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Have you played… Microsoft Teams Call-Joining Tab Races?Making a game for myself out of daily technical frustration
Making a game for myself out of daily technical frustration
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Microsoft
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Microsoft

I wish I were exaggerating but no, Microsoft Teams breaks every day. Pages will stall while loading, requiring a refresh. At several different steps, it might sign me out or forget I’m logged in. In one such step, it might offer to let me join the call as a guest, but guests require approval to join and most other people are also guesting for the same reason so eventually someone must sign in to open the door. While I can’t use the Teams desktop app on my PC because of corporate security policies, the browser version will certainly still interrupt joining to suggest it—sometimes several times in a row. Refreshing a stalled page might also set me back to re-encounter error messages and nag screens I already passed. And so on. A random selection of these and more every workday. It’s the sort of little frustration which grows over years into screaming fury and I hope this game can save me.
I find three tabs is a good number for Tab Races. Any more and my attention is too divided for a fair race. And no, it’s not as simple as ‘first tab opened wins’ because Teams is so inconsistent and surprising with its errors and naggings. Some quick rules:
EVERY SINGLE DAY. SOMETIMES TWICE. THRICE? |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Microsoft

You could make this into a competitive multiplayer game with your colleagues. Line everyone up in Slack, Discord, or other non-Microsoft communications software and start joining when someone fires the 🔫 starting pistol. What a thrill to get in first then see the disappointment on everyone else’s faces!
You could start a league too. Could even add gambling and prizes. Loser buys the first round ofice cream at EGX?
Anyway, I’ve got a Teams meeting in three hours so I should go start joining. Happy racing!