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Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

ben.balter.com

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Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#91

Post by repeekad »

malfist wrote: post #57
senttoschool wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a difference between the population that worked remotely before and after Covid. The population before Covid were often highly experienced, disciplined, and proven workers. The population after Covid, was well, everyone who worked with a laptop. Not everyone is cut for working remotely. In addition, there’s a difference between 1 out 20 people working remotely full time and 20 out of 20.

I've worked remotely for about 9 years now. At the start of the pandemic I'd argue there's a wide gulf between those who knew how to work remotely because they've done it for years, and those forced into it and still figuring it out. We spent 3 years in pandemic mode working from home for everyone. We've all figured it out by now. Go into the office if you'd like, but don't force everyone back to it.

And between those who don’t want remote work. Who enjoy building real relationships with people and brain storming ideas on a whiteboard. Remote work feels like contracting, and when everyone is a contractor is it really a cohesive company?

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#92

Post by x86x87 »

repeekad wrote: post #75
x86x87 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh.. The poor juniors. Instead of properly adapting the onboarding and mentoring to the remote setting let's romanticize the good old ways that imho sucked. Let's cherrypick and pretend everything is fine. We went from offices to cubicles to open space and nobody stopped to think if it was a good idea. Wr transformed the office from a place where work actually is done to a placr where we "socialize". Work? Do that on…

I was one of those juniors, the rapid shift to remote work ruined me. I had just moved to a new city where I knew no one to start a life doing the work I loved, and all at once I got told leaving my house was dangerous and to stay home alone all day staring at a screen to keep people safe, for 2+ years… It’s great you value work life balance, but junior engineers suffered a lot (to different degrees), and you being o…

You need social in person interaction as a human being. Nobody is disputing that. Should you rely on your work to get that interaction and can you make the claim that it helps your work?

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#93

Post by hext »

sublinear wrote: post #20
sussexby wrote: post #6

Currently in crisis because I simply can't handle communication in remote work. For something I do for the majority of my working day, I feel devoid of human interaction to such an extent that it's massively affecting my mental health. I regularly find myself clock-watching until the next time I can talk to someone because everyone is always busy - there are no water coolers or coffee breaks to stitch in between. Eve…

Send your DMs when people are on "busy" status anyway. They can respond later. That's the huge advantage of remote work. Async communication is so much more efficient. If you're watching the clock, there's something wrong.

Async communication is not even remotely close to socializing, and hardly feels like genuine human interaction.

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#94

Post by rqtwteye »

fsociety wrote: post #15
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #4

This sounds great for experienced engineers, but in my experience junior workers often require bite-sized guidance in order to avoid going down rabbit holes. A 10 second conversation could easily save hours of head-banging-into-wall type work for a junior SWE (not even exaggerating). Accordingly, during the pandemic I think it was mostly the less experienced engineers suffering from low productivity and lack of confi…

I think the experience of banging your head against the wall (for a bit) can be valuable. As long as the culture of the team encourages this and offers an escape hatch after a few hours (or whatever timeframe is appropriate for the problem).

Totally agree. But with newbies I feel it’s very important to check from time to time if they are banging their heads on the right wall.

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#95

Post by alemanek »

senttoschool wrote: post #48
ricardo81 wrote: post #31

It's weird seeing all this content the past 3+ years about remote working as I've worked remotely for 20+ years. I'm not an authority on the matter (why would I be), just weird to see so much 'authority content' on it lately. Maybe there are more granular and data-driven conclusions, I'm just someone who sees the benefit of communicating information over vast distances aka the web and appreciate that it's something w…

There’s a difference between the population that worked remotely before and after Covid. The population before Covid were often highly experienced, disciplined, and proven workers. The population after Covid, was well, everyone who worked with a laptop. Not everyone is cut for working remotely. In addition, there’s a difference between 1 out 20 people working remotely full time and 20 out of 20.

I have worked remotely for 7 years and in a few different companies in that time.

In my experience the companies that struggle with remote work are the ones the manage via attendance. One company drove me insane with random “Hows it going” messages throughout the day so I just left for another company and let them know why on the way out.

Managers that have enough domain expertise to manage via outcomes however thrive in remote environments. But, this is harder to do than taking headcount.

Remote working environments require different approaches than in person or hybrid. Change is hard and all that.

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#96

Post by x86x87 »

whateverman23 wrote: post #44
x86x87 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh.. The poor juniors. Instead of properly adapting the onboarding and mentoring to the remote setting let's romanticize the good old ways that imho sucked. Let's cherrypick and pretend everything is fine. We went from offices to cubicles to open space and nobody stopped to think if it was a good idea. Wr transformed the office from a place where work actually is done to a placr where we "socialize". Work? Do that on…

> Instead of properly adapting the onboarding and mentoring But... how? Remote check-ins with juniors every 30-60 minutes? That's crazy. But that's basically the only way to replicate the in person experience. The best mentoring results for me as the mentee and for me as a mentor have been when we're sitting next to each other. The mentor can visually tell when the mentee is stuck, and mentee can tell when the mentor…

Yew, if only we could assign a senior engineer to watch over every new person that joins /s

Part of learning to be a sw developer is learning how to go about your work. Learning when to ask for help. If someone is doing this for you, you'll never going to learn.

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#97

Post by rqtwteye »

leidenfrost wrote: post #39

Another (unrelated) problem with Remote work is how harder is to lose weight when you stop moving throughout the day. Before the pandemic, I usually got up to make coffee, to ask for help or to make consensus with my fellow coworkers (other devs or even UX people, a few stairs away). I usually walked from work from time to time to clear up my mind. Now I barely move. I live in a small apartment. The fridge is 3 meter…

For me it’s the opposite. I don’t have any junk food at home but when I was in the office I was constantly surrounded by pretzels, ice cream and candy bars. I also often do some work in the backyard while I am thinking about a problem.

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#98

Post by tonystubblebine »

We're struggling with this (80 people) and basically decided we have to get the entire company together twice a year. I'm not saying this is any perfect best practice, just that there is something that always gets lost in translation when we are remote. That gets cleared up instantly when we are together.

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#99

Post by [deleted] »

osigurdson wrote: post #85
repeekad wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was one of those juniors, the rapid shift to remote work ruined me. I had just moved to a new city where I knew no one to start a life doing the work I loved, and all at once I got told leaving my house was dangerous and to stay home alone all day staring at a screen to keep people safe, for 2+ years… It’s great you value work life balance, but junior engineers suffered a lot (to different degrees), and you being o…

I can sympathize, but you should not have let it ruin you. Take responsibility for your own life.

[deleted]

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#100

Post by hahn-kev »

whateverman23 wrote: post #35
dpz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

find the social outside of work? Work has always been work for me and nothing more, not really looking for socialising. In fairness I've been fully remote for 10 years but I see friends during the day for coffees, lunch, exercise. And then multiple sports clubs in the evenings

> Work has always been work for me and nothing more, not really looking for socialising. But work is 40-50 hours of my week. That's a HUGE portion of my life. Almost half my waking hours are at work. (7x16=112 waking hours a week. 35-45% of it at work). Not taking time to socialize during that period is draining as hell for me. I guess what I'm trying to say is you're way overestimating the percentage of people who c…

Sounds like WFH isn't for you then.
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