You can't greet the client shake their hand and establish a connection over a video conference nearly as easily as you can in person. As a client I find myself paying attention to the little things. Did they offer coffee or water? Did they open the door? How was the handshake? Did they look trustworthy? If you are remoting in a global team it will be more difficult to provide the experience.

I love the idea that we want to find the smartest people we can find, and hire them. Then tell them they need to drive in to an office every day and fill a seat, on the .01% chance that a client might drop in.

Yeah that makes way more sense than just saying, "hey a client is coming in on Thursday, everyone assume your positions! And for FSM's sake, look like you're collaborating!"

How was the handshake? Surely you can't base your business decisions on such metrics?

If those items are what you judge the business by how would you rate IBM? Firm handshakes, trustworthy rep (sort of) but they never show you the workers.

Is this sarcasm? I can’t tell. If it isn’t, I want to cry or laugh or both one after another.

I tend to strongly agree. Online meetings for me are direct, initmate and focussed. If we are not prepared yet, we call it off in a minute or two and go do our homework before we decide to meet next time. Productivity, progress made, places where help and collaboriative work is needed, etc are keenly understood in a team.

You can also mute the guy who constantly wrecks meetings by being long winded and off topic. :)