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No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

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Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#151

Post by Kamq »

thomond wrote: post #81
DebtDeflation wrote: post #41

I will never understand people who write "Hello" or "Hi Joe" in Slack and then just wait. It has to be some form of mental illness.

It's why I don't use IM and just block myself off on those platforms. If it's not meaningful enough to write in an email then it's not meaningful enough for me to read.

Huh, we have really different experiences. I often describe things the other way. My email is full of automated messages, things that get blasted out to the entire organization, status updates that got sent to an entire mailing list and I don't need to read. I assume at this point that if it's an email, it's probably not important. That is to say P(important | email) I mean, I glace at them at some point, but I don't put much thought into them.

At least I know slack/teams messages are meant for me. If it's important, don't send me an email about it, ping me on one of those.

Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#152

Post by jakupovic »

prepend wrote: post #94
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is all of those acts take you out of flow state. I don't want and I can't randomly brainstorm when I am deep into coding. Even if I have to go take a quick water I would try to do it as quick as possible to continue with the problem I am focused on and I couldn't pay attention to the random conversation or brainstorming at a cooler.

Flow state is really powerful, but it’s not constant. I don’t want to be in flow for 40 hours per week. And to tell the truth if I get a few hours of flow a week, I’m lucky. So I don’t want to shut the door on any interactions in the unlikely chance that it interrupts me in my optimal state. What I like to do is block off “deep work” in my calendar a few times a week. Then people can think about if they want to inter…

This is much better and normal rather than the bs the original author is proposing where they are the main character and everyone caters to them

Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#153

Post by Yizahi »

rethab wrote: post #29

We cannot forget that we also loose something with working remotely (say more than 75% of the time) and that is the occasional bumping into each other at the water cooler or in the morning when coming in. These are situations you can artificially create by scheduling calls to socialize etc, but that is still not comparable with being in an actual office. By categorically saying no to quick calls, you're isolating you…

While there are of course frequent chats and interactions while in the office, the called "water cooler brainstorms" is a complete and total myth propagated via soulless linkedin seo and ceo posts. Like this stuff never happens on random and the few technical discussions I've seen or participated in a third place (i.e. two+ coworkers meet at any place which is not their workstation - kitchen/watercooler/smoking area etc.) were never resembling anything productive for the project or innovative. That in my not quite humble opinion is an utter BS perpetuated for the misguided RTO policies.

PS: disclaimer a) I do support short spontaneous calls and like them, but try to never initiate them on my side, because I understand they ARE very disruptive. disclaimer b) I actually like working in the office in some aspects, but it is totally not worth 30 full awake and unpaid days of my life per year wasted on commute. Like not even order of magnitude close in benefit compared to the waste of time.

Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#155

Post by ffgjgf1 »

daghamm wrote: post #33

This may sound reasonable, but the world is not black and white. If we turn every quick question into a complete meeting with agenda and whatnot, the organisation will become extremly bureaucratic. And at some point people will start making guesses instead of reaching out to experts because it is just too much work. So in my opinion, the author is a little bit selfish too. The company cannot 100% align with what best…

To me it seems more about scheduling a meeting when a simple email or message might do. Which is kind of the opposite of scheduling meetings with agendas etc.

If it’s really a “quick question” just write it down and in the off chance that it develops into something else you can have that meeting.

Of course it’s also a cultural/etc. thing. Some people are just horrible at expressing themselves in text or communicating asynchronously (the “Hello [I won’t tell you what I need until you reply”] ones or those that think that they are being helpful by making their messages as terse, short and consequentially vague and unspecific as possible)

I’m not sure how can that be beneficial for the team/company if it significantly affects productivity.

Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#156

Post by repeekad »

ctm92 wrote: post #44
rethab wrote: post #29

We cannot forget that we also loose something with working remotely (say more than 75% of the time) and that is the occasional bumping into each other at the water cooler or in the morning when coming in. These are situations you can artificially create by scheduling calls to socialize etc, but that is still not comparable with being in an actual office. By categorically saying no to quick calls, you're isolating you…

There's no problem with socializing, but this can also be a special appointment where everyone is free to join and can talk about stuff that is not related so a specific issue. We do a weekly fixed appointment where we gather together and smalltalk about whatever is on our minds.

Scheduled social time over zoom is not social time, it’s work prescribed team building

If anything these kinds of “meetings” felt like they made the culture on my team worse because they felt so forced and inorganic

Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#157

Post by BiteCode_dev »

prmoustache wrote: post #30
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #4

I get the sentiment, but also, for many the work place is a socialization hub. And what OP argue about is a direct consequence of that: small talks, serendipity, politness rules, etc. If you want raw efficiency, the article makes sense. However, in most orgs, that's not what most workers want.

> I get the sentiment, but also, for many the work place is a socialization hub. > And what OP argue about is a direct consequence of that: small talks, serendipity, politness rules, etc. You can do that while following the same rules of politeness and small talks. For instance I had a colleague who used to put "Hi" or "Good morning" messages several times a day on my teams chat. He could be as polite saying and incl…

Yes, but that doesn't change the problem.

Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#158

Post by Havoc »

This just feels like the classic “maker vs manager schedule”, except viewed from only one side.

Most larger orgs run on a mixture of those depending on role and where they interact you get friction

If you force the one on the other in either direction that person gets nothing done. Which is functionally what this article attempts - solves writers problem (“do it my way”) but ignores the consequences for others.

Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#159

Post by Yizahi »

refurb wrote: post #97
LunaSea wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience forced online water cooler talk has never worked and was always incredibly awkward and boring.

You've never been in an office and had a productive, random interaction with a coworker? Like, never? I've had it happen on a regular basis. I see someone and suddenly remember to tell them "oh, I did some work on that long ago, I'll share it with you" or you overhear a conversation about a topic you didn't know they were looking at?

Random - yes. Productive - no. Also never observed it on my big project. How would it even work with a member of a separate team working on totally different subsystem of the project?

Re: No "Hello", No "Quick Call", and No Meetings Without an Agenda

#160

Post by BiteCode_dev »

meowface wrote: post #13
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #4

I get the sentiment, but also, for many the work place is a socialization hub. And what OP argue about is a direct consequence of that: small talks, serendipity, politness rules, etc. If you want raw efficiency, the article makes sense. However, in most orgs, that's not what most workers want.

Small talk is fine, but when someone isn't willfully trying to engage in small talk and just is walking through a ritual to ask me a question, it seems better to skip the ritual and get to the point. Instead of "Hi [name]", them waiting for me to reply, me waiting for them to reply, and them sending their question, they could write "Hi [name], [question]" in their initial message. There are no disadvantages to this a…

I agree but stating isn't going to change the culture of corporations or even countries.
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