Ask Lemmy

So, I really don't like Teams. What follows is basically an unedited stream-of-consciousness that came out of me after reading the question. I've reread it and now realize that it comes across as extremely angry and dramatic. I would not put Teams in the top 50 difficulties of my life, but I do not have much patience for incompetent software. I'm also just in a bad mood and decided to swing at Teams.

Fuck Teams' stupid fucking pseudo-markdown WYSIWYG editor. Either be markdown or don't, you fucking useless cretinous moron! If you're going to automatically insert an interactive code block when I enter a triple-backtick, then you should god damned well do the same fucking thing when I paste in a fully formed code block. (edit here) I do not want to see triple backticks, a new line, my code in a stupid non-monospace font, and then another triple backticks. I wanted a code block which is why I indicated my intention for it to be rendered as one by using the triple fucking backticks that you recognize(end edit). This is just one example, and I feel like I'm taking crazy pills every time I use that piece of shit chatbox.

I use Linux, which means I use Teams exclusively through the browser (they used to have an electron app for Linux but they got tired of dealing with it and deprecated it). I'd be fine with the browser thing were it not for the fact that when I type in the Teams URI, there's a 50/50 chance that I'll be sent to Teams V1 versus Teams V2. Like, why the fuck are you like this, Teams? I have clicked the god damned "take me to V2" button so many times! I think there's like, an option or something for it that I've also clicked. (edit here) I have cleared my cookies and browser data for Teams, I have completely nuked ~/.{config,cache}/google-chrome for Teams, I have installed Chrome Beta for Teams, and still the issue persists (end edit). I do not want to wait 30 fucking seconds for the V2 version of the page to load when I already waited 10-15 seconds. Don't get me started on how broken the "install this as an app" bullshit is, ugh fuck I hate it.

Finally, Teams has been really great at not fucking reading my auth cookie recently. My company uses Okta for SSO, and like, fuck man, most shitty web apps seem to get it. My browser stores a JWT, it sends that shit in a cookie, some magic crypto shit happens, and boom I'm authorized. Teams is just fucking deaf to this though, and it makes me click a "sign in again" button or some shit, which then has a chance to proc the V1 vs V2 UI issue. Like, come the fuck on bro I SEE the cookie when I look at my network requests, just put the fries in the bag and stop making my life that little bit more irritating.

I don't know if I hate it but it's annoying how opening links inside Teams tends to open in Teams instead of the real expected app.

It's like they want a whole OS inside of Teams.

Besides that: slack just feels better and less clunky for text chats.

I just want a compact contact list with status icons. Pining conversations is a shitty solution. Just give me back icq/aim/yahoo/etc

I'm a Slack guy, when forced to use Teams it just always tried to get in the way of anything I wanted to do and Slack would get out of the way.

Sadly Slack are busy trying to make Slack as obnoxious as Teams.

For a counterpoint, my wife loves Teams. She uses it all day every day, and only has good things to say about it.

No push to talk aside from some crappy implementation that requires window focus and can't be bound to a different key. Runs like absolute ass on their own hardware which I'm required to use at work

I’ve only experienced it from Linux and it’s a huge exercise in pain. It sometimes works, but it’s just stacks and stacks of hacks.

All the other things I’ve used work for video conferencing have worked fine in Linux or a browser.

Why does ux layout eat so much screen space? We have a channel for the team to say hello at the start of shift, the lunch/goodnight.

The UX lets you see maybe 3-4 total posts at once. That is one example, but it takes so much effort of scrolling to be sure you’ve seen everything

At least in my work instance, by default it sends me an alert any time someone posts a reaction emoji in one of the dozen chat channels.

It starts using an entire core for UI work when I move my mouse (Roccat Cone Pure 2017), and becomes unresponsive. Had to get a different mouse just for this shit. At least I got my workplace to pay for it.

Support did not even try to replicate the issue, instead they wanted me to upgrade to the "New" Teams when I explicitly told them that I didn't have that option in my org.

I want to use free open source software, and if I were a business customer I would certainly want my business to use free open source software when reasonable.

If all we're doing is sharing files and messaging each other, I don't know why we would need Teams. There are so many other options that work quite well.

I don't hate it, but I don't think it would typically solve my problems in ways that other software doesn't already do better.

The amount of employer tracking that’s possible there makes me always feel that I’m being watched and metric’ed on my ‘productivity’

I suspect the answer by a great many people will boil down to "because I used it [and it's shit]"

I actually like teams because it does way more than zoom for the same cost (I'm the one paying the bills, so that matters to me). My general experience is that people don't know how to fully use teams, so it gives a kinda terrible experience. For example, you can embed a PBI into a teams channel to make access to analytics easier. You can also embed a calendar/schedule/plan through planner. Someone at my company created a power app that serves as a menu to direct a user to helpful information, which was also embedded into teams. I guess the pattern you see here is that you can use it as a one stop shop for team info.

I’ve only used it for a couple of interviews…it’s dead clunky and awkward to use. To be honest I thought it was a me thing.

Teams insists on reordering the sidebar based on activity — it breaks my mental focus on work tasks when I’m ALWAYS looking for the chat thread I know is there, freaking somewhere, I was reading it just 10 minutes ago