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Comment by dspillett | Hacker News Reader

I never liked video calls. Or even phone calls for that matter. I put up with them because most of the rest of the world wants to be remote these days. I'm very much an “in person or in writing, not comfortable with the middle ground” sort.

Seriously considering a change in career (away from dev & related tech) to something where I and colleagues have to be in the same place by necessity at least some of the time (perhaps some sort of lab work?) but that means a drop in salary temporarily as I'll likely have to start much nearer the bottom than I am now…

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I'm ok with video calls, but likewise, I've been wondering about a change of career if every dev job is going to be sat at home staring at the same walls every day.

Phone calls are the ones I find hardest. There's no body language to work with, but also it's instantaneous. I never insist on people having their cameras on at work, especially for group calls, I know many people don't like it. But I'm always a bit sad when cameras are off for a one-to-one call, I just find conversation much harder like that.

I don’t like video calls either, but I greatly prefer them to in person meetings with groups of people.

It’s kind of like how mp3s are worse in many ways to records but are cheap and convenient.

Of course zoom meetings are worse than being with people. But the overhead saved from a zoom meeting is amazing compared to making people walk to a room and sit together.

I’d much rather use that shared time for a walk in the day. Or better yet a productive walking 1:1.

join amazon or JPM

That adds a complication: I like my home location and would rather that DayJob didn't move far enough away that I can't conveniently commute to it from here.

For the time being putting up with where I am is probably to be optimal. But I'm still giving it serious thought…

TBH I am somewhat burned out ATM, from personal & family issues at least as much as work, so the negative feelings are likely exacerbated by that. There was a point where I considered just buggering off and going to stack shelves at Tesco, or something else “physical task based” requiring relatively little mental energy, but that would mean a huge drop in income!

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