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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

#211

Post by dijksterhuis »

thyristan wrote: post #148
axitanull wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it that every time someone tried to push RTO agenda in a thread, "water cooler talk" has always been pushed like it is one of most important thing in a job? Is "water cooler talk" the new "open office layout"?

> Is "water cooler talk" the new "open office layout"? Yes. It used to be that "water cooler talk" was considered an unproductive waste of time. But for people pushing an RTO agenda, it suddenly became the go-to argument for RTO. Very often, the same PHBs use this to push RTO, who back in the day complained about people doing "water cooler talk" on company time. At the same time, open office or cubicle layouts are pr…

Sorry, PHB?

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

#212

Post by satyrnein »

ath3nd wrote: post #141
RamblingCTO wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe "flow state" is not the most important thing?

For a developer, arguably "flow state" is arguably the most important thing. Provided, that is, that requirements are clear and people are in sync what should be worked on. What do you think is the most important, if not flow state?

Well, you kind of assumed it away in your second sentence, but alignment is more important than individual productivity. And unfortunately, meetings, interruptions, and other communication are the best tools most teams have for that.

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

#213

Post by danaris »

DannyBee wrote: post #206
ath3nd wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a developer, arguably "flow state" is arguably the most important thing. Provided, that is, that requirements are clear and people are in sync what should be worked on. What do you think is the most important, if not flow state?

Team and organizational productivity. Teams are not a simple sum of independent productivity of individuals. (If they are, it implies they don't need to be a team, since nobody is dependent on anyone else)

You say that like it's not possible to have a balance—have enough meetings and communication to properly coordinate the team, while still leaving each individual enough uninterrupted time to get plenty of flow-state work done.

The posters above advocating for flow state aren't saying anywhere that they don't want to have any communication with the team. They're saying they need the flow state to get their own work done. That's fully compatible with agreeing, as a team, that there are certain times when you don't interrupt your teammates short of an emergency—and other times when everyone's fair game, and still other times for regular scheduled meetings.

So many of the "quick calls" could just as easily wait until tomorrow, or a scheduled block of "interruptible time" at the end of the day. Saying "But I need to interrupt you now!" during a time designated for deep work means that you're optimizing for your individual productivity rather than the team's; instead, you could write your question down for later, and switch to a different task for the time being, or work around it, or research it yourself, or a dozen other possibilities.

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

#214

Post by gregjor »

kethinov wrote: post #181
gregjor wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, especially when no one writing code, or managing anything, has a meaningful measure of their "productivity," or how removing or changing variables might "optimize" it. People talk about optimizing their productivity as if they had a meter on their desk showing a number, but it just comes down to subjective experience and mood. People who act like their time has so much value they can ignore and talk down to th…

A well-functioning organization would not devalue people who are more judicious about their use of time, preferring productivity over unnecessary socializing. But while what you're describing does not describe a well-functioning organization, it's definitely true in practice. People who buck the silly social dynamics in office cultures will be perceived as less productive whether it's true or not and are frequently d…

The organization doesn't devalue people. Other individuals feel put-off and alienated by people who act the way the author of the article describes. Like it or not personal relationships matter, reducing friction matters, and small talk and the apparently wasteful social rituals can add to team and organization cohesion. Lone wolves, high-performing or not, get perceived as not team players, not someone willing to help others even with small things, hostile to routine human interaction.

Some workplaces go too far in one direction or another. I would prefer working in a more casual and friendly environment even if that meant engaging in idle chit-chat and signing birthdays cards, rather than a workplace where everyone had to shut up and pretend to optimize their performance. In my long career I have always found jobs and freelance work through friends and former work colleagues, and a big part of that comes down to them perceiving me as someone they enjoyed working with and hanging out with, not just someone who optimized my productivity and told them to buzz off because I had to write more code.

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

#215

Post by gvurrdon »

dijksterhuis wrote: post #211
thyristan wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is "water cooler talk" the new "open office layout"? Yes. It used to be that "water cooler talk" was considered an unproductive waste of time. But for people pushing an RTO agenda, it suddenly became the go-to argument for RTO. Very often, the same PHBs use this to push RTO, who back in the day complained about people doing "water cooler talk" on company time. At the same time, open office or cubicle layouts are pr…

Sorry, PHB?

A manager who behaves like this character: https://dilbert.fandom.com/wiki/Pointy-Haired_Boss

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

#216

Post by quectophoton »

kethinov wrote: post #171
cj wrote: post #5

At a certain point it just doesn't make sense to over-optimize for productivity, when the sacrifice (being pleasant & accessible to coworkers) isn't worth the gain (more focus time coding).

At a certain point it just doesn't make sense to over-optimize for being highly interruptible, when the sacrifice (productivity) isn't worth the gain (satisfy outdated notions of office etiquette designed by extroverts who want to vampire other people's attention unnecessarily).

If I liked call center work, I would have applied to a call center position. That way I wouldn't have to deal with the pesky programming stuff.

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

#217

Post by bdcravens »

I enjoy being able to shoot the breeze with clients etc, and relate to each other. That's not to say I haven't worked for folks that I genuinely winced when they'd ask to jump on a call: it's more a matter of whether the relationship feels adversarial.

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

#218

Post by toomuchtodo »

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…

This is ideology masquerading as data.

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

#219

Post by GoToRO »

cj wrote: post #5

At a certain point it just doesn't make sense to over-optimize for productivity, when the sacrifice (being pleasant & accessible to coworkers) isn't worth the gain (more focus time coding).

When you interrupt mental work, you just doubled that person's effort. At a minimum. Now tell me it's not worth it. Managers don't care because it"s not their effort.

Don't be fooled by the use of the word "optimize" which suggest some minimal gains over the current situation. In the short term you double the effort of that person/team, in the long term you will get frustration, people asking for huge raises (to reflect the effort) and then people just quit.

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

#220

Post by gumby »

Normally: no agenda, no need to attend. But since our team is currently small, we have a deliberately agendaless meeting every morning. We talk about anything: somebody's daughter got engage, an upcoming vacation, that gnarly engineering problem that never got resolved yesterday. It's an anti-standup, and it's designed to take the place of those transient "water cooler" convos.

It's incredibly valuable, but sure doesn't scale.

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