Written communication is remote work super power • Hacker News Board

Re: Written communication is remote work super power

#91

Post by abhayb » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 2:14 AM UTC

ponker wrote: post #40

duxup wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

You could only have such a system in an environment with a huge power imbalance between the sender and recipient, like Tim Cook sending a message to an Apple IC engineer. But with that kind of power imbalance all of these things happen anyways -- if an individual engineer gets an email from Tim Cook he definitely isn't firing off a poorly-thought-out reply from a mobile device.

I sort of see what you're saying. When a person with Great Authority says that Something Needs Doing, I need to think through what I'm going to say about what I'm going to do. But the single best response is to spend those fifteen minutes seeing if there's an obvious solution. If there is, you can be quite terse and just say: "done". Do that five times and even Tim Cook has your attention.

Re: Written communication is remote work super power

#92

Post by abhayb » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 2:20 AM UTC

codingdave wrote: post #52

jackjeff wrote: post #9

Async 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…

> misinterpreted resulting in the loss of an async cycle. True, but readily fixed with "Can we talk about this when you have a minute?" Also, losing "an async cycle" is a completely alien concept to me. I've been working remotely for a decade, never heard that phrase, and not entirely sure why it matters. Does a conversation that takes 14 Slack messages make the business less efficient than one that only took 11? Hon…

Hmm... I think the idea with synchronous communication is very much the same as it is with with synchronous method calls. Synchronous communication lets you break your thoughts down into smaller chunks and thus make them easier to understand. Synchronous methods do very much the same (at least how I write them).

I like what you say about needing to "learn how your co-workers communicate[d]". Maybe that's the abstraction layer that makes async everything possible. Still a leaky abstraction and I'd prefer not to have it. But it might actually have worked for me over the last couple of months.

Re: Written communication is remote work super power

#93

Post by Kaze404 » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 2:51 AM UTC

This article is great because it puts into words the relationship I've had with Slack since the beginning of my career. I've been working professionally for 4 years and I cannot remember a single time where I thought "I'm so glad we have Slack". Don't get me wrong, I think the platform itself is a great interpretation of IM, but IM is the absolute last thing I want to use in a work environment.

One of the reasons I didn't work out on my first remote job is because I refused to treat Slacks red icon as my #1 priority in the world. Coworker needs my attention immediately? Call me. Is calling too much of a hassle? Then it's probably not as urgent as you think. I understand it's very arrogant of me but I cannot bear the thought of losing all of my focus to answer a question that was really not that immediate. It sure doesn't help that people think they need to greet me and wait for a response before they actually say what they want to say.

I'm working at a new place now and we've gotten so good at asynchronous collaboration that I haven't exchanged a single message on Slack with one of my coworkers since they joined the team. All of our talks are done through Github and our weekly meeting on Friday where we plan the next week and spend an hour or two chatting. This is nice because it gives me time to reason about discussions, and even makes me look forward to the next meeting to have some fun with them, while previously I got so sick of my coworkers that I had literal nightmare-induced panic attacks over constant meetings.

I'm really glad I managed to find a team that enjoys working on the same way I do.

Re: Written communication is remote work super power

#94

Post by Aeolun » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 2:55 AM UTC

Kaze404 wrote: post #93

This article is great because it puts into words the relationship I've had with Slack since the beginning of my career. I've been working professionally for 4 years and I cannot remember a single time where I thought "I'm so glad we have Slack". Don't get me wrong, I think the platform itself is a great interpretation of IM, but IM is the absolute last thing I want to use in a work environment. One of the reasons I d…

> It sure doesn't help that people think they need to greet me and wait for a response before they actually say what they want to say.

This is indeed intensely frustrating. It is so ridiculous that when you just don’t respond, you’ll end up with a person just saying only ‘hello’ to you three days in a row...

Re: Written communication is remote work super power

#95

Post by briandear » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 2:59 AM UTC

Kaze404 wrote: post #93

This article is great because it puts into words the relationship I've had with Slack since the beginning of my career. I've been working professionally for 4 years and I cannot remember a single time where I thought "I'm so glad we have Slack". Don't get me wrong, I think the platform itself is a great interpretation of IM, but IM is the absolute last thing I want to use in a work environment. One of the reasons I d…

> Coworker needs my attention immediately? Call me.

I despise unsolicited phone calls. It’s figuratively kicking in your door. I can delay a Slack response for a few minutes. I can’t delay some jackass barging into my “office.”

Re: Written communication is remote work super power

#96

Post by Kaze404 » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 3:04 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #95

Kaze404 wrote: post #93

This article is great because it puts into words the relationship I've had with Slack since the beginning of my career. I've been working professionally for 4 years and I cannot remember a single time where I thought "I'm so glad we have Slack". Don't get me wrong, I think the platform itself is a great interpretation of IM, but IM is the absolute last thing I want to use in a work environment. One of the reasons I d…

> Coworker needs my attention immediately? Call me. I despise unsolicited phone calls. It’s figuratively kicking in your door. I can delay a Slack response for a few minutes. I can’t delay some jackass barging into my “office.”

I agree, I also hate talking on the phone. I believe that's true for most people though, which makes them question themselves if they really need to go through that awful process. At least that's how I reason about a problem before bothering someone with what's essentially not their concern.

Re: Written communication is remote work super power

#97

Post by mwcampbell » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 3:05 AM UTC

DenisM wrote: post #3

We're finding it quite effective to record short 2-minute videos and circulate those. Everyone can talk and point things on the screen, not everyone can write or even read attentively.

> Everyone can talk and point things on the screen

I think you may be making some unconscious assumptions about everyone having the same abilities. Deaf or mute people can't talk. Blind people can't point at things on a screen. And even people who can talk might be more comfortable writing, e.g. people who are self-conscious about their accent.

For these reasons, I think that the recent increase in remote work, though forced on us by the pandemic, gives us an opportunity to better include people who might be inadvertently excluded in an on-site environment.

Re: Written communication is remote work super power

#98

Post by starfallg » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 3:38 AM UTC

jackjeff wrote: post #9

Async 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…

> For problems which are not well defined, and where a lot of decisions need to be taken, especially when they verge toward the arbitrary, it’s a lot easier to have people in a room and hash it out.

AKA when random I/O is needed, minimizing latency is the key.

Re: Written communication is remote work super power

#99

Post by Aeolun » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 3:51 AM UTC

cperrine wrote: post #78

freedomben wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, I hear you. The amount of sad encounters (especially lately) that I've had as a result of people not understanding what I'm saying because they don't actually read what I wrote are enraging. I almost quit one client over it because their IT guy is the worst. He will decide ahead of time what your email probably says, and that's what he reads into it even if I wrote the opposite. I try to blame myself first fo…

"I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."

Can be shortened to “Hey! Listen!”

Re: Written communication is remote work super power

#100

Post by abhayb » Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 3:54 AM UTC

The super power I see is not so much written communication as intentional communication. I try to get myself to communicate intentionally by having command-enter send my Slack messages. But sometimes you need to Do the Thing. And you can't afford to Intend to Do the Thing first. In those situations the speed of spoken-face-to-face makes the organizational debt worth it.