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The Remote Pop-In (2021)

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Re: The Remote Pop-In (2021)

#31

Post by anonred »

samcheng wrote: post #16

One related technique that I think works well is to hold "Office Hours" at least once a week. Just schedule a regular meeting, and attend it - then advertise widely that you are available at that time and that anyone is welcome. It's a great way to foster skip-level interactions, give help to someone who needs it, and just chat. It's really fun when a few people come in at once. Sometimes nobody shows up, and that's…

I’ve had lackluster results with hosting weekly office hours. A grand total of 2 engineers showed up, both on my direct team, out of 100+ ICs in my org over the course of 2 months. But your mileage will vary depending on workplace culture I suppose.

Re: The Remote Pop-In (2021)

#33

Post by jen729w »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #18
throwaway787544 wrote: post #5

> There's really no remote equivalent to the pop-in. There is one equivalent, and everyone is going to hate me suggesting it: call me. Pick up the phone and call me. Yeah, Gen Zers, I said it. Use your telephone to send me an alert that says you want to speak to me with your voice. If I have time to chat, I'll answer. If not, leave me a store-and-forward recorded offline message, aka voicemail. If I have time I'll li…

Voicemail is the worst possible form of communication. Consider a plot of fidelity vs latency. You want to talk to somebody - high-fidelity back-and-forth communications instantly. It's up in one corner of our plot. Now consider voicemail. One-way, lots of "um, uh" wasted time, tedious menus to fetch and wade thru it, maybe tomorrow. It's down in the other corner of our plot. Literally any other form of communication…

Agreed. Transcribe-to-SMS is the only way.

In my work circle a protocol has naturally established itself. If you call me, I assume you want something. Otherwise you wouldn’t have bothered calling me. So you don’t need to leave a message: I will see your missed call, and I will call you back.

Those quick replies you can send from your phone help. Customise them. I use two:

“Can’t pick up, call you back in 5.”

“I’m in a meeting, call you back as soon as it’s over.”

Re: The Remote Pop-In (2021)

#34

Post by phailhaus »

throwaway787544 wrote: post #5

> There's really no remote equivalent to the pop-in. There is one equivalent, and everyone is going to hate me suggesting it: call me. Pick up the phone and call me. Yeah, Gen Zers, I said it. Use your telephone to send me an alert that says you want to speak to me with your voice. If I have time to chat, I'll answer. If not, leave me a store-and-forward recorded offline message, aka voicemail. If I have time I'll li…

> This is inferior to the pop-in for the interrupter, but superior for the interruptee

I don't see how either of those are true for phone calls.

1. It's ideal for the interrupter: they get to decide when they want your time. They want it now.

2. It's annoying for the interruptee, because you only have two options. Either you can pick up the phone now and force a hard context switch away what you were doing, or you can reject the call and spend more time later listening through voicemails. And unless you have voicemail transcriptions, you're at the complete mercy of the interrupter again.

Compare that to asynchronous text-based communication, where the interrupter can't forcefully take your time from you. They can only message you, and you can decide when to read it. Reading the message doesn't cede control of your time to them, and you can adjust the actual time of the call to accommodate whatever you're working on.

Re: The Remote Pop-In (2021)

#35

Post by samcheng »

anonred wrote: post #31
samcheng wrote: post #16

One related technique that I think works well is to hold "Office Hours" at least once a week. Just schedule a regular meeting, and attend it - then advertise widely that you are available at that time and that anyone is welcome. It's a great way to foster skip-level interactions, give help to someone who needs it, and just chat. It's really fun when a few people come in at once. Sometimes nobody shows up, and that's…

I’ve had lackluster results with hosting weekly office hours. A grand total of 2 engineers showed up, both on my direct team, out of 100+ ICs in my org over the course of 2 months. But your mileage will vary depending on workplace culture I suppose.

Honestly I think it works best inter-functionally. Many engineers won't volunteer for a meeting, even (maybe especially) if it's just for chit-chat.

Maker's schedule and all that. http://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

Re: The Remote Pop-In (2021)

#36

Post by jen729w »

2easy wrote: post #25

I don't get it. Why people are trying to recreate the horrors of the office? Is it because of luck of human connection? In my opinion everyone who's advocating "meetings" - formal or not - is just unable to express thoughts in writing. You have to learn to communicate asynchronously and become a better writer rather than trying to recreate the dysfunctional environment that you are familiar with.

I disagree with the modern blanket assumption that meetings are bad. Meetings do not have to be bad.

Now most meetings are bad, I’ll give you that. But a well-run meeting, with purpose, which doesn’t faff on and respects the participants’ time, is still a very effective way to get something done.

It is a fallacy that every meeting can be replaced with email. I hate email more than I hate even a mediocre meeting.

Re: The Remote Pop-In (2021)

#37

Post by ahmetnoid »

mh- wrote: post #12
ahmetnoid wrote: post #10

In my workplace we use zoom breakout rooms as an alternative. When we have a meeting we move to the main room and have it there. Otherwise each member is in a breakout room.

oh, that's kind of clever. So when not otherwise in a zoom, each of you hang out in your own breakout room so others can "drop in"?

Exactly. If I want to drop in all I need to do is to check the breakout rooms list then move to the room where my colleague is. And once done I can go back to my breakout room. We also use it when pair programming remotely. It's quite effective and it eliminates communication barrier.

Re: The Remote Pop-In (2021)

#38

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway787544 wrote: post #5

> There's really no remote equivalent to the pop-in. There is one equivalent, and everyone is going to hate me suggesting it: call me. Pick up the phone and call me. Yeah, Gen Zers, I said it. Use your telephone to send me an alert that says you want to speak to me with your voice. If I have time to chat, I'll answer. If not, leave me a store-and-forward recorded offline message, aka voicemail. If I have time I'll li…

[deleted]

Re: The Remote Pop-In (2021)

#40

Post by jayd16 »

throwaway787544 wrote: post #5

> There's really no remote equivalent to the pop-in. There is one equivalent, and everyone is going to hate me suggesting it: call me. Pick up the phone and call me. Yeah, Gen Zers, I said it. Use your telephone to send me an alert that says you want to speak to me with your voice. If I have time to chat, I'll answer. If not, leave me a store-and-forward recorded offline message, aka voicemail. If I have time I'll li…

Phone tag really doesn't sound much better than email. The culture of a quick callback is not inherent.
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