Sneaking in a work from home day could soon be a bit trickier thanks to a new update coming to Microsoft Outlook.
The email provider is rolling out a new feature that will allow users to spot which of their co-workers or colleagues is currently in the office, and therefore possibly free for a quick meeting or able to reply to a message.
The update will use the Work Hours and Location information stored within Outlook to offer up this information, meaning there may be some awkward conversations if your colleagues believe you to be in the office.
In its entry in the Microsoft 365 roadmap, the company notes that the feature will be “always on”, meaning there may be no getting around what it represents as your office presence.
Wouldn’t your coworkers already know you’re working from home by, you know not seeing you at the office?
When I worked in an office, most of my team was in other offices across the world. But we had to be in the office for that TEAM BUILDING
> Go to the office
> All meetings are on teams because half the team works on other offices.
Yup.
Daily stand-up meeting
On the phone because we’re decentralized
Everyone’s actually sitting + hardly anyone’s even paying attention because they’re at their computers
Even if the whole team is actually in the conference room…it’s one dude with a laptop who struggles to get the display working for 10 min then proceeds to just read the PowerPoint out loud.
None of this required me putting on pants or being part of traffic.
That’s… incredibly dumb.
Even worse, it’s completely real. It was the common situation for me before corona. Also driving an entire day for a 1 hour meeting.
