I haven’t been to a Star Trek event but having the handlers act abrasive would certainly irritate me as well and it doesn’t matter if I was paying for a photo op or getting it free. I imagine it’s probably a local security group they are contracting so the staff are probably more used to being bar bouncers but someone should give them a speech on the proper way to engage during these types of events.
Definitely disagree on this one. Worked a job across the pandemic that was completely virtual and I never met my coworkers in person. A number of us left about 6 months ago due to layoffs but we all flew out to meet up with each other last week and hang out. That’s almost an entire department of folk that now work in different companies taking the time and personal expense to travel and hang out with each other so I’d say a meaningful bond was built. It absolutely can happen, managers just need to be informed on how to do it. If any org should be prepared for this it’s Zoom. This is just being super lazy on the part of Zoom and having a lack of confidence in their own product.