AIBU to not care about pleasantries with colleagues?

[mamabeeboo]

Just wanting some opinions on this.

We are a team of 8 and all work remotely, since the pandemic. Each week, we have a one hour team call where we 'don't talk about work'. We also have a whatsapp group.

This is a one hour call to replace the office coffee chat, where we share photos on our whatsapp group about our 'highlights' of the week - holiday photos, the kids in the park, birthdays, netflix recommendations etc.

I find it very superficial. I don't like sharing photos of my kids or personal life, and to be honest, I don't really care about anyone else's personal life. I don't even download any of their photos to my phone. I listen politely but the whole call is very boring for me. When it's my turn to speak, I blag a short 'I did this, it was nice', 60 secs max.

I've suggested to management to do this every 2 weeks, answer no. I have suggested that I want to only attend sometimes, and was met with 'please try to prioritise this call, since we work remotely and it's the way to get to know the team'.

I am used to the office chit-chat over coffee about nice weather and traffic complaints. That's it.

AIBU to not care about colleagues' personal life and want to not join these calls?

@HelplessSoul well I don't know what the OPs job is so I can't comment on whether it's useful to her job or not.
I just don't see the issue. If her required work gets done and this is part of her paid day then why is it such a problem?
I used to be very shy and a one point in my life I would have struggled with something like this - but also in my job this wasn't something we could really do at work so at work I often felt isolated and lonely.
I now realise how important things like this can actually be and would have loved to be paid to chat about watching Bridgerton or the last book I read.

Re-read the OPs post.

OP has been clear why they think its a waste of time (and I agree).

Sounds extremely tedious! These things are completely unorganic - it does not emulate normal social interaction in the slightest. I would have something else up on my screen and be quietly reading that until 'my turn'.

@HelplessSoul all she says is she doesn't want to share her private life and isn't interested in other people's. Yep...ok.
But she is being PAID to zone out for an hour and say something that's not exactly an invasion of her privacy like "Yep still halfway through the Bridgerton books....not done much else this week" and then go back to Zoning out.

It’s a duty of care and mental health thing more than anything else. You may have a DH and children and a full social life of people to speak to on a daily basis and that’s great for you, but there could equally be a member of your team who lives alone and speaks to absolutely nobody for days on end and when wfh misses out on any office chat. It’s important for those people.

@Notaboozy well this is part of the reason why employers want workers to actually come to work rather than WFH.
We are at risk of becoming isolated pod people.

1hr a week is too much for just non work chat. Why not have a team meeting once a week and tag 15mins on the end or do this once a month?

YABU. I've just spent a day working closely with my team in a quite high pressure task, but we relaxed & had an hour off for lunch, and I thought how lucky I was to be working with such decent nice people. I know this because we chit chat & tell each other about bits of our lives - we're normal sociable humans (as a species humans are social animals). Nothing heavy, but pleasant.

Swapping stories or bits of non-work related information makes work better &v easier.

The only thing that I think your team should think about changing is that it's an HOUR long Teams call. That's too long & it could feel pressured. What about starting one meeting every couple of days 15 minutes earlier for catching up, so that it's a quick chitchat every few days?

You struggle with the concept of collective, yes?

They aren't being asked to do it outside of their working hours, and it isn't an unreasonable expectation.

I choose to keep my part short because it's intrusive (I also question how much other people care). But others drone on. Someone was speaking for 20 mins about their kitchen renovation, going through all the photos they sent on WhatsApp. And it's exhausting to listen, smile, nod along, being polite. Whilst emails are pinging in the background. If this was the office, I'd have made my excuses and gone back to my desk.

After each monologue, we are asked "so does anyone have any questions?". It's not an organic conversation. At times I want to laugh cos it's ridiculous.

At the moment, it's very busy for me and the team. We don't have a full hour to BS about. But according to management,this is a priority for getting to know the team.

If other people's MH are struggling and they need the social interaction, then maybe don't get a Wfh job.

Id rather do a quiz or bingo than endure the conversation and I love a chat.

I like this. It would seem more organic. Rather than this virtual "circle time".

I would hate it too but would think of the money instead, to get me through it. I would try to think "at least I'm getting paid just to listen to this and nod occasionally". There are worse ways to earn an hours pay.

Trouble is that your 20 minute kitchen description takes up most or all of it, then somebody else goes on about their instaworthy life, but some of the less confident but wanting/needing to communicate or connect with people (and plenty of ND people do want to engage & can & do develop skills in the workplace environment that they didn't previously) just won't ever get to the point of being able to say anything.

I don't think chit chat really works over teams. Especially if it is more than maybe 4 people. We have a weekly voluntary coffee break with the team. I attended once and it was so not organic and everyone didn't have space. Reason coffee break works is that you can have several small conversations

Totally agree. I loathe these type of things. We had virtual coffee chats like this during Covid. They were voluntary fortunately so we could dip out. Ours was hijacked by the same people who monopolised it. I'm not interested in your dog or your children. Surprisingly some people don't want to share their private life. Yours sounds even worse. Luckily they've stopped now we're hybrid. I have friends at work. The others are just colleagues and I just want to get on with my job. If people are lonely at home they need to get a job outside the home.

I agree OP, managed to get a lot of chat during daily catch up calls with my remote team. We don't need an hour long (!) social call.
30 mins every 2 weeks if they insist would suffice and conversation needs to be more structured to keep flowing

Oh for goodness sake. OP just wants to do her job. She's not there to sort the mental health of her colleagues.

100% this.

I wouldn’t like this but I couldn’t do a job where I had to WFH, it would be just awful.

It's an hour a week! You don't have to share any personal information or photos but at least show willing.
It might not matter to you but you have to accept that people work very differently and for some people sharing pleasantries is a very important part of the way they work and form working relationships. Also I think you will find you're in the minority in not missing at least some of the personal interactions that are missing while WFH. I wouldn't go back to full time office but I do find WFH lonely at times and I'm quite introverted and happy with my own company!

To add, the additional positives of having a coffee break, like getting away from the desk, looking away from the screen, stretching your legs, clearly doesn't happen.

One person in the team got made redundant earlier this year, and was just removed from the whatsapp group, no one talks about her anymore...just disappeared. I find it strange to try to understand if they either care or they don't.

This bit is easy to explain- they only care because some people need the social interaction in order to work effectively in a team. It’s all about the work. That person is no longer involved in the work so no need to care about their happiness any more. At least not via a work forum.

I wouldn't do it. I talk to the colleagues I want to talk to and share some of my life. I wouldn't want all my colleagues knowing.

In my experience all this chummyness is a smokescreen when your manager makes you do it. Some dear colleagues are there for me and I them. No one else is no matter how much I would be forced to share.

Not really.

Its not about being un/reasonable - its an hour of chatting shit to people which is a waste of everyones time.

We have this crap where I work - I work with my colleagues - I give zero fucks about what they do in their spare time. I'm paid to work, not socialise and make friends with people on Teams/Zoom/folks I have never met or intend to.

Collective my arse.