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Quora goes permanently remote-first

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Re: Quora goes permanently remote-first

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikihow is garbage though. How can you seriously claim it's focused on quality? What is this shit: https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/f/f5/Laugh-Step-6-Versi... ?

Why link to the image out of context? https://www.wikihow.com/Laugh

The context doesn't help.

Re: Quora goes permanently remote-first

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meetings where some/most of the people are in a room and some are dialing in suck for those dialing in. We started requiring everyone to dial in, even if one person was, and it levels the communication playing field immensely.

Why does it suck? We try to ensure that everyone's voice is heard plus remote members have some advantage in that people in the room can see them unmute as an indicator that they have something to say. Some also use the text chat attached to the meeting allowing them to raise a point without verbally interrupting the person speaking (although this is more rare). Seems pretty extreme to require everyone to dial-in eve…

The dynamic is just different for those dialling in. People are simply not on the same level than those on site who have a clear advantage. I saw this working relatively well when the person remote is some senior person coming with a lot of experience to insert himself in the conversation. It's maybe even better because others may now have the chance to say something (lol) Generally speaking, this works well, when the main persons of the meeting are not all on site so that the videoconference becomes the primary communication. Otherwise, it's just that those who don't say that much will say even less (or nothing).

Btw, I'm also a big fan of remote working, but no matter how good your communication skills are, you're left behind on the longer term within an hybrid team. You just can't build all these relationships with smalltalk etc. that's another problem

Re: Quora goes permanently remote-first

#135

There's an insightful series of comments from Sid, CEO of Gitlab about why this is not likely to work over the long term: https://twitter.com/sytses/status/1264341436138270720 It might be different for Quora given that their CEO and SLT will be remote. But I still believe that whenever you have an office you are creating a community of employees who will have a different relationship to those who are working remotely…

Sid's twitter-thread mirror: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1264341436138270720.html

Re: Quora goes permanently remote-first

#136
post #82

There's an insightful series of comments from Sid, CEO of Gitlab about why this is not likely to work over the long term: https://twitter.com/sytses/status/1264341436138270720 It might be different for Quora given that their CEO and SLT will be remote. But I still believe that whenever you have an office you are creating a community of employees who will have a different relationship to those who are working remotely…

Sid explicitly says he expects we (Quora) avoided the pitfalls of hybrid companies in this comment: https://www.quora.com/q/quora/Remote-First-at-Quora/comment/...

Two Stanford grad students explicitly stated how they expected to avoid the pitfalls of advertising-based search engines.

http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

Inherent system dynamics in the mirror are larger than they appear.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/06/cd/22/06cd223f6b942dc74d85c93f0...

Re: Quora goes permanently remote-first

#137

> All existing employees can immediately relocate to anywhere we can legally employ them Even to India? What about time zone differences, and will you pay the same amount as in USD?

They'd pay the local salary of course - this move to remote is a hr/accountings wet dream to reduce to amount spent on pay.

Re: Quora goes permanently remote-first

#138
post #90

I expect there to be a momentary burst in attempts to go remote-first, or at least hybrid. Senior executives will want to level the playing field between expensive areas and cheaper ones, and use that to drive down salaries overall. But then, there are plenty of managers who really see a lot of value in spontaneous face-to-face interactions, or even planned ones, because so much communication happens just in body lan…

Im still waiting for the rebound back to a cubicle. Fuck open plan. I really wish people would get it through their damned thick skulls that their heads are not the same as my head. And my head is not the same as her head. And her head is not the same as their head. We all need our own accomidations. Some people like open plan, some people hate it. Some people thrive in an office environment, some people thrive at ho…

How about actual offices? You know, rooms with walls and doors.

My yearly salary could build a comfortable home for a family of 4 every single year in some of the cheaper places in this country, I'm pretty sure my company laptop at several of my employers has retailed > $4000, yet 4 feet of desk space and a chair that seemed to have lived a hard life on the streets has been my most common accommodation. Surely an office and a parking space for every employee isn't an impossibility. And if it is then you can't afford to be in the market you're trying to operate in.

I can guarantee that I would have been a happier more productive employee if I were given a private space, near colleagues but by default separated from them away from home.

Growing up on hundreds of acres where the nearest human was often more than a mile away, having the experience of daily being obligated to board public transit for 90 minutes and then spend 8 hours in an open office in the middle of a downtown area was subtly but deeply unsettling. Being constantly so far away from the ability to have any private space or space which was mine in any way, and worse the only way to get to a space which was was by being jostled on a packed train for up to two hours was simply bad for my mental health.

Re: Quora goes permanently remote-first

#139
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wholeheartedly agree I worked remotely for the first 6 years or so of my career and hybrid approaches turn the remote team into second class citizens more like contractors.

Wonder if it ever happens the other way around? Does the office team ever turn into second class citizens?

I would say it depends on where the decision makers are.

Re: Quora goes permanently remote-first

#140

Did you know that Quora PAYS for most of the questions people ask on Quora? Like, there are people making a full time living asking questions on Quora. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/alc5hy/i_am_a_quora_pa...

Quora is not user friendly. Asking me to login every time to read some answers to marginally interesting questions is not a value proposition to me.

for me it goes even beyond. expects me to download app or doesnt allow me to read. Its crazy. I stopped going there. Reddit has better answers anyway
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