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If you're remote, ramble

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Re: If you're remote, ramble

#111

Post by kj4211cash »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #105
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.

I do. At Walmart. It drives me slightly insane. Wish I could turn that part of myself off more often.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#112

Post by byryan »

liveoneggs wrote: post #98

I 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.

Yea I agree it seems like (for my own team anyways), one group channel would work a lot better than a per person channel for everyone. I think some people may feel more likely to post, especially work related topics, in a group channel rather than starting solo threads in their own "ramblings" channel. One channel is also easier and "less work" to look through than n number of channels. This is very subjective though I guess, so I could be wrong.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#113

Post by aprilnya »

danparsonson wrote: post #102

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.

Or if you use M365 then Viva Engage/Yammer can be great!

PS. between the two Mastodon will be better, you can fully disable all federation and even have SSO! + setting up a private Bluesky is quite a bit harder

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#114

Post by layer8 »

handoflixue wrote: post #108
layer8 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I’m not in the US, so that may be right. In my view this is more about how the employee feels about it: I don’t want to get into a dispute whether the half hour a day I spent on the rambling channel counts as work or not. For that it makes a significant difference if people use the channel to discuss their hobbies or whether they discuss work-related ideas. I also don’t want to miss the work-related topics just because I’m not interested in the hobby discussions.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#115

Post by goalieca »

siva7 wrote: post #10

> We have no scheduled meetings, so ramblings are our equivalent of water cooler talk. This is the difference. Most teams have scheduled daily (!) meetings, so such rambling channels often times feel more like another chore and therefore fail because they haven't emerged of a natural need from the team.

> Most teams have scheduled daily (!) meetings,

.. And because we spend 30-50% of our day in meetings, some person is always saying "take this offline" or "we'll circle back later".

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#116

Post by sublinear »

No thanks. One of the best parts of going remote is letting your work truly speak for itself to a much broader audience. This would have been impossible in person.

High performers usually have their own thing going on outside of work and don't need the workplace for socializing. This boosted a lot of careers, and otherwise made life way less toxic. Unless you're fresh out of college I can't see anyone wanting this again.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#117

Post by nasalgoat »

larrydag wrote: post #92
nasalgoat wrote: post #85

I 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 o…

The channels I'm talking about weren't about work, they were about hobbies - biking, cars, cats. I found that interaction quite fun and actually much better than in-person chats because I could choose to interact at my pace and comfort level.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#118

Post by nasalgoat »

8n4vidtmkvmk wrote: post #95
nasalgoat wrote: post #85

I 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

Yes but they get very lonely all by yourself.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#119

Post by prmoustache »

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.

In my country, we are allowed an half an hour break that is not deducible from your work time. It is expected that you need to take breaks in a 8h or 8h24 shift and you are free to decide if you want to take one long one or several shorter ones. Also going into the bathroom is not deducted, even if one day you need 15 minutes to take a proper dump or another day you have stomach issues and need to go more often.

bottom line: YMMV. check your local laws and/or collective agreements.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#120

Post by starttoaster »

9dev wrote: post #72
hk__2 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The post says it’s channels you mute and you are not expected to interact with.

But you still know they are there, and that your colleagues should perceive you as at least casually interested in what the others are up to. Even if muted, these channels inevitably become another liability.

I think everyone knows and silently understands that the people responding/emoji-ing in those channels all day every day are doing so at the cost of work output, and that there are a lot of people working that aren't typing away about the last audiobook they listened to. I think you've created a stressful situation out of something that isn't inherently stressing.
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