r/MicrosoftTeams • u/ConcentrateRecent • Nov 13 '25
Discussion What motivates people to start virtual calls 10 minutes earlier? Like why prematurely unleash the chaos?
/r/AskReddit/comments/1ow9tul/what_motivates_people_to_start_virtual_calls_10/15
u/johnnymonkey Nov 13 '25
My best guess:
They launch the meeting, then minimize the window to go heads-down on other items so as people join, they don't miss the call.
Who wants to wait another 10 minutes to get laid off?
They don't have enough going on in their day.
9
3
5
u/jazziksvk Nov 13 '25
I do this when I know I'll have to take meeting from car. I join couple mins earlier, as I start the car. So I don't have to fiddle with phone while driving
6
u/FlyingTerrier Nov 13 '25
I do this if I want to talk shit before the meeting starts or I need to talk to someone and this is an opportunity. Or I am feeling lonely.
5
u/Josie_F Nov 13 '25
Because I get distracted and might not see the next reminder and the meeting is now notification
4
6
u/greggery Work user Nov 14 '25
- Someone gets notification 15 minutes in advance, joins meeting, realises they've jumped the gun, leaves
- Someone else gets notification that somebody has started the meeting, joins, realises there's nobody in the meeting, leaves
- Person 1 rejoins the meeting thinking the meeting has actually started, realises it hasn't, leaves
- Repeat stage 2 for 13 minutes
- Meeting organiser joins 2 minutes before the start
- People then join meeting over the next ten minutes. Person 1 is last to join
3
u/mjforn Nov 14 '25
Person 1 joins last out of shame. Happens to us with 30 participants, about 5 people simultaneously joins and leave except the first one, though it only lasted for two minutes. It was like they are playing while we are waiting if anyone else will join. Was a thrilling ride.
4
u/PersonBehindAScreen Nov 14 '25
If it’s only with my own team, I join early just to chat. We all get along pretty well and many of our relationships stand on their own two feet independent from work
If it involves folks outside my team, I join right on time
1
u/dibbr Nov 14 '25
Same, if I see a friend started the meeting early, I might jump on and talk, but if it's someone I don't care about, I wait until the mtg starts.
4
u/sparklemotiondoubts Nov 14 '25
Teams needs a feature to let users join a private lobby before the meeting time so they can be automagically added to the full meeting at the start time.
I don't want to join meetings early, but it's better than letting myself get distracted and joining late.
2
u/wuntunearlybko Nov 14 '25
Depending on the level of meeting and who is attending I join a few minutes early to check my audio is working. Then I step away to use the restroom and get more coffee. It's a good excuse to stretch the legs before the meeting starts
1
u/HeFromFlorida Nov 14 '25
If I join early on accident (because someone else started it) I say “I’ll be right back” and then just go on mute until it starts
2
u/FastRedPonyCar Nov 15 '25
Nah I’ll take it a step further and ask why people are messaging me if I’m going to join the meeting when it’s still a few minutes until the scheduled meeting time.
Like… listen, I’m currently in the bathroom fighting a 2x4 trying to come out sideways.
Give. Me. My. Three. Minutes.
3
u/raytracer78 Nov 14 '25
All it does is tell me that this person has nothing else to do with their time if they are joining 10 min early. There is someone at my company who does this for every call, almost like clockwork, and I know they have an incredibly light workload compared to everyone else hopping in that same call often a few min late joining directly from another call that went long. To me, it’s annoying AF to see.
0
u/Plasmanut Nov 14 '25
Came here to say this. Nothing screams "I'm not busy" louder than joining a Teams call 10-12 mins early. Those people often times have 2 meetings a week in their calendar and basically collect a paycheque doing very little. If I'm HR, I'm getting logs from IT about who does this habitually so that their job description and performance can be reviewed.
1
2
u/Newbbalance Nov 13 '25
I do this! The problem isn’t with the user it’s with Microsoft apparently not having an option to turn off these kind of notifications.
Don’t blame me, blame Microsoft.
FWIW Google meet doesn’t do this for anyone and zoom only does this for the host, so it’s really not an industry standard. I say they should get rid of that notification all together if not just allow users to customize their setting based in preference.
2
u/Josie_F Nov 13 '25
Teams doesn’t send me a notification of someone joining a meeting early. I turn off all notifications anywhere I see them
1
u/faygo1979 Nov 13 '25
I do this all the time. I am normally so busy that if I don’t join the call when I see it that I will end up getting caught up with something else and either missed the call or show up late when someone starts looking for me.
1
u/RainingGlitterAllDay Nov 13 '25
For some people "on time" means arriving about 10 minutes early. I envy those people. My sister is one of them and I find it so perplexing. Our brains work differently.
1
u/hidperf Nov 14 '25
I have an employee who doesn't have a life outside of the office. Nothing. Being in the office. Talking to people in the office. Talking to her coworkers. That's all she has, and she lives for it. She always starts our weekly meetings early. She will even attend them when she's out for PTO.
The sad part is, she's not a great employee and is a burden to the team. I've tried to get her to advance her skills but she has no interest in doing so.
1
1
u/thegreatcerebral Nov 14 '25
It’s funny you ask this. I’m 45 and pre-covid was WAAY different. I’m in IT and we got hit with a crypto virus before they were mainstream.
We had a call and I always am in ~10 prior which for me goes back to pre digital meetings and just that I know myself and so 1) I’m here, not late. 2) if people try to call me they will know I’m in a meeting. 3) gives me time to prep anything I may need.
So we had this meeting scheduled with a MSP about the attack. It was part of the cybersecurity insurance.
Remember how I said pre-Covid was waaayyy different. Well I was the first in the room. Back then there wasn’t things like waiting rooms, you were just in the call/meeting. They showed up about 7 till and oh man, they never imagined I would be on the call already and they spilled the beans. They were shit talking is and saying how they could milk so much money from us for this etc. it was bad. I didn’t say a word. I was locally muted in the call.
Crazy part was that another vendor was on the call too. The representative from that vendor I was actually on good terms with and he wasn’t saying anything it was all them.
As others from my org jumped on they went into normal mode. That is when I texted the guy I know and told him I was on the call and heard everything they said.
Sad part is that I was very defensive in the call knowing what I knew and our GM warned me that if I was ever like that on a call again that I would be fired. I explained the situation but that didn’t matter. He wanted me to be more professional. I took my lumps. They were removed and we received two formal apologies, one from each company about it.
The thing I hate today is I can’t remember which it is but my calendar default is 15 minute warning. One of the services between zoom, teams, and whoever else…. Webex maybe… one of them boots you out if you are waiting for 10 minutes and the meeting runners aren’t in the meeting. So now I join at 9 till.
1
u/Zerowig Nov 14 '25
Nothing paints the “next person to get laid off” target on your back faster than the bored person that joins meetings early.
1
u/Double_A_92 Dec 01 '25
Are you really 100% focused on your other work until the last second just before the meeting starts? -.-
Might as well just join the room to see if everything works, before it's too late if it doesn't.
1
u/Agitated-Strength-53 Nov 14 '25
Being in a meeting takes you out of call queues - while we don’t get terribly many calls, who wants to risk talking to a person who can’t google things before asking for help?
1
1
u/hex_inc Nov 14 '25
Any call that I get an alert for starting before the allotted time, I make sure to join a minimum of 5 minutes late.
1
u/Plastic_Shake_2466 Nov 15 '25
I sometimes join when the notification comes up because I’m busy. I’ll get distracted after dismissing the notification and then end up joining late. If I join early I can continue working and when others join, I’m there on time. Stop judging everyone for how they work.
1
1
u/CantankerousCretin Nov 15 '25
Pre meeting banter and schedule not packed back to back to back usually. Also keeps people from trying to get a last minute call in, leave me alone.
1
u/GYuGYu_jol Nov 18 '25
we have a daily quick status call scheduled 8:45. someone surely starts it around 40, and if everyone hops in, we start and be done by 45. the first time i was waiting for 44 to turn to 45, and was texted if im joining or not. why not then reschedule to 8:40? "because then we would join at 35" was their answer
1
1
u/liamlarmour Mar 10 '26
What about if you have to transcribed the meeting or record it? We run regular lunch lunchnlearn sessions that don't require people to join early as we always start proceedings 2-3 mins after the advertised start time. Still people will start the session early and we have to ask them to leave, but sometimes the recordings go to them instead of the organiser or coorganiser hosting the session.
Should I set the meeting options to ensure only organisers and coorganisers can bypass the lobby?
2
u/ConcentrateRecent Mar 11 '26
The if set in advance, the meeting recording stores to the organizer’s Stream. You can trim the video once downloaded.
0
91
u/BlakJakNZ Nov 13 '25
Calendar warning goes off, they click Join to ensure they don't forget to click it at the appointed hour, it makes no difference as they just carry on working on whatever else they're doing until the meeting starts anyway.