I'm in a Meeting

(iminafleeting.com)

356 points | by splintersio 7 hours ago ago

134 comments

  • alexpotato 2 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.' "

    • mikemarsh an hour ago

      This is brilliant, excellent example of the ideal of "management as shielding devs from higher-level corporate shenanigans" in action.

      • antoineMoPa 28 minutes 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 22 minutes 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.

    • mlhpdx an hour 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 an hour 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 3 minutes ago

      [delayed]

  • frangonf 5 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

    [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBVtvOpU80Q

    • broken-kebab 4 hours ago

      For people without adblocker the trick will be ruined at some point by something like loud enthusiastic ClickUp ad.

      • twoodfin 4 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 4 hours ago

          Why not just block ads?

          • phoghed 2 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 16 minutes ago

              How does it give you a moral or logical high ground?

          • xcrjm 8 minutes ago

            i mostly watch YT via the apple tv app where you can't

          • stackskipton 3 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 3 hours ago

              Not getting sucked into YouTube on mobile is a feature, not a bug

            • prmoustache 3 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 2 hours ago

                That is not what extortion means

            • bluGill 3 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 3 hours ago

                If you are a YouTube Premium subscriber you actually do get a button that skips in-video sponsor ads.

            • busssard 3 hours ago

              NewPipe is the way to do that on android...

              • AdmiralAsshat 2 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 2 hours ago

                  is there something for IOS?

              • JCattheATM 2 hours ago

                Yup. Astounding how many tech people just fork over money to an evil company instead though.

            • baud147258 2 hours ago

              I've been using YT on my FF mobile browser with an ad block and it's been working great.

            • globular-toast 3 hours ago

              They could raise the price or start having ads even if you pay. You're a renter. You have no rights.

          • stronglikedan an hour 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 37 minutes ago

              There is YouTube Premium Lite now which gets you ad-free long form videos. It’s decoupled from YouTube Music

          • RiverCrochet 3 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 2 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.

            • tyromaniac 2 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

            • ArvidSu 2 hours ago

              Corporate psy-op

            • maxbond 2 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 2 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!

                • maxbond an hour 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 an hour 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 2 hours ago

            Because with google it's an unwinnable arms race.

            • tyromaniac 2 hours ago

              I have never run into issues

          • billypilgrim 2 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.

            • tyromaniac 2 hours ago

              The percent of people who know how to install an adblocker out of the global YouTube audience is so minuscule.

        • m4tthumphrey an hour 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

        • Barbing 2 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…”)

      • splintersio 2 hours ago

        I’ll disable ads! Apologies :)

    • prmoustache 3 hours ago

      Are they monetizing it? If not they are missing out!

    • ruszki 4 hours ago

      Why don't you just decline calls with text messages, or just ignore them, or simply mute your phone?

      • flurdy 2 hours ago

        You try ignoring when the family helpdesk is called. You never hear the end of it.

        • ruszki 8 minutes 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 4 hours ago

        People take offense.

        • ruszki 28 minutes 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.

        • ubermonkey 4 hours ago

          So?

        • seb1204 3 hours ago

          You would not know as you declined?

        • cheonic4040 3 hours ago

          > People take offense.

          Sounds like something people low on the corporate ladder say

          • bonoboTP 2 hours ago

            Yes. These tools are for them. If you're high on the ladder you can play Solitaire openly.

  • bartread 5 minutes 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.

  • filcuk 3 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 4 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.

    • flurdy 2 hours ago

      https://hackertyper.com/ and others. Full screen code stream

    • karim79 2 hours ago

      I think Sierra games like Leisure Suit Larry had that (F11) if I recall correctly. Priceless.

      • BeetleB 4 minutes 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.

        https://biobreak.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/bo...

      • rzzzt an hour ago

        Then you have to exit the game.

    • jnovek 3 hours ago

      This was tickling something in my brain and this was it! Thank you.

  • ninkendo 4 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 3 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 4 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 an hour 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 4 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 4 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 2 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 an hour 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 2 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 4 hours ago

        I have reasonably good headphones and nice music

    • jurgenburgen an hour ago

      Going to the office to have a remote meeting is pretty awful.

  • roryirvine 6 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 4 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 an hour 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.

    • stronglikedan an hour ago

      Same in Chrome and Firefox for me

    • fliglr 4 hours ago

      Same here - Brave browser. Only British works

    • wccrawford 2 hours ago

      I wondered why it didn't work. Chrome here, same experience. British is fine.

  • tiborsaas 29 minutes 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 an hour 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 an hour ago

      No audio on Safari mobile either

    • indrora 39 minutes ago

      try the British voices.

  • TrackerFF 3 hours ago

    We need a fake teams / zoom UI with faces talking. You know, for those working in open plan.

  • arjonagelhout 4 hours ago

    Brilliant, this website is blocked at my work: "This content is blocked by your organization".

    • esikich 4 hours ago

      It's because it's a new domain. Very common in corporate IT.

      • arjonagelhout 3 hours ago

        I didn't know that was a thing, but that makes sense. Thanks!

  • edmn an hour ago

    I've just spent 20 minutes listening to a conversation about John Carol. Did you know...

  • whilenot-dev 4 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?

    [0]: https://fakemeeting.app/

    [1]: https://z.tools/t/fake-meeting

    [2]: https://www.whitescreen.online/

    • TeMPOraL 4 hours ago

      Computer-Aided Boundaries? Social Assistive Software?

    • whh 4 hours ago

      I'd say a quintessentially British, tactical-yet-polite social interaction deterrent

  • ghusto 3 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.

  • jvanderbot 3 hours ago

    Where's the HR-faced "Can everyone turn on their cameras please?" one with 200 people in the call.

  • karim79 3 hours ago

    Fantastic product! Needs people talking over each other for greater authenticity, I reckon.

  • DharmaPolice 4 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 4 hours ago

      New domain registrations typically aren't on a list yet, which, in itself gets blocked.

  • Loughla 2 hours ago

    This is not making me feel good about the real meetings I'm regularly in.

  • 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?

    • mcbuilder 3 hours ago

      Pretty normal. Camera's usually stay off unless it's a 1-1, presentation, or maybe a VP level call.

    • p_l 3 hours ago

      It's normal in many places for the only video to be shared screen

    • dirkc 3 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

    • seb1204 3 hours ago

      Depends on the company, the team, the agenda etc

    • astura 2 hours ago

      Totally normal. The only time I ever used my camera is conducting interviews.

  • vermooten 4 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 2 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

  • fyltr 2 hours ago

    Wait a second is that ad thing ironical? Not a big fan of covert advertising.

  • jonwinstanley 4 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 2 hours ago

      I disagree. I think many of the audio elements are highly believable for lay people.

  • mock-possum 28 minutes ago

    The ‘mixed’ accent option appears to be just British after all

  • pentakkusu 2 hours ago

    Genius. The people need an MS Teams UI option :O

  • mystifyingpoi 3 hours ago

    Reminds me of the fake Windows Update page.

    • yabones 3 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

  • soltanov 4 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 4 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.

  • pirateirl 35 minutes ago

    Usefull!

  • aronhegedus 3 hours ago

    Minor but when I took myself off mute, my box didn't reflect that. Not sure if bug or a feature.

    • splintersio an hour ago

      takes notes thank you for the UAT

  • wkumfer 4 hours ago

    Please add other language versions! Should be easy to do, and would help us from non-English speaking countries.

    • splintersio an hour 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 4 hours ago

    I'm not getting any audio, bunch of 404s on loop.m4a... anyone else?

    EDIT: seems like British audio does work

  • ButlerianJihad 4 hours ago
  • alienbaby 2 hours ago

    is this what other peoples meetings are like? huh.

  • 7174n6 7 hours ago

    Awesome, if I worked in the UK.

    • splintersio an hour 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 3 hours ago

    Nice, it's got real Interdimensional Cable vibes.

  • lsofzz an hour 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.

  • tamimio 2 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.

  • geekgod382 44 minutes ago

    bro, that's cool. My friends disturb me a lot while working. This would definitely help

  • dizhn 3 hours ago

    I'm gonna ironically make a Claude theme and use that if I ever hand write a site again. :)

  • sebastianconcpt 2 hours ago

    This is the new BS generator, but more useful

  • mchav 3 hours ago

    Can we just be honest?

  • kirugan 5 hours ago

    haha, now I can always use this website if I don't want to be interrupted lol