I don't see my boss in meetings

I don't see my boss in meetings any more. I could see my boss in meetings, when I started at this job I would see my boss in meetings, but now the boss stays in their office with the door closed and calls in to the Microsoft Teams call. We do have one outside salesperson who isn't at the office because they're out visiting customers, so I understand why they're not here.

At my previous job, we had a den of cubicle clusters in the center of the room and walled offices along the side for the bigwigs. The production department would have a meeting via Zoom and their boss would be in his office while everyone was at their desks. I would hear them say something, and then coming through the thin walls and indoor glass of the enclosed offices I would hear a muffled echo of whatever they said a half-second later because their boss was listening on speaker instead of headset.

Last week (at time of writing) I had a meeting to finalize the estimate for a big deal that required some input from my boss, his business partner (this is not a large company), and our production people. I took my laptop and dutifully went from my cubicle to the conference room to plug in and join the call since the business partner is remote. I was the only one there. I understand when people do need to call into a meeting, people can be off-site or you site can just be unreasonably large. If Warehouse Wichael on your sprawled out campus doesn't want to walk a quarter mile for a meeting, that's a fair choice.

No one at this office or the previous one has ever invited me to join them for lunch. I know I don't ask, and bringing my smoothie in a thermos ever day can make it appear that I'm not open to being asked... but people still could. At my first in-office position, people asked even though I brought a lunch box every day.

From there I went to work fully remote for a company for frustratingly just shy of two years. My team lead at that company really seemed to have the team's back and if the division manager was faking the regret about having to lay me off they did a phenomenal acting job. While that company didn't do virtual lunch togethers or team building exercises, they put a lot of attention into training a fully remote team. I didn't need to ask for guidance early on, they provided it for me. So many days of someone giving an overview of the tools and processes the company uses. Then a period of lighter workload where I had someone assigned to watch me share my screen and do some tasks until they were convinced I could do things on my own. The pace increases, and then I had video calls with my trainer where we review my work and only then when it's approved do I send it out. Then finally my trainer doesn't need to watch me any more and I'm fully on board afterwards.

Post-remote work no one has really had much a plan for onboarding. At one place I wasn't even trained by my team leader but by an adjacent team leader who seemed like he was taking pity on me because nothing was happening. But I was never on his team, doing the work he lead, and I didn't actually report to him. He wasn't responsible for me, but the person who was had abdicated that responsibility completely.

Here at least I've stood up for myself more to get feedback and people have made themselves more available to help me out. But it still feels less like a directed process that someone's worked out in a manual and more of more successfully figuring things out as I go this time.

Notably, both times post-remote work I was told in no uncertain terms that these were in office jobs. Why are they in the office? Or at least, why are they exclusively in office? I get it, not everything can be done remote and a business might have jobs that need to be done on a site and jobs that don't. There is even some value to immediacy, being able to just poke my head over a cube wall or walks out back to ask a question right then and there. Seeing someone in a meeting lets you pick up on their body language. Proximity allows for connection and teambuilding through things that aren't just work, like the simple task of getting lunch together.

Sure, I might long for fully remote work again, but I really see the value of having hybrid schedules and giving people the best of both worlds. Or at least... the option of both worlds.

No one has invited me to lunch at this office. At my last office as I think back, someone did invite me to lunch... But it was only vendors checking in on us and offering to take the team out. My coworkers? Did not.

At that office I witnessed people practically in the same room joining meetings over Zoom. In this office, people close enough I could throw a sticky note paper airplane and probably land it on their desk won't get up to go to a conference room. I do most of my discussion with my teammate through Microsoft Teams even though we're on opposite sides of a cubicle wall, and it's a low cubicle wall. Either of us could make eye contact with the other if we just stood up and talked.

When my boss has the weekly meeting to check in on what we're doing and to see if we need help, he doesn't even join us in the room any more.