We are social beings.

Zoom is a tool. It’s not the solution.

A former colleague let me know that his entire office is permanently working from home. I am not surprised: he’s in the grocery industry and anyone in that space knows how low the margins are. Cost savings will be applauded as a smart move.

I’ll go on record again for wondering out loud: for how long? Because we’re dying inside.

It’s only been five months, people. Only five months and we’re dying inside. Your eyes are dried out, you don’t have five minutes to use the restroom, and maybe you are more detached from the kids than when you left the house all day.

What are we doing? Are we really failing so miserably to get sh*t done, that we over-schedule meetings to fumble around some more? Six months ago, you would have gotten up and walked to someone’s office, had a conversation and…. Handled.

Remember back in the before times, when you were at work and you could get up and use the restroom? That was a microbreak for your brain.

Remember when you could go to the lunchroom and get a cup of coffee? Maybe you’d see that new guy in strategy and introduce yourself — you’d heard he follows the same team you do. That was a microbreak for your brain.

Remember when meetings were in one room, and there was eye contact? People understood when a point was made, so extra conversation was unnecessary?

Remember when you could book a lunch outing on the way back to your desk? That walk back was a microbreak for your brain.

Remember when it was someone’s birthday and people would head out to lunch? That was a good break for your brain.

Now, you hustle wet laundry from the washer to the dryer. I’m not going to call that a microbreak because you don’t visit with anyone new. If there is a conversation, I doubt it’s novel or stimulating.

Most of us will defend work from home with our last dying gasp: we get more done, we aren’t wasting two hours commuting, we can shut down and be with the ones we love sooner (or maybe it’s about the sweatpants and slippers, I don’t judge). Those are really good things, and we need to protect them. And, the companies that pull back and go exclusively to work from home arrangements will likely regret it:

Bonding moments that take place in hallway and lunchroom conversations are lost, and those also need to be protected. Collaboration doesn’t only come from the working moments, it is built and strengthened in the non-working, no pressure moments. We’re losing that in our online office world today. Trying to compensate with more and more Zoom meetings isn’t working: if it was, people wouldn’t be so Zoom-fatigued. Seriously: “Zoom-fatigued” wouldn’t even be in our vocabulary.

When we’re “in the after times,” meaning: we have a vaccine, we’re emerging from whatever economic rock-bottom we hit, and we’re learning what the world really needs, I think we’ll find we do need some face to face time again.

Since offices were last open, we’ve had tremendous social upheaval. We need to work that out beyond the electronic interface. We have Generation Z entering the workforce, with Baby Boom, GenX, and Millennials all in the same space — should that all be managed in an exclusively electronic world? I think for collaboration and coexistence to thrive, we’ll need to be present to each other.

I don’t know what that looks like — we may rotate through office spaces. Instead of rules like “no meeting on Fridays,” maybe we adopt plans that team face-to-face meetings only happen on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we work out the rest? I trust teams to work it out.

In my regular circles, I constantly hear, “I can’t tell you how many Zoom calls I’m on every day. I always had too many meetings, but never this many. I just want two minutes to pee.” I’m certain people want more breathing room than that. Leaders: that’s too damned many meetings.

Your team doesn’t need another meeting to get sh*t done. You need more breaks.

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