its a very useful and flexible tool that can save me time and make explaining things much simpler.