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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

#221

Post by jdance »

tra3 wrote: post #192
tomtheelder wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO you try these in order: - Direct feedback to the manager about your needing space to work and their disruptive behavior. - Same feedback to their manager. - Look for new jobs. There’s no way to solve this that avoids direct feedback and the possibility of confrontation.

Confrontation seems like the nuclear option so I’d like to avoid that. In the spirit of incremental improvement, what’s the smallest action that you’d recommend that I can take?

Seems this is about people skills. Some people are weird and annoying and you have to find ways to thrive even with their presence, or move to another project as others are suggesting

Many different ways of dealing with it,

- from not responding at all (I do this often when people just ”ping” without stating their business),

- to asking what the matter is and if its urgent otherwise lets discuss it (a good while) later when I have time (I do this often too, my job is programming and requires focus time)

- to just saying that you are busy right now

Just a few ideas, find the guts to experiment and learn

I actually rarely bring up these kind of issues with managers, I find its mostly about signaling and breaking the loop that annoying people thrive on. Learn to subtly draw a line, repeatedly if you must, without being confrontational

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#222

Post by phowat »

Brystephor wrote: post #218

I graduated from school in Spring 2020 and started working in Aug 2020. In that timeframe, I had not been inside an employers office more than 3 times. Since Mar 2023, we've had a "mandatory" 4 days in office every week. Here's what I've experienced since going the office: * Occasionally I'll get a good conversation with a teammate or manager about something technical, but the frequency has not gone up. The technical…

I feel as if people have changed. I'm back in the office twice a week now and the good conversations and socializing parts just don't seem be happening like they were previously to the pandemic. I'm not sure what to think of it and maybe in some time, things will be more like it used to.

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#223

Post by ethanwillis »

Hermitian909 wrote: post #220
mydriasis wrote: post #2

> Remote work requires communicating more, less frequently, because asynchronous communication involves less frequent, but richer communication, meaning there is less time talking about the work and more time doing it, allowing the system to optimize for throughput and flow. This whole thing seems to be what people struggle with about remote work. Communication is way, way more important, and being an effective commu…

Even well done, this kind of communication doesn't substitute for more free-form 1:1s that in-person allows. The latter are key to building trust. I'm finding this to be one of the key drawbacks of remote work - some decisions require cross team trust and I've yet to see anything besides more frequent ad-hoc conversations that builds it. The problem is that the most trust building conversations tend to be "off-topic"…

Maybe part of the problem is a lot of orgs are watching(and logging) your remote conversations with an all seeing eye. But they're not necessarily bugging your in person office?

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#224

Post by paulcole »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #180
hypeit wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to admit as someone who enjoys WFH and would never work in an office again, that having co-workers like you is one of the main reasons. You should work on not relying so much on others. You may be benefiting from all that social "charging up", but you're taking that from the person on the other side of the conversation. I work to make money, not to fill someone's social void. You'll be happier if you explore t…

They're not referring to socializing with you, per se. I see this mistake made all the time in these discussions. Many just prefer to be around other people, myself included. They're not necessarily the caricature of the "overly social office mate that needs to find friends outside of work" that you are implying. I really think you're overassuming your knowledge of the person you're responding to.

It’s not a mistake. People who are pro-WFH are so dogmatic about it (and so protective of their “right” to WFH) that they intentionally reduce anyone who prefers working in an office to somebody with no social life.

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#225

Post by whateverman23 »

pnutjam wrote: post #157
belval wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to do virtual desk with Slack, where I will have a channel where I'm always in a huddle and they can drop by when they have questions, just like they would in-office. I have to say as a counter point though that I've had a lot more trouble with coworkers coming to my physical desk for questions that they could have Googled than with Junior getting stuck for extended period of time remotely. It's all a matter o…

100% this. Keep an open channel for IM and setup regular shadowing. I've been on both ends, learning and teaching. It's way preferable to have your own computer, shared screen vs trying to look at another screen and taking notes. Remote is better for collaboration and training. Proper documentation is a big part of it, and open channels for IM, like slack.

> Remote is better for collaboration and training.

Oh come on... I get arguing that there are ways to make remote training good enough. Maybe even similar. Maybe even a net-positive when you look at the entire picture (including the productivity and happiness of your senior staff). But saying remote is better for training specifically? No way. That makes no logical sense.

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#226

Post by anurag6892 »

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…

I struggle with this too. My usual exercise routine is to run alternate days. With WFH, I go on 1 hour evening walks on days I am not running. This makes up for the lack of walking at home.

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#227

Post by pnutjam »

whateverman23 wrote: post #225
pnutjam wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this. Keep an open channel for IM and setup regular shadowing. I've been on both ends, learning and teaching. It's way preferable to have your own computer, shared screen vs trying to look at another screen and taking notes. Remote is better for collaboration and training. Proper documentation is a big part of it, and open channels for IM, like slack.

> Remote is better for collaboration and training. Oh come on... I get arguing that there are ways to make remote training good enough. Maybe even similar. Maybe even a net-positive when you look at the entire picture (including the productivity and happiness of your senior staff). But saying remote is better for training specifically? No way. That makes no logical sense.

Please elaborate how it's better in person? Remote: I can see and hear the person. I can see their screen. I can copy past back and forth (as can they) through the screen sharing app. I can invite others into the training pretty much instantly. I can send links and commands typed properly in the chat. User can record session for later.

In person: Usually have to face the person or the screen, can't see both. I have to write down commands and pass them, or type them myself. There is a delay finding others if we need to talk to them. More chance to transpose commands incorrectly by the user. Harder to record the session without losing parts.

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#228

Post by mvdtnz »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #174

f--k the "office" and f--k the soulless two-faced corpo-goblins who thrive within it. never going back. in 20-30 years i'll be worm food. not going to waste anymore time rotting in an office. f---k no.

This kind of contribution is completely unhelpful but yeah great for harvesting upvotes I guess.

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#229

Post by abalashov »

DharmaPolice wrote: post #64
rcarmo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a bit of a challenge today with chat, though. I work 4 timezones away from most of my team and we all prefer to swap e-mails, but chat seems to have stripped away some folks' ability to methodically go through topics, explain options and summarise next steps, leading to the usual "let's set up a call [to actually discuss everything in the e-mail thread]". Reading through old mailing-lists (and even older e-ma…

Email is the victim of its own success. Because it had/has such dominance in the business world everyone had to live in their inbox, marketers appreciated that and lots of people grew to hate that. There have always been bad practices surrounding emails but I think it reached a point a long time ago where email itself was considered bad. Thus "email free Fridays" and internal comms plans which say email should be a l…

> I too have colleagues who reflexively ask for a meeting in response to any email longer than a few lines, even though the issue is clearly communicated and obviously requires someone to read it and build a proper response.

Oh, yes. So much this. Except, I think it's fair to say it's managers and bosses who have this tendency, not so much colleagues.

Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

#230

Post by whateverman23 »

pnutjam wrote: post #227
whateverman23 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remote is better for collaboration and training. Oh come on... I get arguing that there are ways to make remote training good enough. Maybe even similar. Maybe even a net-positive when you look at the entire picture (including the productivity and happiness of your senior staff). But saying remote is better for training specifically? No way. That makes no logical sense.

Please elaborate how it's better in person? Remote: I can see and hear the person. I can see their screen. I can copy past back and forth (as can they) through the screen sharing app. I can invite others into the training pretty much instantly. I can send links and commands typed properly in the chat. User can record session for later. In person: Usually have to face the person or the screen, can't see both. I have t…

Everything you can do remotely, you can do in person as well. I don't know why you think you can't screen share or send links and commands in a chat if you're in person.

So at minimum, in person would be the same. So I can't possibly see how in person could be worse.

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