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Non-obvious remote work techniques

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Re: Non-obvious remote work techniques

#31

Post by vsareto »

dahart wrote: post #28

> Accurate Chat Status > In meatspace you don't walk up to someone's desk and just start talking. This list seems to assume or suggest that chat should only be used for synchronous conversation... Are there reasons to avoid using chat asyncronously? My assumption is that chat can be asynchronous, but I recognize many people don’t want to ask their question until I’m actively responding. I can imagine security concern…

If you're doing incident response or on-call work, I think it needs to be more synchronous and more accurate. However, chat messages are more natural to me to indicate availability than setting the availability itself. Too many people don't set accurate statuses and it can get changed by the programs own rules, so it's a noisy signal IMO.

Re: Non-obvious remote work techniques

#32

Post by dudul »

just-juan-post wrote: post #16
ktal wrote: post #9

#3 - Holy hell I hate it when someone sends me a message with just "Hi". Just tell me what you want!

So you want them to use the chat program like e-mail?

You say "Hi!", I'm in the middle of wrapping up something. 8 minutes later, I have time, I say "Hello, what's up?". Unfortunately, during these 8 minutes you moved on to doing something after waiting for 30 seconds. 12 minutes later you see my reply, and say "Can I ask you something about this Foo module"". Again, during these 12 minutes I moved on to something else, blablablabla.

Had your first message been "Hi! In the Foo module, do we really need the function Bar to be public?" you would have been all set after 8 minutes.

A chat, like email, is just a tool to get shit done.

Re: Non-obvious remote work techniques

#33

Post by fishtoaster »

I feel like "Accurate Chat Status" only works if it's automatic (as in, a calendar integration that switches your status to "in a meeting" or "it's after 6pm, probably afk.)

Otherwise you get:

4pm: "Ah, bob's status says he's in a meeting. I could message him, but I'd like this to be a quick, synchronous, chat discussion."

5pm: "Guess bob's still in a meeting..."

7pm: "Let me check - yep, still 'in a meeting'"

10pm: "Yeah, he forgot to update his status"

And then you never trust those statuses again.

Re: Non-obvious remote work techniques

#34

Post by renewiltord »

fishtoaster wrote: post #33

I feel like "Accurate Chat Status" only works if it's automatic (as in, a calendar integration that switches your status to "in a meeting" or "it's after 6pm, probably afk.) Otherwise you get: 4pm: "Ah, bob's status says he's in a meeting. I could message him, but I'd like this to be a quick, synchronous, chat discussion." 5pm: "Guess bob's still in a meeting..." 7pm: "Let me check - yep, still 'in a meeting'" 10pm:…

You can hook up Google Calendar to Slack. It does very well. I agree with you on auto-status.

Re: Non-obvious remote work techniques

#36

Post by renewiltord »

solids wrote: post #23

#5 - IMHO you just can’t emulate a physical social event, the biggest problem being that you cannot establish smaller groups which are natural in physical events.

In my dnd group I just switch Discord channels when we need synchro conversations when the group is split. Because as DM you sort of have to participate everywhere this is harder but I like the multi-channel method.

Re: Non-obvious remote work techniques

#37

Post by dahart »

fishtoaster wrote: post #33

I feel like "Accurate Chat Status" only works if it's automatic (as in, a calendar integration that switches your status to "in a meeting" or "it's after 6pm, probably afk.) Otherwise you get: 4pm: "Ah, bob's status says he's in a meeting. I could message him, but I'd like this to be a quick, synchronous, chat discussion." 5pm: "Guess bob's still in a meeting..." 7pm: "Let me check - yep, still 'in a meeting'" 10pm:…

For me automatic idle+meeting detection is not good enough. There are lots of times when I can't chat immediately, but I'm using my computer and not in a scheduled meeting. Pair programming, someone else at my desk (pre covid), programming in the zone, watching a presentation, currently chatting with someone else, etc. etc.

I want the expectation that my Slack icon is green to mean that I'm at work and I'll reply sometime today, not that I'm ready for you to interrupt what I'm doing right now.

Re: Non-obvious remote work techniques

#38

Post by hinkley »

solids wrote: post #23

#5 - IMHO you just can’t emulate a physical social event, the biggest problem being that you cannot establish smaller groups which are natural in physical events.

I wonder how much time and effort has gone into solving the hallway effect. Or the cocktail party effect.

Maybe we just assume it can't be solved but haven't really tried that hard, or at least that recently?

Re: Non-obvious remote work techniques

#39

Post by renewiltord »

ypeter wrote: post #10
ktal wrote: post #9

#3 - Holy hell I hate it when someone sends me a message with just "Hi". Just tell me what you want!

What I do is just not respond until they say what they want from me. And I also do this when someone just pastes an error message without a question.

Well, that sounds logical. I do the same, too.

1. Current work

2. Today work

3. Review for when work

4. Far future work

Everything in 1 and 2 are lined up for work. Anything without clear action items requires follow-up and clearly signals non-urgency so it's in 3 which is the end of the day. And a 4 is just intentionally forgotten.

If you stick that in your github.com/username/me/README.md then it's documented behaviour.

Re: Non-obvious remote work techniques

#40

Post by MauranKilom »

solids wrote: post #23

#5 - IMHO you just can’t emulate a physical social event, the biggest problem being that you cannot establish smaller groups which are natural in physical events.

I recently participated in C++ on Sea (https://cpponsea.uk/) - online, of course. The conference setup used https://remo.co/conference/ which automatically groups people into tables, where each table is essentially a video conference call. You can move around freely between tables but each table can only hold 8 people.

I felt it was possibly better than a physical conference because it's so simple to join new conversations - no walking around looking for interesting groups (you can see who is currently sitting at each table) and none of the nonverbal social awkwardness in joining a conversation. Plus you always have the names and profiles right there. Never been easier to meet people imo.

I'd contradict your claim based on this experience. You clearly can establish small groups, and it seems to work really well when you do.

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