Got me. I’m sure that the mini-desktops have less repairs and are even cheaper up front.
This is what I have, and two 24-inch monitors.
https://www.amazon.com/Computers-Quiet-Version-Computer-Bluetooth-Ethernet/dp/B09X2S8N85?th=1
Reminds me of my first job, back in 2010 or so, we were asking for laptops, because we all had to work on weekends pretty regularly (consulting), and didn’t want to have to come into the office all the time.
The partner leading the local office said, ok, but if you get a laptop, you’re expected to work more than 40 hours a week every week (not a problem for most of us, but it shouldn’t be dictated), and you need to be on call/reachable ALL THE TIME including on vacations. F that, I stuck with my desktop and driving in on weekends once a month. That person/experience/office was terrible, although the company itself was good.
And then the corporation moved everyone to laptops a few years later.
Do you connect to a remote desktop to do most of your work?
Guess I wasn’t clear when I said for everyone else (outside my department) I have to have the camera on and therefore pretend to look interested
If you can train yourself to look at the camera then it’s doable. As for me it’s clear that my eyes are looking down at my phone and people notice. These days if I’m going to play games on screen they are more likely to be word games such as WWF or Spelling Bee where you don’t need to look at the screen as much.
I’m a cheap actuary who never invested in low-reflection lenses, so whatever I’m looking at on my screen is reflected on my glasses for everyone to see on camera. I will be upgrading next time I see my eye doctor for that very reason.
I do not ever have my work camera on. EVER. My laptop is 96% shut (if I shut it all the way, it powers down), and I have a monitor, keyboard and mouse, because that is how I work most effectively.
Exception: Exactly one time in the past two years, I made a presentation which required me to show myself.
The dude who used to sit across from me used to have games up on his screen all the time. And he didn’t have the type of position that required going to a lot of meetings.
I suppose if I really wanted to I could get away with not having screen on but I just don’t think it’s worth the loss of brownie points. At least we have official company zoom backgrounds that default to the touch up features so I don’t look too ugly on screen.
yeah, I’m judging people like that as rude.
when you’re in the office it’s not like you can choose to be off camera in a conference room, so at home shouldn’t be any different.
There are a few differences for being on-camera vs. being in a conference room.
First, there is a sense of invasion into my personal life. I am working from my home, sometimes in my bed when I’m not feeling great. That can be avoided to an extent by adding a background, but if my child comes into the room while I’m in a meeting, or if I need to be able to hold something up for the group to see (this has actually come up several times in the last three years), backgrounds just don’t work for those situations. I’ve noticed that I am a lot less anxious being on camera for meetings when I’m in the office than when I’m at home.
Second, and more significant for me, being on camera means I can see my own image the entire time, and if I’m in a meeting where it’s one other person and me, they can see me a lot closer up on camera than they could in person. This makes some people feel very self-conscious, and it can be mentally and emotionally draining. There’s also the added stress of being in meetings more now than I was pre-pandemic. Most of my days are spent on calls now.
I enjoy seeing people on camera, but I don’t think it should be required, and I don’t think it should be stigmatized to take oneself on camera or choose to stay off for whatever reason. I like when I join a meeting with another team, often more technical teams like modeling or valuation, and their camera culture is always-off (my team’s culture is more like always-on, although I frequently stay off).
Harvard Business Review published a good article about the subject, it’s worth a read. They concluded that the actual act of being on camera causes fatigue for many.
It wasn’t that long ago that conference calls were the thing. I would dial in to calls with other offices and no one could see each other, and it wasn’t weird at all. We said what we were trying to say and got things done. I worked on big projects with colleagues in other locations using this, and it was just fine. Why is it suddenly not fine? Isolation in the pandemic was a big thing, and caused a lot of people to feel that they were alone when they couldn’t physically see other people, but we’re pretty much past that now.
I miss standard conf calls so much. just dial in and join the conversation. I would often schedule calls 5pm eastern with west coast people. Then just dial in from BT in car.
everything needing to be video conf now seems to add a lot of unnecessary complexity to something we had totally figured out. Now every call has to start with 5 minutes of technical glitches.
now I have a zoom, MS teams, webex, and 10 other video call accounts to manage as well.
I dont mind being on screen, because Im at the office. but I can tell all the remote folks look uncomfortable as hell.
/old man rant.
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Basically, that is how I see my meetings.
I don’t have to put my live face on everyone’s screen, because my company doesn’t require it. My company does not make or lose money by my decision. (That might differ for others.)
Also, my face has been known to shatter monitors that it’s shown on. I’m saving the company money!!
At my company, not showing one’s face is the norm. The people who show themselves live, and I mean those not presenting, seem to be the unusual ones. And, in nearly all of my regularly scheduled meetings, even the presenter/runner isn’t showing their face.
Inertia is part of human nature. Personally I enjoyed seeing the faces of our clients/consultants after years of being on conference calls. Sure I could see their photos on LinkedIn, but not everyone had one and the ones that did were usually from a time when their hair was grey instead of white.
If I have never met someone and it’s the first time talking to them I enjoy live feed just to be able to put a moving face to a name. After that first time I prefer just dialing in and no live camera.
“The way we’ve always done things” is not automatically a better way of doing things, certainly not. But a new way of doing things is not always better, either, especially when it’s mandated. A lot of people really struggle with always-on policies, and we are seeing data and studies to back that up. I think we can figure out policies here that are flexible and give people the power to decide what is best for them. If I worked on a team where cameras on was expected, I’d really struggle with morale and engagement.
Oh, I forgot…early in the pandemic, we had to upgrade our internet speed to accommodate all the video feeds we had to do. The connection was spotty, and when I was on camera sometimes my kids would lose the ability to see their teachers. My company was reimbursing for a while, but stopped. It’s unreasonable to require workers to pay $100+ a month out of pocket for internet service they don’t otherwise require, just to be on camera for meetings.
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ah, I like gazing at my own beauty. maybe that’s just me though.
We have managers that seem to always be in the car or picking up kids whenever in meetings.
My team used to have a “cameras off unless we are talking to people outside the team” culture. Then we got a new employee who found it uncomfortable, and we started to turn cameras on for the weekly huddle. Then we got a new boss who really really likes cameras on. So now most of our meetings are cameras on. 
I don’t like video. I find my own photo distracting. And when we are looking at a shared screen (most of the time) everyone else’s image is just in the way, too. I still leave my camera off if I’m not talking to my boss or the new woman. But that’s not a lot of the time.
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