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If you're remote, ramble

stephango.com

21–30 of 479 posts

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#21

This is what things like "water cooler chat" looks like for remote-first. This is the fundamental difference between what a healthy remote-first company starts to look like versus the soulless version historically in-person companies try to sell. To the author, thank you for sharing your version of the dynamics.

It also shows that remote work requires work to work out. You simply cannot bump into your colleagues, so socializing needs to be planned. On a small scale, a regular coffee talk might work. But I love the idea of this being more of a "pull". Like, everyone can consume it at their own pace.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#23
I fail to see how this is different from a general off-topic chat channel which you're not expected to follow (but can peek at on downtime or while waiting for Claude Code).

While that doesn't scale for large companies, for 2-10 (mentioned in the article) it's better than 2-10 such channels you need to keep track of.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#24
post #6

The cynic in me says this ends up as yet another list of channels that I need to scan for anything interesting, and interact with to keep up an appearance of engagement. I appreciate any effort to increase social cohesion in remote teams, but intermingling it with one of the main stressors of my work environment—keeping up with team communication—isn’t the right way IMHO.

[deleted]

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#25
I think perhaps counter intuitively this harms the team spirit. Those things still get voiced in chat threads and more importantly in 1:1 calls/chats, allowing individuals to bond more intimately over non strictly project related things.

Team chat is for the project.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#26

This is unreadable. Increase the contrast, please... Edit: I may be falsely blaming the contrast, but something about the design is causing me eye strain. Im not sure what. Here is a screenshot how the site looks to me: https://imgur.com/a/LNVCMRc Maybe someone else can figure it out.

It was unreadable for me too initially. Quick guesstimate:

The page has a (JS-dependent) light-mode/dark-mode switch. It defaults to "light". Meanwhile a browser configured to default to dark theming will only partly apply the themed parts (the pages own function being stuck in light), resulting in an objectively unreadable black-on-dark-gray.

Even enabling JS, the button in the upper right corner still has to be clicked to make it readable.

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