Internal Twitter should be more of a thing.
If you're remote, ramble
91–100 of 479 posts
Re: If you're remote, ramble
#92I worked at a large fully remote company and it had dedicated topic channels you could join. I thought that was an excellent solution since people could discuss their interests with other employees without it seeming like a corporately mandated chat break. I now work for a much smaller company and I miss the chat channels.
I agree. Group channels on relevant topics is very helpful. Especially on technical details relevant to getting work done.
Yet here goes my rant. Nothing can replace a good in-person interaction. Perhaps I'm the old guy in the room. When teams are trying to build something there is nothing like water-cooler talk and banter about the work that helps relate shared challenges. Granted this is going to very specific to organizational needs.
I don't work in software development so perhaps my needs are different than most on Hackernews. I've managed teams in person and remotely. I've found that managing in person is a much more productive way to work.
Re: If you're remote, ramble
#93I have a somewhat mentally ill (as in he takes medication for it) coworker that would just ruin this. The entire channel would be just be walls of his text. It's hard enough just to understand his wall of text emails that have a big report embedded somewhere in it.
Thank you for having the guts to leave this comment and not pretend like people are always perfect and optimistic.
I think that's precisely why the ramblings should be a separate channel apart from all the emails and more serious communication, but I have some thoughts why this still might not work.
I used to be guilty of leaving walls of text in our "random" channel, and we weren't even remote back then. My reasons weren't entirely irrational. Most of the time I felt like I wasn't taken seriously because of the way the business was run and it was the only chance I had to speak "out of turn". These workplaces that encourage a lack of boundaries are usually small startups that hire inexperienced people. Ultimately whatever anyone said was used to manipulate them or for the rotten parts of middle management to "steal" ideas.
I'm not a fan of this concept either and I think it's easily abused by all.
Re: If you're remote, ramble
#94> Common topics include: > - ideas related to current projects > - musings about blog posts, articles, user feedback > - “what if” suggestions > - photos from recent trips or hobbies > - rubber ducking a problem Work-related and private topics should be separated, IMO. Some might be interested in the former but not the latter, and also might be interested in them at different times (of the day/week). There’s also the…
> There’s also the formal/legal aspect that the work-related topics can count as work time whereas the private ones doesn’t. So when you're at the office, you never have a chat about a non-work topic at the coffee maker?
This is formally/legally a work break that you’re not allowed to count as work time. If I have a half-hour conversation about a non-work topic, which I sometimes do, it means I’ll need to work half an hour more. At the office it’s effectively at everyone’s discretion how exactly they count it, but on a chat platform it can in principle be tracked if someone spends substantial time on #offtopic.
Re: If you're remote, ramble
#95I worked at a large fully remote company and it had dedicated topic channels you could join. I thought that was an excellent solution since people could discuss their interests with other employees without it seeming like a corporately mandated chat break. I now work for a much smaller company and I miss the chat channels.
Can you not just create those channels? I did at my 10 person company and at my 100k company, no body seems to mind
Re: If you're remote, ramble
#96I did read the post, but allow me to also recommend rambling when you’re remote. As in, take time in your day to wander and roam. (I would go for a ~1hr hike in the mornings as my “commute”) It gives you a sense of distinction from being home or “at work”. The routine cardio, and musings you have while walking make it well worth it.
Indeed, I, as a fully remote, probably overworked person, sometimes wonder if I'm a loser just because I never
* pick up Becky from school
* feel under the weather today so I'll be offline and "take it easy" (never hear about me anymore today)
* sorry "traffic jam" (10:00am)
* sorry "train canceled"
* will leave a bit early (2pm) for [insert random reason] appointment
While all these can be completely valid reasons, it's just funny hearing one of these daily. On a side note, I also kinda like my job and am not interested in slacking.
Re: If you're remote, ramble
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
We tried that but it ended up being just a few people talking and most people just listening and/or continuing their work. As a team lead within a small, fully remote company I’m struggling to find the right dynamics as I can see people really like to socialize (I have 3 1on1’s with each of them every week, and a lot of times we just talk about personal hobbies, what they did last weekend, etc), but it seems like in…
group discussions over zoom just don't work IMO. The sound only allows one person at a time to speak so its extremely your-turn-my-turn in a way that an organic, in-person group socialization isn't. It isn't as jarring in a 1:1 because you can watch that person's face and without much effort predict when they're going to speak and so not interrupt them. When it goes beyond that, the flow of the conversation gets stil…
Even worse is the situation our hybrid half-remote/half-inperson company runs into during meetings:
The in-person group will go into the conference room and naturally start multiple rambling side conversations.
But the remote people just have to sit there and watch. Usually they can’t really hear each of these conversations and you can’t casually join a room-based side conversation from the remote because any audio that comes out of the teleconferencing screen automatically commandeers the whole rooms attention
Re: If you're remote, ramble
#98I strongly agree with the title but the prescribed details are not to my taste.
Pick a channel grouping that makes sense (by-team/by-project/by-manager) and Just Start Typing. Busy channels are alive and will create their own culture organically. Freely mix in work talk with pictures of cool stuff you found while walking the dog. "threads" makes this extremely manageable.
Re: If you're remote, ramble
#99> Common topics include: > - ideas related to current projects > - musings about blog posts, articles, user feedback > - “what if” suggestions > - photos from recent trips or hobbies > - rubber ducking a problem Work-related and private topics should be separated, IMO. Some might be interested in the former but not the latter, and also might be interested in them at different times (of the day/week). There’s also the…
> work-related topics can count as work time whereas the private ones doesn’t All of these people are salaried, why does it matter?
What do you mean? Your employment contract says you need to work n hours per week. Private activities obviously don’t count as work.
Re: If you're remote, ramble
#100This is so anglo-saxon to be individual channels for ramblings. We have group wide channel. It's supposed to be social - no pressure to post. Lurkers welcome. Just share. Naturally, some are more talkative than others. The idea is to foster a group/social culture - not have atomized diaries about individuals.
Every place I’ve been to has a dedicated “random” or “off topic” channel and it’s where all the good team building happens. There are usually a few more narrow channels for specific topics (video games, music, pets, food, etc) which can help if there are big personalities that dominate a channel.
It can be intimidating to join in when you’re new though. You got to lurk for a while to read the room a bit and learn the culture.