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If you're remote, ramble

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Re: If you're remote, ramble

#201

Post by Aurornis »

eldenring wrote: post #196
Xeoncross wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the difference between a good idea and the implementation. People just act differently in "official" topic channels. It's like when you buy that super secure door lock and the lowest bid handyman bends it while installing because it's such a pain to align correctly and now it's just as vulnerable as any other lock.

yep, also doscoverability is not an issue with Slack. You can find most things with a search, people typically don't go scrolling through a channel to find something.

People start by searching within a channel, especially when terms are vague or frequently used.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#202

Post by Aurornis »

latchkey wrote: post #197
Aurornis wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the point you were making, but from a manager’s perspective this format is something we’ve tried to avoid. Having a place to have people ask questions is great and encouraged, but doing anything that starts gravitating the knowledge toward a person instead of a topic creates problems for discoverability, searchability, and risks creating the impression (for new employees) that certain specific people are…

> from a manager’s perspective this format is something we’ve tried to avoid I'd rather avoid the manager's perspective.

The blog post is from a manager’s perspective. It’s a manager explaining what they had their employees do.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#203

Post by ZeroCool2u »

majke wrote: post #132

Let me share a personal story. Back in 2014 when I was working at Cloudflare on DDoS mitigation I collaborated a lot with a collage - James (Jog). I asked him loads of questions, from "how to login to a server", via "what is anycast" to "tell me how you mitigated this one, give me precise instructions you've run". I quickly realised that these conversations had value outside the two of us - pretty much everyone else…

We have an organic channel like this that's just called "Study Hall". People constantly ask technical questions and they know it's a judgement free zone. Probably one of the most productive chat channels in our org.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#205

Post by MichaelRo »

tetromino_ wrote: post #175
kmarc wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To defend @bagacrap, they said they tend to be a bit suspicious. And I am, too, when I hear this weekly from the same person (and when I ask back next day, if she recovered, she asks me "from what"?) I'm all in for more times off for parents, more PTOs, sabbaticala, etc. But come on, having "a cold" twice a month... IT IS suspicious.

> But come on, having "a cold" twice a month... IT IS suspicious Suspicious in that it's only twice a month? When my kid first started preschool, we got exposed to all sorts of wonderful novel viruses, and I had respiratory infections of various sorts for probably 50% of the days for the entire autumn and winter. Most of them not rising to the level of high fever and not being able to work, but definitely noticeably…

Suspicious that it's probably a massive hangover rather than "a cold". And I assume it's during the week, otherwise noone but your liver cares what you do on a Friday or Saturday evening.

"A cold" doesn't usually totally incapacitate someone working from the comfort of their home, down a paracetamol, drink hot liquids, take a nap, don't need to be 110% productive but still can manage to get some job done. But "a massive hangover" is something that surely can knock someone out.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#206

Post by rkomorn »

bee_rider wrote: post #199
bagacrap wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We shouldn’t make extra room for parents, we should just create a society where everybody has enough free time to handle kids. People without kids can enjoy their other outside work stuff. Everybody says having kids is really rewarding, so the folks who don’t should also get some time to find their own rewards. And, if we’re making extra space for people who have kids, that puts those people at a competitive disadvan…

I'm okay with parents getting more perks and time to deal with their kids.

I have zero desire to be a parent but I think people having kids is a pretty important part of keeping humanity/society going, so I'm happy to accommodate (or even reward) it.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#207

Post by Separo »

Channels should also include a #roast-the-product channel which encourages harsh, direct but valid criticism of the product (NOT people / feature authors etc).

It should be an anything-goes place where anything can be vented but also, no responses are required.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#208

Post by ogou »

mjevans wrote: post #198
ogou wrote: post #178

After watching so many work chats disintegrate from politics, social commentary, or pedantic arguments I have totally avoided all unstructured channels. Since 2020 I saw two people get fired after discussions got out of hand. There were many more team meetings, code of conduct edicts, and all hands declarations about communication issues. It wasn't until the bans on politics in Slack arrived until things got better.…

There's a distinction between random (probably not for work, 'water cooler chat') and 'obviously divisive' topics like politics. Particularly in the US, those are the sort of things you avoid.

Those distinctions evaporated in 2020 and never returned.

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#209

Post by merelysounds »

e3bc54b2 wrote: post #165
ronbenton wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I see you’ve only had 15 rambles this week” “Isn’t 15 the minimum?” “Well, yeah, if you just want to do the bare minimum. But look at Todd over there - he has 37 rambles” “Well if you wanted people to have 37 rambles why wouldn’t you make that the minimum”

Recently $DAYJOB has been moving more and more towards Office Space. But none of the young'ins are aware of it. So I just showed them the scene with the Bobs. Their faces were priceless. I doubt any of them came to office with same mindset again.

The scene with the Bobs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwfNjGxa_D4

Re: If you're remote, ramble

#210

Post by bee_rider »

rkomorn wrote: post #206
bee_rider wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We shouldn’t make extra room for parents, we should just create a society where everybody has enough free time to handle kids. People without kids can enjoy their other outside work stuff. Everybody says having kids is really rewarding, so the folks who don’t should also get some time to find their own rewards. And, if we’re making extra space for people who have kids, that puts those people at a competitive disadvan…

I'm okay with parents getting more perks and time to deal with their kids. I have zero desire to be a parent but I think people having kids is a pretty important part of keeping humanity/society going, so I'm happy to accommodate (or even reward) it.

IMO it would be better to subsidize this at the government level than the employer level.

We definitely don’t want to create a situation where parents are less desirable to employ, right?

And, most people have kids (even in places countries with highly developed economies and lower fertility rates). So, we shouldn’t think of this as an extra perk (some special case benefit). The treatment of folks who have had kids is the average case. The special case is whatever we for people who don’t have them (we shouldn’t make a special negative case, right?)

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