Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you please make your substantive points without fulminating, snarking, or posting in the flamewar style? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html .
I will try
Thanks!
Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently
301–310 of 326 posts
Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently
#302Currently 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…
My team is incredibly quiet on slack and I find it pretty frustrating. We're under 10 people so I don't expect constant chat but it's not uncommon for our guild channel to have a day go by with no messages. I try to keep it alive by posting interesting articles, updates and tools and things like that and that sometimes drums up some conversation but it's rare that my teammates do the same thing. I'm not sure if I'm m…
I sympathize. You're the person who does this because they love it and sees room for improvement everywhere. Unfortunately, most people are not like that. I know because I've been in a few teams and it's rare to find the person who is seeking constant improvement. Most get to just good enough and stop there. It's fine. It is what it is.
Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently
#303Currently 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…
I had this issue and the only way I could solve it was moving to a primarily in-office company. This was the best thing I ever did for my mental health. Not trying to start a big debate over the whole issue, but just sharing that I felt very similarly to you ("massively affecting my mental health") and that it was solved by doing the obvious: going back to the office. No amount of socializing outside of work or hobbi…
It would be interesting to see what happens when all the extroverts self select for in office work and introverts self select for wfh.
Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently
#304[dead]
Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
You need to build rituals to recapture that cohesion; do things online or offline that are not just about work. It is a good idea even if your company is not remote.
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Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently
#306> 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…
I think the most frustrating part of remote work are people who expect synchronous communication. Conversations that go like “good morning, how are you?” and then wait until you reply to say “so I was wondering about x”
It’s annoying, wastes a lot of time and people keep doing it because they’re still stuck in office mode when they should be following IRC rules (don’t ask to ask)
Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Work != socializing. That's plain unhealthy. > Quality work requires deep concentration over long stretches of time, not tapping on a shoulder at random intervals. Both IRL and virtually. This has little to do with socializing or not.
>> Work != socializing. > That's plain unhealthy. Why? I have friends and people I socialize with, I don't have to socialize with my coworkers. I am friends with people I've met along the way, but with everyone else I keep a distance and remain professional. Why is it unhealthy to have boundaries around work relationships?
It's a basic psychological need: humans are social animals. People spend 40+ hours at week at work for many decades. Unless you work only 5 hours a week, it's a huge fraction of a lifetime.
Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently
#308> 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…
I think the most frustrating part of remote work are people who expect synchronous communication. Conversations that go like “good morning, how are you?” and then wait until you reply to say “so I was wondering about x” It’s annoying, wastes a lot of time and people keep doing it because they’re still stuck in office mode when they should be following IRC rules (don’t ask to ask)
Yes exactly. I worked with folks located in India and I had to tell them it’s OK to get straight to the point without having to wait for me to say hello back etc. I had to explain it’s not rude if they leave out the hellos and how are yous. Probably a cultural thing.
Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve experienced the non-English thing in a few different contexts and while I love the diversity of languages and speak a few myself, I think not mandating an official language to be used in the office is a mistake. Your case is the obvious one: if most people speak Finnish but you only require English of your hires, sooner or later you will have people unfairly excluded from the social part of the office. Even if y…
They speak Mandarin. I don't know much about other languages, but I've heard that's notoriously difficult to learn. It's also not just my team. I see other tables at lunch and other teams having conversations in what I assume is the same language. I have a hard time differentiating based on sound.
Gotcha, my bad, yeah that's probably even harder than Finnish. :-)
But correspondingly more valuable if you end up learning a little!
Re: Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had this issue and the only way I could solve it was moving to a primarily in-office company. This was the best thing I ever did for my mental health. Not trying to start a big debate over the whole issue, but just sharing that I felt very similarly to you ("massively affecting my mental health") and that it was solved by doing the obvious: going back to the office. No amount of socializing outside of work or hobbi…
It would be interesting to see what happens when all the extroverts self select for in office work and introverts self select for wfh.
I did the same as DiggyJohnson. And I'm introverted. Even introverts need human connection and interaction. And in my experience, being in an office is easier for an introvert.
Being 100% remote for several years was terrible for my mental health. As to why... well, a lot of it was precisely because I'm introverted.
As an introvert, it's a lot more draining to do the explicit communication required to work remote effectively. Maybe 10% of people can work effectively over written comms. As a lead, I had to schedule zoom calls and make explicit face to face time to make any of it work. In an office setting, this happens more naturally and is a lot easier.
On top of that, I found at a 100% remote company it seems more common for people issues to happen. When you are only interacting over text most of the time, misunderstandings seem to happen more often.
I found it very draining to fix these issues. It was much harder than if we had been in an office together, where we could just have a quick chat and fix sensitive topics. It's also more obvious in an office setting when this stuff happens and so you can sort it faster.