241–250 of 279 posts
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Cache? It’s a text chat, it has history?
Are you implying that 1) everything from the chat is immediately present in the brain when taking up the discussion at a later point, as well as 2) Last time you left the chat, all the the relevant context was well encoded as chat text in the first place?
All this time I've been writing wrong...
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…
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.
If you spent even a nanosecond considering these other people, you might stumble upon the hypothesis that these people are trying to port the way they interact with others in meatspace to an IM channel, rather than assume some form of mental illness.
Also, giving context is good, regardless of medium.
This guy is too concerned about himself rather than others. Working at a company means you're a resource anyone can use, live with it and don't make up your rules on how to communicate. Just do it and collect.
If you need more info from someone, just paste "Can you provide more context please?", and move on with your life.
Largely these problems exist because people type poorly. It is much easier for them to speak than it is for them to type. I require all staff to learn to touch type if they don’t know how, and prefer candidates with high typing test speeds.
Is it really a concern for younger candidates to not be able to touch type these days? I suppose Gen Z who are phone-centric would not have much experience touch typing.
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You're being cynical and it seems you take a quite extremist stance. My impression is you're blind to the value of ephemeral, low-ceremony discussion. Just bounce an idea of someone else and see what comes back. Sharing fews, helping each other learn, etc. Not everything needs to be recorded, in fact I'm very happy that most discussions aren't. Spare me the crap. I've seen many company wikis full of stuff that nobody…
Agree, actually. Mostly. I tend to favor calls with people who prefer calls, and text with people who prefer text. But if it starts getting abused, the situation becomes different. I don't mind agreeing to a bare zero-effort "hi, can we go on a call?" from time to time. And I give a lot of leeway to juniors and new hires, bending over backwards more than I probably should. But if it becomes a habit you can bet I'll s…
I decided with a coworker today that we'll go to the office an extra day tomorrow because we'd rather do that than sit for a couple hours with headphones in our ears.
On our own, no management involved.
When it makes sense to talk, I can talk. Most of the time, it doesn't.
This is probably a factor behind execs crying "but muh productivity" and scaling WFH back.
These are huge distractions, agreed, but not answering messages like this or responding with _a link to a fucking website telling you how wrong you are_ will never not be perceived as asshole behavior.
A better approach is to _just respond to the message_.
Saying "hey! How can I help?" Takes two seconds to write. Shit, you could probably automate this.
Responding to asks for "quick chats" with "hey; I can't do a quick call right now, but happy to talk when I'm free. Mind scheduling something on my calendar?" is much more respectful and most folks will do just that.
Sorry for the harsh language. This is the kind of incredibly elitist and condescending behavior that make people like Eric Schmidt call us "arrogant" and spend billions of their own money finding a way of getting us out of the way.
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Below a certain threshold, "quick calls" are the best thing to do. Some of the most inspiring discussions come from someone bringing up an issue they have right there and then. Good discussions often start from something that doesn't seem so important, that doesn't have a clear outline from the start. If there isn't the possibility to start a discussion instantly once in a little while, there is a good chance it won'…
Pray tell, why can't you do this discussion async in writing?
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I agree with your take on working remote and how it can hinder spontaneous "group creativity", though I'd argue that the loss of the smoke break did a lot more damage to this than remote work. With that out of the way I just want to say that in decades I've never had a "quick call" which wasn't a humongous waste of my time. It's always some project manager or business process or whatever person who wants to talk abou…
> though I'd argue that the loss of the smoke break did a lot more damage to this than remote work. Eh, coffee breaks serve the same purpose as a smoke break in my opinion. I'd guess nowadays the amount of coffee drinkers is probably the same as the number of smokers back in the day. Interestingly, in my experience, a "quick call" has been something where the other person doesn't want an email to get forwarded. That'…
> Interestingly, in my experience, a "quick call" has been something where the other person doesn't want an email to get forwarded. That's why they don't include the subject in the message/meeting invite.
I think there is certainly some of this.
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…
First off: Are water coolers even a thing still? At least in NL we just bring our own bottles and use the tap to refill it :p Second, I've not once in my life had a productive "water cooler" conversation. Not a single time, it's pretty much always just socialization about literally anything other than work. Same with lunch, people don't want to talk about work during their free time, and they don't. I've certainly ne…
I just realized it's worse than that. If the old adage on innovation "1% inspiration, 99% perspiration" is true, then water cooler simply cannot help much. Then, what you need for innovation (and not just a warm fuzzy feeling of a possibly good idea) is actual time to work on it, not a water cooler.