My first meeting working in a fully-remote job, I joined a Teams meeting with the whole team (~8 people) 5 minutes early. I wasn’t the host, of course.

People were (invisibly) giving me the side eye.

I soon learned that starting the meeting makes a popup appear on everyone’s screen saying that the meeting started…and also that a lot of people regularly have back-to-back meetings and can’t leave early. (This was mid-pandemic, shortly before it became the norm to end meetings before the hour)

After that, I started joining all virtual meetings either second (by clicking the pop-up that someone else started it), or before XX:01 (or before 1 minute after the meeting time).

In-person, I’ll still show up to the meeting room 5 minutes early, or 15 if it’s a slow day. But do that too often and people think you’re useless, lol

I like arriving early for small talk, instead of having the rushed small talk when the meeting is “supposed” to begin.