It feels like the Covid lockdown WFH times where managers mandated everyone has their webcams on. Having been in some of these management conversations, it was purely to ensure no one is just chilling on their bed.

Pretty dumb, as at that time not everyone was had a home office set up, and one can work from their bed perfectly fine, especially when someone wants to put their feet up for a bit during a team meeting.

> where managers mandated everyone has their webcams on. Having been in some of these management conversations, it was purely to ensure no one is just chilling on their bed.

That's not quite true. If you're working all remote, it is difficult to build a connection with other people, but multiples more difficult if all you ever see is a blank square with a name.

My team is all remote so a make it a point to always be on camera, it does help a bit to know these are real people not just bots with a blank zoom presence. I don't enforce it onto others but it would be nice if everyone showed up as a real person.

During COVID times I witnessed the most absurd pissing match - our CTO (and founder) was taking calls from his boat at anchor (camera on, palm trees in the back drop) while was working from a coffee shop(!)

The CEO tried publicly dressing down the CTO on a large call because his workspace must be “too distracting to work from.”

The bed thing is about mandatory discomfort, not about how well you can do the work. A lot of office politics is about the need for control.

I have sometimes had to work in bed while running a low fever.

I do that because I believe in the mission and work is assessed by outcome.

The flip side too — I learned well before COVID that the Kanban principle of “make work visible” applies to WFH