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If you're remote, ramble

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Re: If you're remote, ramble

#101

Post by bagacrap »

kmarc wrote: post #96
rablackburn wrote: post #8

I 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,…

I do tend to be a bit suspicious of the one-day "under the weather" events.

However I do think we need to make extra room for parents (I am not one, yet). I'm going to need a doctor who's younger than me when I'm 80+

Folks could always just disappear instead of announcing these things, but is that better? And as a senior on my team, I over announce certain stuff to let the other team members know that WLB is ok.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#102

Post by danparsonson »

This sounds like Twitter for Enterprises - how about setting up a local instance of Bluesky or Mastodon or one of those? People can then follow whomever they want to and the rest of us can continue not being interested in that sort of thing.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#103

Post by parpfish »

layer8 wrote: post #99
jobs_throwaway wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think building rapport with your team counts as work.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#104

Post by senko »

nottorp wrote: post #75
senko wrote: post #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.

That's what #general on slack is for, mostly?

In my experience some orgs use it as all-hands (with #random for chitchat), others as water-cooler.

As long as everyone agrees on the usage (usually set from the top), anything's fine.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#105

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

9dev wrote: 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.

Do you really pursue "inbox zero" on slack? That sounds like a full-time job in itself.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#106

Post by exe34 »

bagacrap wrote: post #101
kmarc wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

I do tend to be a bit suspicious of the one-day "under the weather" events. However I do think we need to make extra room for parents (I am not one, yet). I'm going to need a doctor who's younger than me when I'm 80+ Folks could always just disappear instead of announcing these things, but is that better? And as a senior on my team, I over announce certain stuff to let the other team members know that WLB is ok.

> I do tend to be a bit suspicious of the one-day "under the weather" events.

That's one reason people feel like they have to keep hiding it and it builds up to burnout.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#107

Post by layer8 »

parpfish wrote: post #103
layer8 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? Your employment contract says you need to work n hours per week. Private activities obviously don’t count as work.

I think building rapport with your team counts as work.

Depending on how much time you spend “building rapport”, HR might disagree.

My point is that channels should be set up such that it’s well-defined whether they are work-related or not.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#108

Post by handoflixue »

layer8 wrote: post #94
elric wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Legal definitions vary country to country: I wouldn't be so quick to insist on some universal definition. I'm pretty sure you're wrong about US law there - docking someone's pay for "chatting" sounds extremely difficult to defend.

Besides, multi-tasking exists: sometimes I need to let my brain idle on another topic for 15 minutes, because I'm working through something complex, or just wrapped up a project and have a meeting.

Certainly, nowhere I've ever worked has tried enforcing anything like this. I've had plenty of co-workers who made a point of wandering over to socialize for 5-10 minutes every day, which must have easily added up to an hour a day - but they were also the expert that knew exactly where everyone was and who needed to coordinate with who.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#109

Post by hkon »

So, if you're remote, why not just talk to your real friends on discord or whatever?

I think this whole "we are all a family" trope that companies push has pretty much been seen through by remote workers.

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