MENLO PARK, CA – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced the release of Horizon Workrooms, an ultra-high-tech solution to the age-old problem of your boss needing to find new and expensive ways to pull you away from your work to have an unrequired meeting.
“With more of the workforce working from home than ever before, the primary challenge of the next decade will be finding innovative ways for the managerial class to interrupt that work in order to cling to the pretense that they are necessary,” Zuckerberg’s avatar said during a long virtual press briefing that should have been a short press release.
Horizon Workrooms, named after the event horizon of a black hole because they are the point at which no productivity can escape, allow up to 16 users wearing heavy Oculus Quest virtual reality headsets to have a glitchy yet pointless conversation, with the option of up to 34 more users joining in over video call to talk over each other and miss any of the rare salient points that might be made.
“I cannot express how much more busywork this will contribute to my job,” said Bradly Hartford, a mid-level manager at a large faceless corporation. “Buying all the headsets, finding people to service the headsets, distributing the headsets, replacing damaged headsets, all great stuff I can point to when my own useless bosses ask me what I’ve achieved this quarter.”
While Facebook has made the argument that VR meetings will replace video-conferencing, most managers like Hartford are planning to use them in addition to Zoom meetings, allowing them to eat up even more of their day in ‘touching base’ with their underlings.
“Between phone calls, Zooms, Meets, Slack channels, and now VR meetings, it’s truly the golden age of keeping in constant touch with the people I’m distance managing despite the fact that everything I have to say to them would easily fit in a single written paragraph,” Hartford said.
“I just hope in the new VR meetings, my avatar can hover behind their avatar while they’re speaking just like I used to do in the old days of in-person meetings. Ooh, maybe my avatar can give their avatars surprise backrubs!”
In other Facebook news, the U.S. government has refiled a lawsuit alleging that Facebook is violating antitrust laws in their heavy-handed attempt to be the only website radicalizing your aunt against vaccines.
