Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I hope work from home continues

ryanmercer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 610 posts

Re: I hope work from home continues

#551

Post by bagacrap »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #51

Covid WFH is a real issue for our new developers. Especially the ones who are fresh out of college. They're missing out on so much institutional knowledge transfer. Especially the kind of monkey-see-monkey-do experience you need to build confidence using tools such as git. They're also hesitant to ping coworkers and ask for screen sharing time because they can't sense if the more senior developers are working on some…

There should be no hesitation to ping via email. The recipient can respond as quickly as they're able. If they aren't busy that should ideally be within a couple minutes, and the response given will frequently be of higher quality than an off the cuff answer, since external resources can be consulted.

There are many situations in which synchronous feedback won't be possible, wfh or not. For example, when the coworker in question is in a meeting or on vacation. All developers must be able to handle this situation and avoid blockages by switching to another task or an unblocked portion of the same task. The sooner new devs learn to juggle their time and attention in this way, the better.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#552

Post by matart »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #280
BitwiseFool wrote: post #51

Covid WFH is a real issue for our new developers. Especially the ones who are fresh out of college. They're missing out on so much institutional knowledge transfer. Especially the kind of monkey-see-monkey-do experience you need to build confidence using tools such as git. They're also hesitant to ping coworkers and ask for screen sharing time because they can't sense if the more senior developers are working on some…

My $BIG_CO has access to third-party online training materials for things like Git. I've shamelessly used them to learn quickly about new topics, like GraphQL. They'd be a great tool to fill the gap for junior developers. Even for mid-level developers who want to brush up.

While those are useful. I've learned so much from watching more senior developers use their tools. The things you couldn't ask about because you didn't know it existed. Productivity hacks, IDE shortcuts, custom key mappings, codebase traversal, git commands/shortcuts.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#553

Post by bagacrap »

antiterra wrote: post #127
Hypergraphe wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, as a matter of fact, we now have the proof that remote work is efficient at large scale in our industry. It shatters all the false ideas about loss of productivity, lack of communication. I never communicated as efficiently as now as opposed to when I was in my open space, always disturbed by subjects that did not concern me.

I don’t think we have this proof? At best, we have evidence it works ‘well enough.’ There are still people who hate online meetings, who have a negative physical reaction to it and are unable to engage. The people playing online video games during the day I run into who have to go afk for a few moments to ‘get a work call’ are likely to have reduced productivity. (Probably double for kids who are doing online school.…

It ought to be noticeable in terms of output if individuals play video games instead of working. If it's not, maybe they just manage their time differently than you expect, but still effectively.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#554

Post by matart »

I think there is a lot of people here who hate their offices/coworkers. I haven't worked at a FAANG(?) company but I've always enjoyed my office. I've learned a lot from random coffee runs with people in the sales team or support team. I've randomly glimpsed someone traversing our logs in a way I didn't know possible and asked them to teach me. I've had great technical discussions with people at lunch that couldn't be planned. I hope to have these again some day.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#555

Post by dalbasal »

fctorial wrote: post #518
dalbasal wrote: post #344

OK so, we of the tech/startup/modern white collar world don't tend to think of these as "labour issues." Besides money, the big returning theme in modern labour "complaints" is autonomy. A similar thought occurs to me when the old "open office plans" debate flares up on HN. It's a labour issue. An autonomy issue. People want a work environment that they like more, and no one has an interest in the goodness of an offi…

How do I differentiate

Algae is green. It will grow in wet, light exposed places.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#556

Post by benfrancom »

jjice wrote: post #119
BitwiseFool wrote: post #51

Covid WFH is a real issue for our new developers. Especially the ones who are fresh out of college. They're missing out on so much institutional knowledge transfer. Especially the kind of monkey-see-monkey-do experience you need to build confidence using tools such as git. They're also hesitant to ping coworkers and ask for screen sharing time because they can't sense if the more senior developers are working on some…

For sure. The job I had during March 2020 was difficult because my boss came off as unwelcoming to questions at points (even in the office I could see him open my slack messages and ignore them), which made working much more difficult when you're adapting to new systems. Thankfully, I had some great coworkers who were very welcoming and helped me a lot. If there is anything I learned from that, it's that being welcom…

Interesting...I'm not a fan of read receipts and typing indicators for messaging applications for reasons like this. If I need to craft a lengthy reply, it could take a day depending on the schedule. If someone never replies though when it is the de-facto-company messaging platform, that is highly problematic. A coworker even mentioned how anxiety-inducing typing a lengthy reply is that involves some lengthier research.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#557

Post by xapata »

npsimons wrote: post #418
xapata wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The communication skills and preferences that are best for remote teams are different than those for in-office teams. Until you can retrain your staff or transition to different staff, a manager might be better off asking people to come back to the office.

> Until you can retrain your staff or transition to different staff, a manager might be better off asking people to come back to the office. Meanwhile, those who already have remote work skills won't stick around to have their time wasted by being forced to work in an office.

I suppose a manager might be able to handle that by forming different teams with varying policies.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#558

Post by orestarod »

munificent wrote: post #447
vp8989 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineering culture should be disseminated via documents rather than oral lore. If it's disseminated via oral lore it's expensive to change and is often misinterpreted across a large enough org. A silent killer of engineering orgs is bad practices that stick around because that's the way it's always been done. No one knows why because it wasn't written down. The only way to fix that is for someone high enough to prov…

> Engineering culture should be disseminated via documents rather than oral lore. I'm always startled by comments like this because it's so counter to how I understand humanity. We are social mammals . No amount of good grammar and excellent font choice can substitute for sharing the same physical space together, an act that has been core to what it means to be human literally since we first speciated. Yeah, writing…

I guess medicine is a failure in that regard? Everything is documented to the letter. Perhaps we should let go of it to see what marvelous processes each individual hospital will come up with.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#559

Post by mumblemumble »

blunte wrote: post #542
rabidrat wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as they are paying decent prices for those creative successes (so the creators can have a comfortable retirement with healthcare in the US), this is not the worst outcome.

But my wish is that the really creative, motivated people don't lose their motivation. F*ck You money is a great idea, but after a couple of years of coasting, spend some energy and funds to make something really cool happen. Unfortunately, some people go through such a traumatic experience which happens to result in FU money that they burn out and stop creating. That's a great shame for us all.

I guess?

TBH, getting acquired by a big boring corporation in my early 30s, and having the startup into which I had poured countless late hours' worth of blood, sweat, and tears become a long and joyless coast into mediocrity, was possibly the greatest thing that ever happened to me both professionally and personally.

There was a brief period of anxiety over all the corporate bullshit, and the loss of edge, and all that good stuff. But, after about 6 months of that, a magical thing happened: I started leaving work at work. My demeanor became more placid. My sleep improved. I found hobbies.

I guess maybe, in some poetic sense, it's sad that I'm no longer driven to build exciting things. But, in a more mentally healthy (for me -- I'm certainly not going to begrudge someone else for continuing to be ambitious and driven) sense, that was benefitting a bunch of strangers more than it was benefitting me. I've done my time, and I'm now content to sit back and watch the young'uns take their turn to run themselves ragged chasing dreams around the office all week, and then watch my own young'uns run themselves ragged chasing each other around the yard all weekend.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#560

Post by blunte »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #514
CoastalCoder wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIUC, you're saying that the GP's approach is a recipe for failure. Can you elaborate?

In a nutshell, the problem with the "family approach" is how it puts a very powerful tool into the hands of one's employer they can hold against you: your committal, loyalty or even reliance on others in the same situation. Should you ever want to switch places, you will likely have to rebuild your circle of friends, as they often do not take kindly to people "leaving the family" or simply lose contact due to no long…

The issue here is that in an honestly positive scenario, the family concept is good. But in a manipulative scenario, it is bad.

When I was 22 and taking on my first development job, I would have loved to have a family-centric groups of smart, motivated people to be a part of. Instead, I did a contract with an IBM subsidiary. We worked sort of like a family, but our idiot manager ignored our scheduling advice and promised delivery in half the time we recommended. So we worked our asses off, as a small ad-hoc family, and still lost the next contract.

What if instead this "family" could be led by a manager who understands reality and doesn't overpromise and underdeliver?

If you ever work with any person or person in a high stress situation, they will become your family or your enemy. Family is much better. And if the greater circumstance is also comprised of family, then you can take on the world. If you don't get this, then you haven't experience it yet. This is not some Cali startup bullshit. This is real people pouring themselves into something they believe in - foolishly or otherwise.

Post reply on HN