The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace • Hacker News Board

Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#161

Post by noarchy » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 3:55 PM UTC

Merrill wrote: post #113

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> interrupt you by tapping you on the shoulder whenever they need something Well, yes, that's what you're being paid for. The alternative is hard KPI's and getting fired for not meeting them, which is not something you really want.

I know one person who works remotely in transcribing and one in editing. They have specific numbers to meet in terms of lines and pages. In fact the transcriber is paid by quantity.

We're getting perilously close to seeing software developers reduced to those kinds of measurements again. People stuck working in "Agile" shops are putting up with "velocity" metrics. And with the spread of GitPrime, for instance, they're even seeing lines of code per day used as part of their metrics; something that used to be considered a relic of the past.

Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#162

Post by twoquestions » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 3:56 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #148

twoquestions wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find interacting with people who are forced to be there (like fast food workers/coworkers/bank tellers) doesn't really count for in-person interaction. Personally, I'd rather interact with people who are honestly there, and aren't economically forced to submit to me or me to them. EDIT: Wait, are you a manager referring to your subordinates? If so, you may have forgotten how stressful it is to constantly be submiss…

Just because someone is your boss doesn't mean you have to be submissive to them.

In what universe is that true?

The very essence of being a boss is having the means to force you subordinates to submit to you, and at most companies I've worked with that's an explicit primary benefit to the rank!

Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#163

Post by alexhutcheson » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 4:01 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #154

jrockway wrote: post #10

Sometimes I wonder if the underlying issue is that there isn't enough actual work for people to do. I worry that I'm about to sound super out of touch, but hear me out; I'm not making a value judgement about anyone's job. It is assumed that everyone needs to do exactly 40 hours of work per week, but ask yourself this: for every person in your company, what do their next 40 hours look like? 40 hours worth of HR polici…

As you optimize a process to get 100% resource utilization, response time for any change gets closer and closer to infinity. You need some slack for things to work, and the more things change, the more slack it requires. And that's not even considering how humans are physically unable to work 8 hours day in and day out.

There's even a whole book about this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SOVC2Y (by one of the authors of Peopleware[1], which is also excellent).

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Tom-De...

Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#164

Post by ergothus » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 4:03 PM UTC

fizx wrote: post #144

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #2

I tried sharing these studies at my ex employers in Europe hoping they'd spare me the hellish 40 minute commute in stop/start traffic and they weren't interested at all. Management there only values "butt time in seats" and the ability to come over and interrupt you by tapping you on the shoulder whenever they need something. As one of my ex CEOs put it: "If I don't see my employees stressing out at thier desks I get…

As someone who has gone to the dark side, there's an interesting tradeoff here. There's basically three scenarios: (1) all employees are trusted and unmeasured, but you have to tap people on the shoulder every once in a while to confirm that they're on track. Naturally, this is easier if everyone is on-site. (2) everyone is accountable for producing of tickets, and you can check that everyone is at least doing some w…

> (1) all employees are trusted and unmeasured, but you have to tap people on the shoulder every once in a while to confirm that they're on track. Naturally, this is easier if everyone is on-site.

I don't get it - shouldn't one-on-ones and regular progress check-ins (be those standups, metrics (This is your #2), whatever) give you that information? None of those are easier when on-site. In fact, given today's move towards open offices, any form of 1:1 collaboration is easier remotely where you don't have to fight for precious meeting room space.

I think the core problem is that you're trying to prove "everyone is working" when we should be interested in "the work is getting done". Seeing that everyone is working doesn't actually mean progress is getting made. If you have to take steps to answer that question anyway, the first question is fairly pointless.

Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#165

Post by ghostbrainalpha » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #114

thisisnico wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe there are many studies, even posted here that lying down < Sitting < Standing < Walking. Lying down for long periods of time is worse for you. (sleeping excluded). Less activity with the body = worse for the body.

The ultimate good-for-you background activity would probably be some movement equivalent to climbing a tree (pumps your whole lymphatic system; suspected of being a causal factor of the health of people in “Blue zones”, as said zones all contain a lot of orchard workers; something our bodies probably expect us to do a lot of, given our evolutionary roots; etc.) I’m not sure how you could combine it with typing, thoug…

This is good info in this comment but it makes me very sad.

I now hate my standing desk and want a climbing desk.

Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#166

Post by garettmd » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 4:08 PM UTC

siffland wrote: post #128

thrownaway954 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My manager _constantly_ will shout out, "does anyone know what X is working on?" It pisses me off to high hell that a manager has to ask his workers what another worker is working on. I honestly think that EVERYONE should be using a ticket tracking system and just put assignments in a person's queue. I don't see why this is such a big deal or looked down upon. It's so easy to see what everyone is working on, run repo…

A huge problem with ticketing systems is then management uses it to track all productivity. We had a ticketing system and one guy in our group had between 60% and 80% more tickets than the rest of us. So it would seem we were all slackers, however he took the tickets that took like 2 minutes to do (password resets, account unlocks, etc...), meanwhile i would get stuck troubleshooting a production performance issue th…

You're definitely not the only one to have this experience.

Honestly, I think the problem is structural with regard to management. Just changing the process or tool (ticketing vs constant communication with manager) isn't enough. It probably needs to be combined with smaller teams (i.e. Amazon's pizza rule) and management defining goals and "success" as more than meeting some narrow KPIs (MTTR on tickets, for example)

Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#167

Post by WestCoast » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

greenshackle2 wrote: post #106

Tade0 wrote: post #8

Except for the occasional visit to the office to give a few high fives and have some chit-chat I work remotely. Until recently we used Toggl to track work time and the guidance was to have "6h of focused work daily". I'm managing 5h 15min-ish, but only when working remotely. When I'm in the office that number organically drops to around 3h 40min. Only person really doing those hours(and above) is one guy who's not in…

That is roughly consistent with my experience. When I was using the "pomodoro" technique, I first started with the goal of 14 pomodoros per day (14 x 25min of focused work). My (fairly successful) friend who had done pomodoro told me that was not a reasonable goal. 10-12 seems a more reasonable goal for most people. When doing focused reading in grad school I could do maybe 8-9 hours on a good day. Working on a perso…

I can't tell you how unburdening it is to read your response. Thank you for your honesty.

Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#168

Post by garettmd » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #165

derefr wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ultimate good-for-you background activity would probably be some movement equivalent to climbing a tree (pumps your whole lymphatic system; suspected of being a causal factor of the health of people in “Blue zones”, as said zones all contain a lot of orchard workers; something our bodies probably expect us to do a lot of, given our evolutionary roots; etc.) I’m not sure how you could combine it with typing, thoug…

This is good info in this comment but it makes me very sad. I now hate my standing desk and want a climbing desk.

I worked at a place that had a treadmill desk. Takes some practice to use it...

Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#169

Post by eeZah7Ux » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

cbzbc wrote: post #67

mkolodny wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While "remote workers are more productive" is in the article's title, I disagree that the author is suggesting that working remotely is a necessary part of the solution. The article's subtitle is "Async isn’t just for remote teams". I think the post makes it clear to that office workers could benefit a ton from async communication. And I agree completely. Sync communication at my previous job was such a drain on my p…

Slack can be used as a asynchronous mechanism - but too many teams develop into using direct IMs/convos as a preferred communications style.

Slack is entirely designed to encourage casual chat-like conversation with emoticons, reactions & so on.

Want meaningful async communication? Think of the UIs of usenet clients or even email clients.

Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#170

Post by sanderjd » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

growlist wrote: post #79

nabdab wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a valid concern. If you don’t have transparency into ongoing work, then you aren’t ready for remote workers. If the only method for your manager to know what people are working on is to tap people on shoulders, then doing that isn’t a “bad behavior” for the manager, it’s necessary behavior. Of cause a better solution is to have trust and plans. (Agile, scrum, waterfall, napkin sketches or whatever it doesn’t mat…

One thing that amuses me - you can provide the very simplest tools (such as an issue tracker report) and some managers will still utterly refuse to use them, to the point of open hostility, because it somehow undermines their position to open a link and read an online report as opposed to asking a subordinate to read it to them instead ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yep, my biggest frustration is when people (not just managers) ask questions instead of looking things up. And it can be hard to push back against because they are "just trying to get the answer more efficiently by just asking". Which is true, it's usually more efficient to ask someone who knows something than to find something yourself. The problem is that it preempts work to be done in serial instead of doing a bit more work in parallel. There is a point at which that makes sense, there are things people know that require a lot of legwork for someone else to find out for themselves. But "what are you working on" is pretty much never in that category.