Written communication will also give you RSI though
Written communication is remote work super power
21–30 of 194 posts
Re: Written communication is remote work super power
#22Actually funny this question. Because come to think about it, text is by far my preffered way to communicate. That goes for work and for serious-private matters. The absolute strengt with text is that it gives you history by default - you can save it. While you can save text it's also eaiser to the search. The mental model around writing and communicating is the mental proces that goes into it, and which is also the…
It's worth noting that some people specifically see verbal communication's undocumented-by-default nature as a feature. When I was younger I found that idea very offensive. I considered people who held that viewpoint to be suspect (engaging in political machinations, or using fluid recollections of conversations to their advantage). I still think there's a grain of truth to my suspicions, but I've learned to recogniz…
There's still phone calls. Any co-worker you trust enough to have an "off the record" conversation with wouldn't turn down a "hey, can I call you?" request. They might think it's weird at first, but would understand later I'm sure.
Re: Written communication is remote work super power
#23Video calls are like single-room IRC 20 years ago, before PM, threads etc within same room were added. Probably just matter of months when we will see subrooms, side-channel whisper, history of transcribed logs and many other additions also in video calls. Just current software limitations.
Re: Written communication is remote work super power
#24> participants need to be competent at writing and reading prose (it’s harder than it sounds)
In my experience, around 1/3rd of developers are not good typists. Writing code isn't really about typing, so it's OK, but when participating in an active conversation in a chat room with multiple people, not being able to type well hurts.
Re: Written communication is remote work super power
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's worth noting that some people specifically see verbal communication's undocumented-by-default nature as a feature. When I was younger I found that idea very offensive. I considered people who held that viewpoint to be suspect (engaging in political machinations, or using fluid recollections of conversations to their advantage). I still think there's a grain of truth to my suspicions, but I've learned to recogniz…
There's still phone calls. Any co-worker you trust enough to have an "off the record" conversation with wouldn't turn down a "hey, can I call you?" request. They might think it's weird at first, but would understand later I'm sure.
I've called coworkers literally just to rant to someone before. Sometimes, you need to complain, but having a record of that is not helpful in any way.
Re: Written communication is remote work super power
#26Async communication is suitable to resolve some kind of issues. But it has two drawbacks: participants need to be competent at writing and reading prose (it’s harder than it sounds) and even with the best of care your ideas can easily be misinterpreted resulting in the loss of an async cycle. For problems which are not well defined, and where a lot of decisions need to be taken, especially when they verge toward the…
Recently, I was so frustrated with some folks poor reading comprehension that I was thinking about an imaginary communication system that would allow for decision making where there were some rules:
- No responding from mobile devices. The poor response rate is just too high.
- The reader is quizzed on the the contents of the communication before they can respond (randomly generated quizzes might be amusing).
- The reader has to retype the original communication themselves before they can respond....
- Timeout value, if no responses that pass the above tests in a given time frame, whomever asked gets to complete the task with no input and nobody can change the outcome for ... a week or so and everyone has to live with it.
- Anyone who wants to change it after the timeout value better explain why they didn't ask before hand... no idea how this would work, yeah we're getting into the weeds here.
Of course, these are all unworkable in a modern business environment but man ... I can dream that some folks would who make demands or provide input at least put a minimum amount of effort into things before they throw their given wrench into the works.
Re: Written communication is remote work super power
#27Not everyone finds written comms as easy as everyone else. absolutely +1 to keeping records, but as a form of communication it's not terribly equal.
I don't know how to phrase this without sounding like a somewhat pedantic asshole, but I cannot understand this reasoning. Are we really saying there is less variability in people's spoken communication abilities than written? This concept is baffling to me. Who in the world talks better than they write?
Also, in my experience, written comms is immensely more accessible and accommodating to diverse teams with people who may have variable levels of expertise with English.
Re: Written communication is remote work super power
#28Not everyone finds written comms as easy as everyone else. absolutely +1 to keeping records, but as a form of communication it's not terribly equal.
I'm not sure I follow that statement. I can see an argument that text is not strictly better than verbal communication but, at worst, I'd say it's equal (for people as a whole, not for one person in particular). Some people are better at written communication while some are better at verbal.
Re: Written communication is remote work super power
#29Not everyone finds written comms as easy as everyone else. absolutely +1 to keeping records, but as a form of communication it's not terribly equal.
I'm not sure I follow that statement. I can see an argument that text is not strictly better than verbal communication but, at worst, I'd say it's equal (for people as a whole, not for one person in particular). Some people are better at written communication while some are better at verbal.
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Re: Written communication is remote work super power
#30In my experience, the people most averse to writing stuff down are usually the remote engineers. Remote workers don't typically have the same cultural influence as local employees, so they tend to be somewhat alienated and therefore have fewer expectations put on them. I think this disincentivizes remote workers from fully assimilating into the culture and leads to less interest in communication. Inevitably, this ends up affecting their willingness to properly document.
Just my opinion built on my anecdotal experience.