Compared to skype, irc, slack, xmpp, and any other chat/phone software I’ve used its unreliable spyware.

Spyware in that it’s used to force idle status used by middle managers to make assumptions about when and how you work.

Unreliable in that it stops showing system tray message status when it updates without alert, using vdi/Bluetooth headsets are a crap shoot if audio will work or not, and destroys history by allowing corpo policy to remove messages after X days.

Lets see, half my team randomly doesent recieve notifications/get notification audio at times. Sometimes youll get a notification that theres a new message in a channel but it doesent show up until you restart teams. Today specifically my mute button was desynced with the application mute and inverted. Sometimes audio devices wont work at all first time you join a meeting until you replug the audio devices (not an os wide issue) the status icon has a mind of its own and will say people are away or completely not available even when they are actively using the computer theres also no way AS ADMINISTRATOR to change how the icon behaves. Only Microsoft is allowed to dictate that. Not nearly enough controls as admin to define visibility in things like timeoff requests, shifts, etc. Instead of having a simple notes tab you have to use some form of OneNote shoved into the software which slows it down, overcomplicates it and sometimes wont even sync changes. Theres more thats just off the top of my head

My company dropped Slack for Teams, because it’s free with the Office subscription, so I guess they put a price on collaboration and culture. Weeks on none of the bots and integrations work properly because there’s no time to fix shit that was already working.

Hey, wanna try the New Calendar? Tries the new calendar, it is even worse than the current one. Hey, wanna try the New Calendar? STFU Teams, I need to work!

Teams for chat and video is generally OK but when managers start trying to do scheduling, task lists, and kanbans in it it becomes annoying in my experience. A software should have a definitive scope and not try to be an everything tool. If you want that interconnectivity then it’s better to implement a standard which works with another tool that is designed for that purpose instead of tacking on a bunch of shit.

Otherwise, I end up wondering “Ok where the fuck is that scheduled meeting? Was in in outlook? Was it in the teams calendar? Was it in the teams Kanban? Was it a task list item in Teams? Was it in slack? Was it in google calendar? Oh, no, it was in ZOOM! Oh wait, fuck, I actually have a meeting with this client through SKYPE FOR BUSINESS at the same time the zoom meeting starts… Shit.”

To me, Microsoft’s entire transition to web technologies is a self inflicted wound. Going native is a massive performance win. They already had that, and went the other way. Just, Why!? Now, Microsoft software is all big, bloated, and slow as fuck. Even the OS. They were literally bragging about a 9 second start up time after some optimizations to Teams. They don’t even know what efficiency is anymore. We all essentially have super computers, now, but sure, congrats on your 9 second load time for a fuckin chat program.

Sysadmin for a living here - Teams breaks constantly in our office. Multiple people report issues with Teams not starting or not functioning properly on a weekly basis.

This is true for Windows 11 as a whole, truthfully. Windows 11 can eat my ass for many reasons.

Current pet peeve: I’m in a meeting, and I click to switch to another app to check something, then I click the Teams icon to switch back to Teams. Clearly, in this case, I want to get back to the meeting.

Instead, it shows me the calendar view. WTF, Microsoft?

Honestly it’s never been too bad for me.

except that time it randomly turned on my microphone during a meeting, when I was casually chatting to my brother about the beneficial value of replacing antidepressants with a microdose of shrooms 😬

or when it wants to open docs in Teams instead of opening it in the actual program. It always opens so slow, just so I can close it.

or when it tried to force its update on me, and took me from black background to white, and suddenly the background matched my rage; white hot and seething

Real talk? Because it’s forced on people at work and it’s made by Microsoft. It certainly has its flaws but it’s not the worst software in the world.

Inability to multitask. Find the file or chat link you want and need to go back to the meeting you were up? Spend 5 minutes digging back into where you were.

Microsoft doesn’t ACTUALLY care about teams so it’s a nonstop bad UX, then they try to fix it, then they go a different direction, and so on. To Microsoft, its an add on that they mostly use to keep people away from Slack. When they spend time on it, all they are doing is enough to keep people away from Slack.

Its been like, what, 2 years there they’ve shipped a “new” client seperate from the existing client (at least on macOS)? People are constantly using the wrong one or switching when one breaks, and Microsoft constantly breaks the new one.

On windows the existence of the built-in “Teams” App is constantly confusing when people are trying to sign into a work account, which requires a different client. This is because the “Teams” App in Windows is just a rebadged Skype.

Before 2022 when I used it for some meetings (we used slack in our unit since we had some of our own budget, but the wider corp was on teams) it was a daily toss up as to whether video calls would work on macos or linux.

Most of my frustrations come from having to develop some integrations with teams:

1. Right now there’s a massive bug for the templating language to render cards in the UI and Microsoft’s answer has largely been a big shoulder shrug.

2. There are several really easy ways an admin can break a custom integration via azure. Obviously an app-based integration is better, but it’s also really common in b2b to have more ad-hoc setups to send some data to teams. Even better, lots of small/medium companies have been convinced that they don’t need IT people to help them with their Azure configuration, so no one ever knows how to solve any problems they create (this also applies to email fwiw… Unbelievable how many small/medium O365 customers have very broken email servers)

3. Microsoft’s implementation of federation between O365 users is a mess of tiered settings, and figuring our if rhe issue is on the business side or your side is a sysiphean task. If you are in an org which doesn’t have a domain hooked up to your setup (as in you use username@company.onmicrosoft.com) there is a very specific sign in page you have to use or it’ll blow up on you. And it’s not the generic sign in page you get when going to teams or O364’s web site.

Tl:dr; Teams is a hacked together mess of bubble gum and toothpicks masquerading as a chat app. Its a miracle ir works as well as it does for “normal” usage, but it’s a joke compared to Slack in every other way and quickly becomes a nightmare if you are working on integrations with it.

To me Teams pretty much represents one of Microsoft’s aggravating mortal sins.

Teams got popular. More due to the circumstances than the inherent quality of the app. And once entrenched, Microsoft did what they always do in situations like this. Jack squat.

This could have been a start of a beautiful new era! Strike the iron while it’s hot! Show what the money, resources and the technical know-how at Microsoft’s disposal could do! Fix all of the failings of Skype tech, and really polish up the app! Did Microsoft do that? Naaah. It’s a mediocre app with brand new jank! That’s its destiny now.

Classic teams had a high contrast mode that worked very well. The background was dark and the text was bright yellow. The new version of teams also has high contrast but now the text and background are both shades of gray.

Want to use a Bluetooth headset? Roll the dice on if it will work at any point in time. 3 back to back meetings? Load the 4th and it’s reset your audio to laptop speakers, or now your webcam won’t work.