[denimnerd]

I'm in that situation now. Well kind of. I am in the only team member not colocated with the rest of the team.

At the start it was really hard. They would all be in a room together and I could barely even hear them over the phone, much less speak up and say something over their rapid fire conversations. It's gotten better since I've brought these concerns up I'm only on week 4.

We've setup twice a week cisco telepresence meetings and the plan is I fly out every few months for a week.

I'm not too keen on this long term but at least the team is really experienced so I stand to learn a lot. I hope I can take what I learn to my own team soon.

[ryandrake]

At a lot of companies, teleconferencing systems are astonishingly bad. Like, “why did they even consider buying this” bad. Often the first 10 minutes of a meeting will be spent figuring out how to use the conf system or rebooting it because it’s not working. Then figuring out which cable to plug into in order to project remotely. Then asking if everyone is here. Then telling Karen to mute her microphone because she’s apparently in a hurricane. Then Roger is 30 minutes late because he had the wrong dial-in code...

[billyggruff]

Teleconferencing systems with a 'communal' screen and camera do not make much sense to me nowadays.

Most employees have at least 2 devices with built-in cameras and a screen that can be utilized for videoconferencing.

Give everybody a headset. Done.

[denimnerd]

we do that on many days, but the audio quality is so much better on the "mainframe" cisco setup.

[ghostly_s]

Bizarre, do you have some really cheapo headsets or something? (Or let me guess...using your iPhone earpods?) In my role I've tested a lot of pricey speakerphone systems, and we find headset audio quality to be far superior in every circumstance.

[denimnerd]

no, the issue is that part of the team ends up in one conference room with 1 shitty conference phone. people don't speak up loud enough, don't speak into the mic, etc.. look up cisco ix5000 which is what I'm talking about. it's a whole 'nother beast.

yeah when everyone is on a headset it's fine as long as people mute themselves but when it's a few people on a headset and most in a conference room it's terrible.

[Symbiote]

No thanks! That adds chatter to the open office.

[Aeolun]

Only karen is incapable of either hearing or understanding the word ‘MUTE’ so everyone rolls their eyes while they try to yell over the hurricane and clack, clack, clack of her keyboard.

Then she’s finally muted, and someone else unmutes and takes over the disturbance.

It’s unimaginable to me...

[denimnerd]

Yeah the conference rooms sound terrible from an audio stand point but we have these rooms with these huge cisco telepresence things. the audio is incredible. the video is good and helps because I can see body language.

[riffraff]

I've done this for a few years, flying in about once a month.

It's feasible and I would do it again, but the problems you are facing now won't really change much, you'll always be a bit out of the loop (e.g. you will miss that common joke that came out at lunch). I've also been on the other side and noticed the same issue.

How much this impacts you, is a very personal thing.

[denimnerd]

yeah it's still going to be a problem. fortunately I don't care all that much. my HR manager is here locally and there are other teams working on same project around me so I have a spot to jump to eventually. This team is way better than the local ones so I take what I can get :)