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alexpotato 3 hours ago [-]
At a past firm I managed a team of SREs.
This was very much a "fire drill all the time" kind of place (vs "slow and steady"). The team came to me and said:
"Alex, we keep getting bombarded by meeting requests and have no focus time."
My solution was to create a weekly "team meeting" from 8am to 11am every Friday and invite all of them to it.
They loved it!
I mentioned to them that making a meeting like this was something they could have done themselves but they responded:
"It carries more weight coming from you. Plus, if someone tries to schedule over it, they are more likely to think twice and/or I can say 'Hey, you have to talk to Alex.' "
glenngillen 48 minutes ago [-]
yep, did the same for my team at one place "[IMPORTANT] CUSTOMER OUTAGE" (or something similar).
We had a publicly viewable calendar policy. And I couldn't believe the audacity of people in other areas to take it upon themselves to just book over the top of existing meetings because they had decided their meeting was more important. And I'm not talking a group meeting where it's hard to find a gap that works for everyone, these were essentially 1:1 meetings where the organizer was someone with a little more seniority. No polite ask/DM first if it's ok, or a note in the invite to explain. Just see "focus time - no meetings" or something else _they_ deemed not important and they'd schedule it in that block and assume the IC wouldn't challenge their authority.
So had to play them at their own game to give my team their time back. The meeting was as much as an invite to them to challenge my authority as their previous attempts were. Conveniently it worked and nobody would book over my meeting. I do not miss working for larger companies.
mikemarsh 2 hours ago [-]
This is brilliant, excellent example of the ideal of "management as shielding devs from higher-level corporate shenanigans" in action.
antoineMoPa 1 hours ago [-]
I tried to embody this ideal when I managed a team, but realized shielding too much meant less connection of members with the wider org and too much dependency on me for context and such. Overall, this meant we were a lower value team for the org.
ambicapter 1 hours ago [-]
> too much dependency on me for context and such
If you're management, that's literally your job. Synthesize and communicate the important context bits.
rustyminnow 43 minutes ago [-]
Sometimes. When my manager went on sabbatical I had to reach out directly to other teams. We got so much done with that higher bandwidth, unmediated communication. OTOH my boss's boss was constantly breathing down my neck for status updates. There's a balance to everything I suppose.
atoav 55 minutes ago [-]
Well there is a balance. For certain things it is natural, that you are the one giving them the information. For other things that are much smaller and much more a out generally being aware how others departments deal with certain tasks it can be enough to pick one "ambassador" that maybe does small projects with them or goes to a short weekly meeting or something.
It really can help an organization if departments are not siloed off. But sending everybody into every meeting is a recipe for not getting anything done.
catketch 54 minutes ago [-]
I've been fully remote fo a long time now, but I used to do this with my team and other colleagues. We'd book a conference room and create a 'meeting', but it was just a bunch of us quietly working on our laptops in the conference room (no audio, no calls was the rule), uninterrupted for a few hours at a go. It was quite popular.
mlhpdx 2 hours ago [-]
I have done the same. FWIW, a 2-3 hour block seems to be the sweet spot, as far as keeping it off the radar goes. Ironically, having multiple a week doesn’t seem to raise an eyebrow.
notesinthefield 2 hours ago [-]
Our product security and engineering teams do the same thing to defend against the project managers - an 8am-2pm product sync every monday and friday. Its worked for years now.
atoav 60 minutes ago [-]
Weaponizing meetings for defensive purposes. I love it.
Working in education I am glad that this is not a problem where I am. As government employees we are all understaffed and overworked, and all meetings are short and to the point, because they are good when you need them, but most of the time you don't and a well written Email or a phone call is enough.
frangonf 6 hours ago [-]
This has real demand, I ended up in the Gitlab secondary youtube channel one day, ordering by most views, and I found a video [0] of a seemingly normal uninteresting meeting with millions of views. Turns out people were using this as an excuse for looking like they were busy. They disabled comments now but I saved some of them because I thought it was hilarious:
I play this when I need my family to leave me alone - so helpful
4.5K
I play this when I pretend to be busy. This meeting is literally about anything you want it to be about lol
1.5K
I love that we all arrived at this video for the same reason
2.6K
Every now and then I'll pause it at a good point in between them talking to make my own voice heard contributing to the "meeting" lol. Gets the full effect in! And the beautiful thing is their conversation just flows with it like they heard me lol.
562
For people without adblocker the trick will be ruined at some point by something like loud enthusiastic ClickUp ad.
twoodfin 5 hours ago [-]
I was one of those people skeptical that ad-free YouTube was worth the high price, but now firmly a convert.
Get it! The best deal in streaming content. Unlocks such a better experience you’ll find a dozen whole new areas of valuable & enjoyable content to explore.
tyromaniac 5 hours ago [-]
Why not just block ads?
phoghed 3 hours ago [-]
1. YouTube is my primary entertainment so I don’t mind paying for it in lieu of Netflix or Hulu or whatever
2. I like that it directly benefits the creators of the videos I watch
3. It gets everyone in my family ad free viewing for 0 effort across all devices (I primarily watch it from Apple TV app)
4. Gives you higher quality bitrate option sometimes
5. It gives me the moral and logical high ground when arguing with nerds about YouTube online
6. Can download video on most (all?) devices, comes in handy sometimes, but I don’t use it frequently
7. In the past there have been preview features / experiments that were locked behind it, I think PIP was one of them, may be wrong on that. Nice to check them out or get them first
done_lurking 1 hours ago [-]
How does it give you a moral or logical high ground?
IAmBroom 32 minutes ago [-]
By arbitrary moral systems, same as everyone else.
stackskipton 4 hours ago [-]
At some point, paying for something and knowing it will work is worth it. In particular, ad blocking YouTube on mobile is frustrating.
pimlottc 4 hours ago [-]
Not getting sucked into YouTube on mobile is a feature, not a bug
prmoustache 4 hours ago [-]
Had they done that from day 1 you woulf have a point but it sounds like extorsion to me given youtube got rid of most of its competition and established its casi monopolistic position being adfree.
nlarew 3 hours ago [-]
That is not what extortion means
bluGill 4 hours ago [-]
If you can. A lot of subscription TV channels have ads even though you have to pay to get them. Does paying for youtube block all ads, and if so will it continue to, or will they change as so many others have and just make your payment remove some ads? I'm not even counting sponsored content in a lot of videos as ads, but they are annoying too.
ericbarrett 4 hours ago [-]
If you are a YouTube Premium subscriber you actually do get a button that skips in-video sponsor ads.
busssard 4 hours ago [-]
NewPipe is the way to do that on android...
AdmiralAsshat 3 hours ago [-]
Smarttube on Android TV's works exceptionally well, too. I've seen people recommend Tizentube over it because it's nearly indistinguishable from the standard YouTube app, but with adblocking--but I actually prefer the more minimalist UI of Smarttube.
busssard 3 hours ago [-]
is there something for IOS?
JCattheATM 3 hours ago [-]
Yup. Astounding how many tech people just fork over money to an evil company instead though.
baud147258 3 hours ago [-]
I've been using YT on my FF mobile browser with an ad block and it's been working great.
globular-toast 4 hours ago [-]
They could raise the price or start having ads even if you pay. You're a renter. You have no rights.
xcrjm 1 hours ago [-]
i mostly watch YT via the apple tv app where you can't
stronglikedan 2 hours ago [-]
Because there's so much more value to YT premium (including YT music) that goes beyond merely blocking ads. It's really a no-brainer if you watch YT often.
lolpython 2 hours ago [-]
There is YouTube Premium Lite now which gets you ad-free long form videos. It’s decoupled from YouTube Music
RiverCrochet 4 hours ago [-]
I don't block ads because stealing ad revenue from companies is unethical. These companies have workers who have families that they need to feed. They provide a service for free, so it's the least I can do. I watch every ad in full.
My cousin, however, stopped blocking ads on YouTube when the YouTube warnings showed up. She is scared that at some point Google would ban Gmail accounts for doing it, and she's had hers for 10 years and really relies on it. She also says YouTube videos are really easy to download so anything she really wants from YouTube she tends to have a local copy of.
bee_rider 3 hours ago [-]
It isn’t unethical to block ads; the norm on the internet has always been that senders send any not-actively-malicious bits we want and the recipient renders them however they want (including not).
That said I’m also worried about getting banned for blocking too many YouTube ads (Google doesn’t have any obligation to send me emails after all) so I… just don’t go there.
ArvidSu 3 hours ago [-]
Corporate psy-op
tyromaniac 3 hours ago [-]
You're right, I didn't think about the thousands left destitute by them using UBlock Origin to play a fake meeting video
maxbond 3 hours ago [-]
The mafia is also made of hard working people with families to feed. Sometimes industries deserve to die. Even if the people working in them don't deserve to lose their jobs. That's life in a free market.
RiverCrochet 3 hours ago [-]
There's nothing more "free market" than ads. Ads literally cost you no money (free), and you don't even have to buy the product they're advertising (freedom from market if desired). If I know I'm not going to buy the product in question, I use the time to meditate, or take a moment to enjoy a cool, crisp sip of Kool-Aid. It's delicious when prepared according to the instructions. Oh Yeah!
rdiddly 56 minutes ago [-]
Agreed! And it goes great with TACO BELL® DORITOS® LOCOS™ TACOS SUPREME® XTREME™ CRUNCHWRAP™ DELUXE® BLASTERS™™®™®! They're delicious! Try some today!
maxbond 2 hours ago [-]
There's nothing more free market than an ad blocker. Alice agreed to provide a service to Bob for and bundled in ads, Bob accepted the service and declined to run that JavaScript or render those images when Alice passed them along. If I drive past a billboard or accept a flyer on the street, no one would suggest I'm obligated to look at it.
jonathanstrange 2 hours ago [-]
IMHO it's more ethical to block ads than not to block them because if you don't block them you're supporting unethical business models such as massive privacy invasions by collecting and selling user data, ad-based malware delivery, and scams.
sixothree 3 hours ago [-]
Because with google it's an unwinnable arms race.
tyromaniac 3 hours ago [-]
I have never run into issues
billypilgrim 3 hours ago [-]
Or, you know, you could just pay for a service that you enjoy. I watch a lot more YouTube and see a bigger need to keep it alive than Netflix, HBO and co for which I am paying good money already, why should YouTube be exempt from that?
Also if Netflix goes away tomorrow, you’ll find their content on torrents easily, but if YouTube goes away, we will lose decades of videos that no one has backups of. Expecting them to offer this service for free and without ads is crazy.
sidrag22 55 minutes ago [-]
Well some people are in the massive minority that despises modern youtube, even if its ad free.
Look at it through a few different lenses and you'll find plenty of reasons to think youtube is overall bad. People seem to love to retreat to the dishwasher repair instructions for some random old model, to try to defend modern youtube. those videos were all over youtube before it became a vile ad infested infinite scroll attention demanding app, and the product has been on a steep decline since the perverse incentives to chase attention by any means have been added.
The core of modern youtube in 2026, is a bunch of "creators" pumping out x amount of minutes per week or as often as per day, of low quality content dressed up in a video format to disguise how low quality it is, to their viewers that will click it and not realize how poorly crafted it is because its their main feed of information and that is their baseline. You can deflect this and say there is some high quality stuff, sure, but there is no way you can possibly say that the vast majority isn't absolute garbage, and that youtube isn't incentivized to keep people watching for as long as possible with no regard for which level of quality content they are watching.
Literally everyone i've talked to that defends youtube, accepts that they watch some absolute garbage at times, and deem it worthwhile for some reason. I have no understanding for why so many people are just content burning time watching actual garbage, when there is so much high quality stuff elsewhere.
tyromaniac 3 hours ago [-]
The percent of people who know how to install an adblocker out of the global YouTube audience is so minuscule.
m4tthumphrey 2 hours ago [-]
100% agree. I likely would have stuck with adblockers but watching on TV(s) is worth the monthly fee alone. Also you can "watch" (ie listen) in the background on the mobile app too.
I watch YouTube alot btw. :D
burnedbyhell 30 minutes ago [-]
The basic install of Kodi on LibreELEC blocks the ads on YouTube. I left Roku after using it for a long time, and the experience with Kodi is far better. Simple setup, too.
For mobile, I use NewPipe which allows background YouTube as well.
Might not work for everyone but I never see an ad on YouTube.
Barbing 3 hours ago [-]
One of the best products ever created, and they deserve the dough for serving me all the gigabytes. Fast, reliable, and one product not headed for KilledByGoogle. (Did I jinx it? “We’re transitioning to a vertical-video only platform to meet our billion users where they are…”)
Taurenking 5 hours ago [-]
[dead]
splintersio 3 hours ago [-]
I’ll disable ads! Apologies :)
prmoustache 4 hours ago [-]
Are they monetizing it? If not they are missing out!
ruszki 5 hours ago [-]
Why don't you just decline calls with text messages, or just ignore them, or simply mute your phone?
flurdy 3 hours ago [-]
You try ignoring when the family helpdesk is called. You never hear the end of it.
ruszki 1 hours ago [-]
You have way bigger problems, if a text message about the same thing is not enough. They think that you lie to them... and you do.
bonoboTP 5 hours ago [-]
People take offense.
ruszki 1 hours ago [-]
I think a good rule of thumb is to avoid people who have this level of lack of empathy. I can be on the toilet, running, on a roller coaster, or at a myriad of different places where I don't or even can't have my phone with me. If they think, that I avoid them because of them, then that's on them, and I cannot care less. I avoid such Mexican soap opera generator people like plague.
bonoboTP 46 minutes ago [-]
Sometimes it's not a choice who is hired and kept as your coworker. Complain and be considered difficult to work with or not a team player.
ruszki 33 minutes ago [-]
In other words, toxic work environment. But of course, lying won't help with that at all.
ubermonkey 5 hours ago [-]
So?
seb1204 4 hours ago [-]
You would not know as you declined?
cheonic4040 4 hours ago [-]
> People take offense.
Sounds like something people low on the corporate ladder say
bonoboTP 3 hours ago [-]
Yes. These tools are for them. If you're high on the ladder you can play Solitaire openly.
filcuk 4 hours ago [-]
The scripts are hilarious, yet not inaccurate. I can't stop chuckling.
'Are you happy with that?'
'Happy is a strong word'
'OK' moves on to the next topic
tacostakohashi 5 hours ago [-]
Reminds me of the "boss mode" / "boss key" in old games, like MS-DOS days, which would switch the screen to some spreadsheet mockup or suchlike, updated for the current century.
I think Sierra games like Leisure Suit Larry had that (F11) if I recall correctly. Priceless.
BeetleB 1 hours ago [-]
My favorite was the one in Space Quest III. Instead of showing you a spreadsheet, it would pop up a dialog making it clear that you've been playing a game, and would state exactly how long you'd been playing it. You'd have to dismiss multiple such dialogs before you could get back to the game.
Oh my God that's a nostalgia rush. I loved that game. I was impossible hard but so rewarding.
rzzzt 2 hours ago [-]
Then you have to exit the game.
jnovek 4 hours ago [-]
This was tickling something in my brain and this was it! Thank you.
ninkendo 5 hours ago [-]
Audio seems broken now, maybe hugged to death. Console:
HTTP load failed with status 404. Load of media resource https://iminafleeting.com/media/people/standup-a.mp4 failed
jmuguy 4 hours ago [-]
There's a few that don't work, I was able to get the some of the "scoping" meetings to play the audio.
voidUpdate 5 hours ago [-]
Do people in offices typically just blast meetings out of their computer speakers? Everyone I work with uses headphones so we're not disturbing other people in the office...
stronglikedan 2 hours ago [-]
Yes, because that's exactly what offices are for. I wouldn't do it if I had to sit out in the bullpen with the commoners though.
p_l 5 hours ago [-]
Unless you have good ANC headphones, or find something like pink noise that fits you, you're still dealing with all the talking to microphone of your colleagues.
Tajnymag 5 hours ago [-]
It's less noisy when you hear 5 people talk in 5 meetings than when you hear 50 people talk in those 5 remote meetings.
sixothree 3 hours ago [-]
It's hard to describe how difficult it is to hear someone talking and then a second later hear then in your headphones. It really breaks my concentration. And it's a solvable technology problem - just use the local network for people in the same subnet. But every meeting provider wants _everything_ routed through their servers. There's no escaping they prying eyes.
rzzzt 2 hours ago [-]
Teams has "room audio" and "join without audio" options, if you are talking into a magic box placed on the center of the table the first one helps.
wccrawford 3 hours ago [-]
You know what's worse? Talking, and then hearing yourself half a second later.
I worked at a callcenter that had a problem that sometimes that would happen. The pet theory was that meant they were recording the call to audit it.
You end up stuttering because you think the caller is talking and you want to listen to them, but it's just your own voice back.
You do eventually learn to deal with it, but it was always terrible.
voidUpdate 5 hours ago [-]
I have reasonably good headphones and nice music
jurgenburgen 2 hours ago [-]
Going to the office to have a remote meeting is pretty awful.
roryirvine 7 hours ago [-]
Truly uncanny!
Only the British audio works for me, though - if I try American or International, the relevant meetings are silent with a "Join Audio" button which doesn't appear to do anything. (Firefox on MacOS, if that's useful)
moritzwarhier 5 hours ago [-]
Same, console says something about missing or "unsuitable" audio resources.
Sad, I wanted the international broken Zoom call
flurdy 3 hours ago [-]
Yeah we need a dial to mix accents and dialects, and level of English fluency. I could want 50% English, maybe some Northern English, Welsh or Scottish, and mix in Indian accents, various American, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Scandinavian, the odd token Aussie. Etc.
That I could enable more South African, or Middle East accents in some meetings would be true to real life as well.
Not Finnish. The silence would not work :)
Barbing 2 hours ago [-]
Thanks, British scoping meeting worked on iOS. Probably would pass muster with family. Even a little laugh in there I heard after a joke.
fliglr 5 hours ago [-]
Same here - Brave browser. Only British works
stronglikedan 2 hours ago [-]
Same in Chrome and Firefox for me
wccrawford 3 hours ago [-]
I wondered why it didn't work. Chrome here, same experience. British is fine.
mellosouls 14 minutes ago [-]
This is great, and the modern equivalent of the ancient "Fake Progress Bar" app that you could have on screen for the reassurance of bosses walking past.
bartread 1 hours ago [-]
This is hilarious but that API Design Review meeting is stressful AF. I can't have that on speaker anywhere near me and concentrate on anything else meaningful. Human voices are incredibly distracting unless there are enough of them to create a general background wall of sound - if I can pick out what individuals are saying, that's no bueno.
TrackerFF 4 hours ago [-]
We need a fake teams / zoom UI with faces talking. You know, for those working in open plan.
arjonagelhout 5 hours ago [-]
Brilliant, this website is blocked at my work: "This content is blocked by your organization".
esikich 5 hours ago [-]
It's because it's a new domain. Very common in corporate IT.
arjonagelhout 4 hours ago [-]
I didn't know that was a thing, but that makes sense. Thanks!
franga2000 32 minutes ago [-]
> Want to feature your product in a fake meeting?
> Advertise with us →
Best monetization strategy for a shitpost I've ever seen!
tiborsaas 1 hours ago [-]
This is quite relaxing as background noise I can safely ignore and work on my project in piece. Working solo all day at home can eat into my sanity :)
It's basically big corp ASMR.
ryandrake 2 hours ago [-]
Not sure I understand the site. Each option just shows a grid of names (like a Zoom call) but there's no audio or video. The "How It Works" section implies there's audio at least, but not working on Desktop Firefox / Linux.
awb 2 hours ago [-]
No audio on Safari mobile either
indrora 2 hours ago [-]
try the British voices.
whilenot-dev 5 hours ago [-]
What are all the names for the category of such software... "Self-defense Software", "Busy Simulation Software", "Faux Work Software", "Fake Meeting Software"[0], "Virtual Meeting Simulator"[1], "Prank Screens"[2], ...? Are there many others?
Computer-Aided Boundaries? Social Assistive Software?
whh 5 hours ago [-]
I'd say a quintessentially British, tactical-yet-polite social interaction deterrent
splintersio 3 hours ago [-]
Hah yes
bluerooibos 35 minutes ago [-]
Audio doesn't work...
ghusto 4 hours ago [-]
If you can't tell people you want to concentrate on your work, there's either something very wrong with where you work, or you.
elonfboy 4 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
jvanderbot 4 hours ago [-]
Where's the HR-faced "Can everyone turn on their cameras please?" one with 200 people in the call.
edmn 2 hours ago [-]
I've just spent 20 minutes listening to a conversation about John Carol. Did you know...
karim79 4 hours ago [-]
Fantastic product! Needs people talking over each other for greater authenticity, I reckon.
4 hours ago [-]
DharmaPolice 5 hours ago [-]
Trying to access this site on my corporate Windows laptop and it was blocked "by your IT admin" (in Windows itself, not the browser/proxy). So it's already on some kind of list.
whh 5 hours ago [-]
New domain registrations typically aren't on a list yet, which, in itself gets blocked.
tome 4 hours ago [-]
Maybe a silly question, but without video isn't this obviously fake? Or is it normal for all participants on a call to be audio only?
delecti 36 minutes ago [-]
Depends on the company. At my last job it was rare for anyone to have video on in remote meetings, and at my current job it's rare for anyone to have video off.
mcbuilder 4 hours ago [-]
Pretty normal. Camera's usually stay off unless it's a 1-1, presentation, or maybe a VP level call.
p_l 4 hours ago [-]
It's normal in many places for the only video to be shared screen
dirkc 4 hours ago [-]
If you find use for this tool, chances are good that you're in an place where all the participants would be audio only
ghusto 4 hours ago [-]
You get it.
seb1204 4 hours ago [-]
Depends on the company, the team, the agenda etc
astura 3 hours ago [-]
Totally normal. The only time I ever used my camera is conducting interviews.
Loughla 3 hours ago [-]
This is not making me feel good about the real meetings I'm regularly in.
vermooten 5 hours ago [-]
I retired a few months ago. These calls have taken me back to the horror of working in tech. It must be what PTSD is like.
splintersio 3 hours ago [-]
I’ve disabled adsense so you guys can enjoy it with UX in mind - tho I have allowed for adverts to sneak into the meetings cough
jinnahlovebot 51 minutes ago [-]
Sorry, I cannot hear you, I'm kinda busy, K-kinda busy..
jonwinstanley 5 hours ago [-]
This is fun. The audio isn’t particularly believable. Not that it matters for this project.
I’ve used a few tts providers and although a technical marvel they are all still easily identifiable as ai. Humans are very good at spotting fakes.
This project might work better with mostly canned audio clips of real humans.
xbar 3 hours ago [-]
I disagree. I think many of the audio elements are highly believable for lay people.
unethical_ban 32 minutes ago [-]
All Hands:
Worker: "I'd like to ask about pay review. The numbers look really strong, and some people are probably wondering if that's going to show up in review."
Exec: "That's a great question. I don't want to say anything I can't promise, but we're going to be looking at all our options and I'm sure we're going to look to reward great performance. Does that help answer your question?"
Sketch comedy writers, look out. This thing is sadly, hilariously, accurate.
fyltr 3 hours ago [-]
Wait a second is that ad thing ironical? Not a big fan of covert advertising.
6thbit 52 minutes ago [-]
is this the hacker typer of the new gen?
soltanov 5 hours ago [-]
Simple solution for focus time. If it stops people from setting up an actual meeting for something that fits in an email, it is already doing critical infrastructure work.
spuz 5 hours ago [-]
I am missing something about how this could hypothetically be useful. If I played this in the background it would be far too distracting to get any actual work done.
mystifyingpoi 4 hours ago [-]
Reminds me of the fake Windows Update page.
yabones 4 hours ago [-]
Takes me back. I remember there was a version of the fake Windows 8 update sequence that had it infinitely loop between "Working on updates..." and the frowny-face :( BSOD
pentakkusu 2 hours ago [-]
Genius. The people need an MS Teams UI option :O
aronhegedus 4 hours ago [-]
Minor but when I took myself off mute, my box didn't reflect that. Not sure if bug or a feature.
splintersio 2 hours ago [-]
takes notes thank you for the UAT
wkumfer 5 hours ago [-]
Please add other language versions! Should be easy to do, and would help us from non-English speaking countries.
splintersio 2 hours ago [-]
I have that but I think translations and dialect will make it sound less convincing … I can always add it as a beta
niek_pas 5 hours ago [-]
I'm not getting any audio, bunch of 404s on loop.m4a... anyone else?
needs more "hmms" and "uhms" to sound believable... this is all fairly flat and evenly cadenced
mock-possum 1 hours ago [-]
The ‘mixed’ accent option appears to be just British after all
pirateirl 2 hours ago [-]
Usefull!
7174n6 8 hours ago [-]
Awesome, if I worked in the UK.
splintersio 2 hours ago [-]
There’s American accents ! Come on, day one it’s fun, if it gets legs I’ll add as much preferences as I can muster up
martythemaniak 4 hours ago [-]
Nice, it's got real Interdimensional Cable vibes.
alienbaby 3 hours ago [-]
is this what other peoples meetings are like? huh.
tamimio 3 hours ago [-]
This is hilarious, but I think people should be addressing the real issue instead of this, maybe that work environment isn’t for you and it’s time to look somewhere if you need to pretend. Just say you’re busy or fill your calendar with whatever you are working on without a meeting, in fact, a lot of meetings is a sign of a wasted time so if I see someone (especially technical) is doing a lot of meeting I know they are wasting time or slacking.
lsofzz 2 hours ago [-]
what a fucking stupid meetings with stupid accents and stupid people talking stupid corporate shit making it sound like they are engineering a rocket. ffs, you are the plumbers writing the cruds.
smart meetings have `pauses`, `thoughts` and `i don't knows`. this is so fucking stupid that i find it lame enough not to use it.
dizhn 4 hours ago [-]
I'm gonna ironically make a Claude theme and use that if I ever hand write a site again. :)
geekgod382 2 hours ago [-]
bro, that's cool. My friends disturb me a lot while working. This would definitely help
sebastianconcpt 3 hours ago [-]
This is the new BS generator, but more useful
mchav 4 hours ago [-]
Can we just be honest?
kirugan 6 hours ago [-]
haha, now I can always use this website if I don't want to be interrupted lol
This was very much a "fire drill all the time" kind of place (vs "slow and steady"). The team came to me and said:
"Alex, we keep getting bombarded by meeting requests and have no focus time."
My solution was to create a weekly "team meeting" from 8am to 11am every Friday and invite all of them to it.
They loved it!
I mentioned to them that making a meeting like this was something they could have done themselves but they responded:
"It carries more weight coming from you. Plus, if someone tries to schedule over it, they are more likely to think twice and/or I can say 'Hey, you have to talk to Alex.' "
We had a publicly viewable calendar policy. And I couldn't believe the audacity of people in other areas to take it upon themselves to just book over the top of existing meetings because they had decided their meeting was more important. And I'm not talking a group meeting where it's hard to find a gap that works for everyone, these were essentially 1:1 meetings where the organizer was someone with a little more seniority. No polite ask/DM first if it's ok, or a note in the invite to explain. Just see "focus time - no meetings" or something else _they_ deemed not important and they'd schedule it in that block and assume the IC wouldn't challenge their authority.
So had to play them at their own game to give my team their time back. The meeting was as much as an invite to them to challenge my authority as their previous attempts were. Conveniently it worked and nobody would book over my meeting. I do not miss working for larger companies.
If you're management, that's literally your job. Synthesize and communicate the important context bits.
It really can help an organization if departments are not siloed off. But sending everybody into every meeting is a recipe for not getting anything done.
Working in education I am glad that this is not a problem where I am. As government employees we are all understaffed and overworked, and all meetings are short and to the point, because they are good when you need them, but most of the time you don't and a well written Email or a phone call is enough.
I play this when I need my family to leave me alone - so helpful 4.5K I play this when I pretend to be busy. This meeting is literally about anything you want it to be about lol 1.5K I love that we all arrived at this video for the same reason 2.6K Every now and then I'll pause it at a good point in between them talking to make my own voice heard contributing to the "meeting" lol. Gets the full effect in! And the beautiful thing is their conversation just flows with it like they heard me lol. 562
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBVtvOpU80Q
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2. I like that it directly benefits the creators of the videos I watch
3. It gets everyone in my family ad free viewing for 0 effort across all devices (I primarily watch it from Apple TV app)
4. Gives you higher quality bitrate option sometimes
5. It gives me the moral and logical high ground when arguing with nerds about YouTube online
6. Can download video on most (all?) devices, comes in handy sometimes, but I don’t use it frequently
7. In the past there have been preview features / experiments that were locked behind it, I think PIP was one of them, may be wrong on that. Nice to check them out or get them first
My cousin, however, stopped blocking ads on YouTube when the YouTube warnings showed up. She is scared that at some point Google would ban Gmail accounts for doing it, and she's had hers for 10 years and really relies on it. She also says YouTube videos are really easy to download so anything she really wants from YouTube she tends to have a local copy of.
That said I’m also worried about getting banned for blocking too many YouTube ads (Google doesn’t have any obligation to send me emails after all) so I… just don’t go there.
Look at it through a few different lenses and you'll find plenty of reasons to think youtube is overall bad. People seem to love to retreat to the dishwasher repair instructions for some random old model, to try to defend modern youtube. those videos were all over youtube before it became a vile ad infested infinite scroll attention demanding app, and the product has been on a steep decline since the perverse incentives to chase attention by any means have been added.
The core of modern youtube in 2026, is a bunch of "creators" pumping out x amount of minutes per week or as often as per day, of low quality content dressed up in a video format to disguise how low quality it is, to their viewers that will click it and not realize how poorly crafted it is because its their main feed of information and that is their baseline. You can deflect this and say there is some high quality stuff, sure, but there is no way you can possibly say that the vast majority isn't absolute garbage, and that youtube isn't incentivized to keep people watching for as long as possible with no regard for which level of quality content they are watching.
Literally everyone i've talked to that defends youtube, accepts that they watch some absolute garbage at times, and deem it worthwhile for some reason. I have no understanding for why so many people are just content burning time watching actual garbage, when there is so much high quality stuff elsewhere.
I watch YouTube alot btw. :D
For mobile, I use NewPipe which allows background YouTube as well.
Might not work for everyone but I never see an ad on YouTube.
Sounds like something people low on the corporate ladder say
https://biobreak.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/bo...
I worked at a callcenter that had a problem that sometimes that would happen. The pet theory was that meant they were recording the call to audit it.
You end up stuttering because you think the caller is talking and you want to listen to them, but it's just your own voice back.
You do eventually learn to deal with it, but it was always terrible.
Only the British audio works for me, though - if I try American or International, the relevant meetings are silent with a "Join Audio" button which doesn't appear to do anything. (Firefox on MacOS, if that's useful)
Sad, I wanted the international broken Zoom call
That I could enable more South African, or Middle East accents in some meetings would be true to real life as well.
Not Finnish. The silence would not work :)
Best monetization strategy for a shitpost I've ever seen!
It's basically big corp ASMR.
[0]: https://fakemeeting.app/
[1]: https://z.tools/t/fake-meeting
[2]: https://www.whitescreen.online/
I’ve used a few tts providers and although a technical marvel they are all still easily identifiable as ai. Humans are very good at spotting fakes.
This project might work better with mostly canned audio clips of real humans.
Worker: "I'd like to ask about pay review. The numbers look really strong, and some people are probably wondering if that's going to show up in review."
Exec: "That's a great question. I don't want to say anything I can't promise, but we're going to be looking at all our options and I'm sure we're going to look to reward great performance. Does that help answer your question?"
Sketch comedy writers, look out. This thing is sadly, hilariously, accurate.
EDIT: seems like British audio does work
smart meetings have `pauses`, `thoughts` and `i don't knows`. this is so fucking stupid that i find it lame enough not to use it.