I'm in a distributed team where the daily standups are optional. Almost everyone join every day and say it is good to see the others at least for a short while every day
I despised daily stands in person, but love them on a remote team.
We've decide to drop the status updates from standups to focus solely on discussing things of interest to the team - blockers, processes, issues, announcements, icebreakers, etc.
I'm going to be that guy: They say it is good to see others or they say what is expected of them? Is like the conversation yesterday about leaving interviews. You don't say Person was is shit and an asshole but you say a better opportunity came up. Heck, even during job interviews, you don't answer 'why work here' with 'money' but 'looking for a new challenge, or interesting work or whatnot'
As someone who enjoys sharing a similar sense of humour and outlook as the people I work with, I'm personally more than happy to spend 15 minutes goofing around before a day of knuckling down and getting shit done. YMMV
We've decide to drop the status updates from standups to focus solely on discussing things of interest to the team - blockers, processes, issues, announcements, icebreakers, etc.