I need to rant about Teams culture

[Blueradiators]

As in, Microsoft Teams.

The constant pinging and "quick" questions are driving me potty. The interruptions!! I can't ever just get on with things because I am in a Teams meeting, or Frank wants to know if I have 2 minutes to call him and refuses to say why and then keeps me on the phone for 40 minutes, or Zainab wants to "quickly" run through the reporting slides cos she sees I have a free half hour in my diary.

Whatever happened to sending me an email? Or scheduling a meeting with an agenda so that I have time to think and prepare? Why does everyone feel entitled to an immediate response?

I am in my 30s and I genuinely don't know how this has become my life. It seems to have crept up and suddenly is everywhere. Is this just my company or are others suffering like this too? What can be done?

And if you're one of those on the offending side, WHY do you do it?!

But if you were in a physical office, they would be walking up to your desk and interrupting you. At least you can put yourself on DND on teams.

I just ignore any messages on teams until it is convenient to respond. If people are surprised I don’t respond immediately then they’ve never mentioned it. And if they send a message asking for “a quick call” I just ignore that full stop. They can tell me what they want via email or message.

Teams is yet another way for corporates to get more out of us. In the end I just left mine saying 'Offline' and no-one disturbed me. Until I left work in April. Bye bye rat race.

What industries isn’t it common in would be the quicker question to answer! Pretty much any job in the world that requires a computer and more than one person could have Teams! (Or equivalent).

Don’t worry about standing out - people will think you’re super busy and important if they can’t always get hold of you 😁

I understand how Teams is used, my question was more about the industries where staff are constantly interrupted and feel pressure to be available all the time and that unless you're online/green/whatever people assume you're skiving not working.

Ah sorry I see what you mean, I wouldn’t call that Teams culture, we have Teams and our culture isn’t like that really, I’m not sure what you’d call it though…I’m sure those industries were toxic in other ways before Teams though, but suspect Teams does allow for those kinds of workplaces to be even worse. I always hear about those mouse jigglers and it blows my mind any one feels the need to look that present?!

It's not an industry thing, it depends on the individual company. And on the individual... a lot of people in this thread seem to be self-imposing this pressure to answer immediately, rather than it being expected by the company.

Tell Frank you can talk for 10 minutes only as you have another meeting coming up.
I hate phone calls that could have been a quick message, but I also recognise its the way some people work, so I put up with it.

It's worse for those of us who have to use Teams and Email and phones and WhatsApp groups AND have to be in the office all the time. I have a constant stream of demands from all sides.

IKR! I'd never heard of mouse jigglers before MN.

Me too, I always think it's checking I am working and it's annoying. Even more annoying when they call in my non-working time. I might reply to a Teams message or email outside my working hours - in fact I even turned my computer back on and dealt with a query for someone last week - but I am not responding to unsolicited calls.

I don't like it when people send a Teams message saying "hi Igel" and then leave it hanging.

Yes, and? What do you want? Just say "Hi Igel can you do x" and I'll reply when I get a moment.

My boss has a downer on email - I don't know why it's considered to be so much worse than Teams but he clearly doesn't like having loads to do in his email inbox. So we end up with loads of messages on Teams instead.

What's really annoying is that messages get deleted after 30 days unless you remember to save them and IT won't change it (dogs and tail wags come to mind). At least emails stay for 3 years plus.

This used to stress me out but my manager just said ‘so only respond when you’re free?’ There was no expectation to always be available coming from my company it was driven by me.

I use a mixture of teams and emails and so do colleagues and bosses

Hah I work in the CS and replies on Teams are expected fairly promptly, as they would be with an email or phone call! (Although we only call on Team's, no desk phones) We just use it like any othe method of contacting someone.

Tbh my only Teams etiquette bugbear is calling people out of the blue. IMO this is only OK nowadays if there's an actual legislative or delivery emergency! Otherwise put it in a message or email and I'll deal with it momentarily.

It make some laugh how people use emojis though. We're very free and easy with them in my directorate - we happily heart emoji something from very senior leaders, with no embarrassment - some people would be mortified.

I wouldn’t worry about standing out for this - you will be demonstrating how you prioritise your workflows and time - a real positive with a boss and something I suspect a fair few will quickly want to adopt when they see how it helps

I've been a mouse jiggler when I'm reading physical reports and don't want to look like I'm not "there".

It's ridiculous.

I wish I could just log off teams and use email.

Why does anyone think you are not there? Is it not understood and accepted that you are reading physical reports?

Yes it’s very annoying when people send you quite complex “quick questions” that should have been an email.

Thing is, they know I’ve read it so feel I have to respond and interrupt my other task that I was getting on with.

The thing I do dislike about Teams is when I get dialed into a meeting unexpectedly. I answer and instead of seeing one face there's a dozen people staring at me. I find that quite stressful when I'm unprepared and expected to 'clear something up for everyone' impromptu.

I do think there's a difference between teams and email beyond what 'gets a quicker reply'. Email IMO are for things that are more official or require a paper trail e.g. purchase confirmations, client communication, emails where looping in people from other departments/management is necessary, SOP standardisation.

Teams meanwhile are for quick blurbs e.g. will you be in the office tomorrow to meet with the client, who's working on the latest commit, think the spare laptop's with X now etc.

Put yourself in Do Not Disturb. First time I did it was a revelation. Also put something into those spare half hours to stop people filling it - I just put something in like “prep for X” and then people are less inclined to leap in and take that time. Also means you show as busy on Teams.

If I need some time to focus, I create a meeting and only invite myself. I then join that meeting and leave it running in the background. Your teams status then shows you as “in a call”.

I think we have forgotten how people used to phone us randomly