HACKER Q&A
📣 TurkishPoptart

How to gently push back on teammates who always want to call/do Zoom?


I have a colleague I have been training for a while. More often than not, a discussion will end with them deciding to schedule a meeting with other people, for questions that could be easily addressed (IMO) asynchronously on Slack. I receive calls instead of questions, which I always answer if I can. But this is steadily leading to "Zoom fatigue" for me.

I don't feel comfortable saying "no" to them, because they are more senior than me, and I don't want to hurt any feelings. I have stated my preference as in "I think you can just ping [person] instead of setting up a call" a few times, but they don't seem to get the message.

I suspect some people for whom English is a second/third language find it easier to speak on a video call over typing async messages, so this might be more of a "culture clash" than a problem. Still, I want to get more comfortable saying "no" to meetings in general and am looking for ideas/tactics. Thanks.


  👤 PaulHoule Accepted Answer ✓
Personally I get Slack fatigue. I am very happy to have 1 on 1 convos on Slack but have a hard time following groups that have a lot of activity, particularly if it is office chit-chat or (worse) animated image memes which cause me a lot of distress.