Idling. The single most important thing I’ve lost since the pandemic started is the capability to overhear conversations.

I can no longer pick up on junior team members talking themselves into trouble and nip it in the bud, I only get exposed to that trouble by the time they’ve invested enough time into it that it becomes a much harder discussion.

When I go grab a cup of coffee I no longer overhear other teams talking about their projects, and ask them if they mind me sitting in to learn more about what they’re doing.

A lot of the organic social interactions that serve as a medium for knowledge diffusion are just gone.

> I can no longer pick up on junior team members talking themselves into trouble and nip it in the bud, I only get exposed to that trouble by the time they’ve invested enough time into it that it becomes a much harder discussion.

Perhaps the environment isn’t right for them to just ask for help?

> When I go grab a cup of coffee I no longer overhear other teams talking about their projects, and ask them if they mind me sitting in to learn more about what they’re doing.

Demo days?

> A lot of the organic social interactions that serve as a medium for knowledge diffusion are just gone.

Happy hours?

Have you joined any company happy hours with 6+ attendees?

It inevitably turns into an awkward mess. Sure you can use breakout rooms but the social happy hour via zoom/slack is not a solved problem.

Yesterday at my work they had a Christmas event where normally they hire a speaker to come to (normally in person, but now on a Teams call), and this year they brought in a lady who's a comedian and minor Canadian celebrity.

She got through the first 25 minutes or so of her routine (which was incredibly awkward -- standup does not work without a crowd, and it's just you telling jokes to your own empty living room) and eventually at one point her audio got stuck as she was saying the word "and" and it literally just kept looping her saying "and and and and and" over and over. They tried to troubleshoot it for about 10 minutes. Her video was still working, but every time they enabled her audio again it was just the looping "and and and and." I felt kinda bad for her. The whole thing felt like a plastic recreation of a real experience, and the technical difficulties at the end were emblematic of it all.

> standup does not work without a crowd

There's a Zoom comedy show my partner has been attending for 1.5 years, and she bawls every week. So, it's possible for a show to work out.

Maybe she was self-aware of the situation as well and decided to turn it into material for next joke

Since there is a sub-set of people that don't even join company happy hours in person, that feature alone could not be sufficient so.

I would change careers if I had to work in VR. I don’t like people and wfh is a dream. I’ve been doing it for 10 years and won’t ever go back.

Nothing.

Well, IRC worked well enough as a chat app back the day as well. Besides large group chats, I didn't miss any features compared to Teams. And let's be honest, those group chats aren't that productive most of the time.