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Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

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Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#71

Post by mseebach »

jcadam wrote: post #8

Several months ago I interviewed for a remote position with a startup based in NYC. The technical screening consisted of a project and of course a couple of phone interviews. After I did well on all of that, I was flown up to NYC for a 'culture-fit' interview. Which I failed, apparently. As a mid-30s guy who was raised in the mid-west, I felt like I had very little in common with the 20-something urbanites with whom…

Playing devil's advocate, there are definitely entirely legitimate reasons one might fail a "culture-fit" interview, especially for a remote hire: Perhaps you weren't so much "not-like-us" as "you kids don't know shit, just wait until you hire me" (your comment does come off slightly condescending) or just generally as someone who'd struggle being outranked by someone 10 years your junior (I understand mid-western values to be slightly more conservative)? Perhaps they didn't feel your ideas of what remote work would look like was aligned with theirs, and they didn't feel you responded to hint that they didn't? Perhaps you indicated a style of working that they feel wouldn't fit well (are you going to be actively picking up work on your own, or are you just going to work your tickets and check out -- or perhaps the exact opposite, either is bad if you're not aligned)?

Culture fit (or, more like "working-style-fit") is even more important for a remote position, because the bandwidth for subtle feedback is so narrow.

But of course, I know neither you nor the startup in questions, so purely speculation -- but there are reasonable explanations that isn't that you didn't fit into a small, narrow-minded box (which, of course, is definitely also a plausible explanation).

Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#72

Post by eropple »

in_me_i_trust wrote: post #36
soulnothing wrote: post #28

I've worked partially remote for the past two years. I had one horrid stint fully remote where they thought remote == 24 hour work days. There are pros and cons to remote. It depends on your team and their culture. Some teams need a whiteboard and planning sessions. Others can just do a screen share and work on a flow chart together. If your team and culture is capable of remote it's a really nice perk for employees.…

"I.E. coming over knocking on your desk asking a question, or pulling you in for a meeting." I'm curious whether you find hipchat / slack to actually be less intrusive. In my experience, working from home can result in protracted text conversations causing me to stay less focused for longer periods of time. In the office, I can usually stop, take off the headphones, resolve their problem, refill my coffee and then ge…

I "solved" this by running Slack on a second computer (even being on the same one with the same notification feed was no good). I occasionally look at it, but try to avoid doing so unless I'm at the start of a pomodoro period (because Slack is work, it gets a work period).

Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#74

Post by [deleted] »

eropple wrote: post #59
seangrogg wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely use the "would I enjoy getting drinks" bar and I feel it's perfectly valid though - I'll admit - poorly worded. It really has nothing to do with actually wanting to get drinks with the person (I'd at least like to pretend I have a social life outside of work) but rather being perfectly comfortable talking with the person regardless of the social situation. Yeah, if you can do your work with minimal super…

Being able to "level with someone" who is not like you is a learnable skill. Given the studied and demonstrable bias towards cultural ( human culture , not "tech culture"), racial, and gender similarity when selecting for fit, not doing so, and contributing to continued disparities and injustices within this industry and society at large, is immoral and unethical and you should stop. And it's foolish besides. You wou…

[deleted]

Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#76

Post by endswapper »

eropple wrote: post #65
endswapper wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, open-mindedness, inclusion, and confidence in leadership are incredibly important to the culture of an organization. Good leadership earns, deserves and requires confidence from the community that makes up the organization. I would go a step further to say great leadership earns, deserves and requires faith (to be crystal clear, non-religious faith). The cynicism and reductive reasoning you are expressing is a…

I shouldn't have put that tailchaser into my post, because I knew it's what you'd seize on. Silly ol' reductive me, I guess. So let's not let you dodge. How about the structural and institutionalized sexism and racism involved in "culture fit" as is actually practiced, not how you'd like to redefine it ? "Culture fit is about open-mindedness and inclusion" except when somebody has some melanin to them or an accent or…

I think you sank your teeth in to the wrong piece of meat.

You seem to be taking issue with the the fact that organizations use culture fit to veil their racism, sexism, etc. I am not denying that happens and I believe that is wrong.

As I said in my previous post, my point is that, "It's a less tangible, but collective agreement about purpose and objective." It has validity, value and relevance.

Maybe it's the term or your experiences that prompted your response, but that's really not the conversation I'm having. If you want to post something about calling it something else, or have a conversation about, "when culture fit goes wrong..." I'd probably participate in that too.

Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#77

Post by qxf2 »

I'm an employer that allows near 100% remote work. Remote work comes with its own set of trade-offs that need to be managed. These are the trade-offs I see with my 10-employee company in India:

Pros:

a) I can hire experienced people from anywhere in India

b) My employees do not waste time in traffic.

c) I have fewer personality conflicts to deal with ... but this could just be a side effect of being really small (~10 employees)

d) Being in the services business with all my clients abroad, my employees develop better remote working skills

e) I save on office rent

Cons:

a) It is hard to hire junior people to fit into a remote-only team in India. The 0-3 year experience crowd in India prefer being part a group and have a collegiate culture. I do not blame them - I've seen the 'in office/onsite' culture work well for them. But it hurts me as a services business because I get better margins on more junior folk.

b) Many senior people do not want to join my company - it doesn't 'feel' busy, they would like to have better visibility into their direct reports, etc. This wasted so much time during the phone screens that I have had to list 'we are a distributed team' as a con on our careers page.

c) The lack of office space is a major downer for a lot of people who would like to bring their relatives and show off a fancy office with dressed up colleagues.

d) I have heard these genuine complaints often - "we do not really know our colleagues", "we do not get together often enough", etc. I sometimes worry that we may not end up being very cohesive.

e) Remote work in India is interpreted by some candidates as 'easy work'. And it is interpreted by many people in their social circle to mean 'no work'. E.g.: "I have this errand in the middle of a weekday. Come with me. You work from home anyway."

Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#78

Post by eropple »

endswapper wrote: post #76
eropple wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I shouldn't have put that tailchaser into my post, because I knew it's what you'd seize on. Silly ol' reductive me, I guess. So let's not let you dodge. How about the structural and institutionalized sexism and racism involved in "culture fit" as is actually practiced, not how you'd like to redefine it ? "Culture fit is about open-mindedness and inclusion" except when somebody has some melanin to them or an accent or…

I think you sank your teeth in to the wrong piece of meat. You seem to be taking issue with the the fact that organizations use culture fit to veil their racism, sexism, etc. I am not denying that happens and I believe that is wrong. As I said in my previous post, my point is that, "It's a less tangible, but collective agreement about purpose and objective." It has validity, value and relevance. Maybe it's the term o…

"Collective agreement about purpose" is why sexism and racism pervade this sort of thing, though. Because the purpose is not what is stated. My contention is that there is no fundamental difference between what I am saying and what you are saying and that, while I believe that you might have good intentions, you're providing a shield for bad behavior.

Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#79

Post by seangrogg »

eropple wrote: post #59
seangrogg wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely use the "would I enjoy getting drinks" bar and I feel it's perfectly valid though - I'll admit - poorly worded. It really has nothing to do with actually wanting to get drinks with the person (I'd at least like to pretend I have a social life outside of work) but rather being perfectly comfortable talking with the person regardless of the social situation. Yeah, if you can do your work with minimal super…

Being able to "level with someone" who is not like you is a learnable skill. Given the studied and demonstrable bias towards cultural ( human culture , not "tech culture"), racial, and gender similarity when selecting for fit, not doing so, and contributing to continued disparities and injustices within this industry and society at large, is immoral and unethical and you should stop. And it's foolish besides. You wou…

I know it's a learnable skill, but being relatively laid back, easy-going, and generally amicable I don't feel a particularly strong need to further advance it in light of diminishing returns over unit time compared to other skills.

As a brown liberal-republican with a military background and an education in psychology I am definitely just like every other techie in the Bay Area, of course, and I should stop leveraging my background because I'm obviously part of your unethical and immoral bell curve. I guess.

I fail to see how it's my fault if you play mind games to get into my good graces. Most people adapt their persona to their situation in the first place - it's common to be a "different person" when you're with your family, your friends, and your coworkers. And given most of these positions are contractual... I guess it depends on how long you're looking for a job.

I tend to be pretty ability-driven in my decision making process and rarely dismiss a person entirely because I don't "want to have drinks". But if they're not a personable individual maybe it's not me who has to do the growing for them, eh?

Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#80

Post by [deleted] »

67726e wrote: post #40
Klathmon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that also works remote, it's not all roses and daisies. Communication can be very hard at times without someone there to manage it, keep everyone in the loop, and make sure nobody is left out. We go into the office once a week, and i've found that on those days, just being in the office lets me overhear conversations about things that I can offer a solution to, or having a few people in the same area shoot…

> As someone that also works remote, it's not all roses and daisies. I spent the past two years working remote, and at this point I don't think I would ever want to do it again. Something I don't think I've ever really seen mentioned about working from home is that it can be incredibly isolating and overall mentally unhealthy. The isolation, lack of separation of work and home environment (in the physical sense), and…

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