Lessons from seven years of remote work(tylercipriani.com)
tylercipriani.com
Lessons from seven years of remote work
https://tylercipriani.com/blog/2021/12/01/lessons-from-seven-years-of-remote-work/
119 comments
Sounds like everyone just kept on going like they were in person. Remote work takes a different cadence and communication patterns. I work at a 100% remote company and we have none of those problems (AFAIK).
- We use email extensively, both person-to-person and with various internal mailing lists we can subscribe to.
- Slack is very asynchronous and it is common for people to silence it when busy.
- All meetings are recorded and optional if you aren't an active participant.
- We write everything down with historical archives, for example all projects are proceeded by a written RFC describing the problem, solution and alternatives.
There are places that do remote work well.
- We use email extensively, both person-to-person and with various internal mailing lists we can subscribe to.
- Slack is very asynchronous and it is common for people to silence it when busy.
- All meetings are recorded and optional if you aren't an active participant.
- We write everything down with historical archives, for example all projects are proceeded by a written RFC describing the problem, solution and alternatives.
There are places that do remote work well.
I gotta say, our Slack messages are retained for so long I don’t even know what our Slack expiry is set to. This makes our Slack our single best repository of information available, far more likely to yield useful results than Confluence or searching old emails.
Companies that delete slack messages automatically shoot themselves in the foot. Whatever legal exposure you reduce is vastly outweighed by the convenience factor.
Believe it or not, some companies out there simply won't pay for Slack and will just use the free tier, which will eat the messages after some time anyways.
Of course, if billing or other concerns prevent them from doing this, i fail to see why they don't just use self hosted solutions, like Rocket.Chat, which isn't all that hard to do either.
I actually did that myself and wrote about it on my blog: https://blog.kronis.dev/tutorials/lets-run-our-own-chat-plat...
Of course, if billing or other concerns prevent them from doing this, i fail to see why they don't just use self hosted solutions, like Rocket.Chat, which isn't all that hard to do either.
I actually did that myself and wrote about it on my blog: https://blog.kronis.dev/tutorials/lets-run-our-own-chat-plat...
>i fail to see why they don't just use self hosted solutions, like Rocket.Chat, which isn't all that hard to do either.
I would assume CYA. If a self-hosted, non-industry-standard program went down, the person who set it up would be putting be their balls on the line. If Slack goes down, they can blame someone externally.
I would assume CYA. If a self-hosted, non-industry-standard program went down, the person who set it up would be putting be their balls on the line. If Slack goes down, they can blame someone externally.
The companies might night be deleting slack messages automatically. They might just be on the free plan which only shows the most recent 10,000 messages.
A company that's a going concern has money to pay for Slack. We have maximum data retention requirements of a legal nature, so we are deleting Slack messages with fully conscious intention.
So many times I've searched some weird intranet hostname, or $megacorp_specific_lingo and found it in Slack, yet nowhere in our Confluence. Confluence is great for more long-form stuff, but it also gets stale. But the great thing with a slack message, it's mostly immutable, so I can see the date (a decent proxy for relevance). I don't have to peer through the edit history in Confluence to ascertain the age of the information on a document with a long lifespan and many edits.
I was a part of company during a Hipchat > Teams migration that saw us lose all direct message history. The amount of knowledge lost was incalculable. It was certainly a wakeup call for me to start documenting stuff more permanently.
> Everyone says they hate meetings, but they schedule them compulsively anyway.
That's because everyone just hates other people's meetings.
That's because everyone just hates other people's meetings.
Sorry to hear that, I've been in this situation in the early years of my career. It sucks, puts way too much unnecessary pressure...
If you need to focus, just disable all notifications. Literally all of them. No one will die while you are focusing on the task at hand. And the project you are working on will definitely benefit from someone paying 100% attention to it. This may sound too extreme, but it'll feel natural after just one week.
If you need to focus, just disable all notifications. Literally all of them. No one will die while you are focusing on the task at hand. And the project you are working on will definitely benefit from someone paying 100% attention to it. This may sound too extreme, but it'll feel natural after just one week.
Tried doing that, immediately got feedback from team lead: "Scarlett mentioned that she tried to reach you about the metrics she's trying to collect, she ended up getting blocked for the whole day. Could you be more more responsive?"
That is true. But the problem here is not the remote work, is the company workflow. It will be the same problem in the office.
I don't know about that. Some middle management has been using remote working to amplify their toxic behaviour because its easier to get away with when people are isolated.
Or maybe Scarlett can work on more than one thing so that when she needs to make demands on other people's time that comes with a reasonable expectation of turnaround (such as 24 hours) or to communicate such needs timely rather than at the last moment.
Let me tell my boss how to manage the team and get back to you about how that goes.
Ok! ;)
Nice saying from the metalworking world: 'increased feeds and speeds are no substitute for better planning'.
Nice saying from the metalworking world: 'increased feeds and speeds are no substitute for better planning'.
A half decent manager should be able to handle this feedback, surely
find a new boss?
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I work at FAANG and kind of like the comp? Other teams here are generally just as bad, from what I hear.
Well, I guess if the comp compensates for the stress you are having, then there is no problem to solve here.
IMHO, while the median comp might be higher in FAANG, one can get comparable or even higher compensation in many other companies given certain level of excellence in one's craft.
IMHO, while the median comp might be higher in FAANG, one can get comparable or even higher compensation in many other companies given certain level of excellence in one's craft.
No, the problem is all this activism for entrenching remote work. I'll be much happier when it dies down again. I'm quite happy that my employer is implementing pay reductions for people who move away and make themselves harder to collaborate with.
The question of allowing devs (and other office workers but lets focus on devs) to go remote if they want is the big work-life issue of today. A few people want to work in person, but I'd say easily 75% of the people I work with do not want to be forced to go back to the office. In practice I have yet to actually meet someone who wants to go back to the big o except for the vp of engr. Everyone else, from recruiters, new hires, experienced people wants to be remote. There must be some people who want it of course.
One example, I'm a dev, and I talk to people we are trying to recruit from companies I worked at previously, they all ask me whether my company serious about going to in person, will that slowly fade away based on covid. I asked the recruiters and they said almost all the recruits ask that question too. I've always been in person at faang type companies and now about every month our vp of engineering schedules a new 'go back to the office' date, but it keeps going backward. Next date was going to be January something, but I'll put money on it going back monthly. One last whine, they keep saying they will do a survey of employee desires and concerns around this, but they keep delaying it for some reason.
One example, I'm a dev, and I talk to people we are trying to recruit from companies I worked at previously, they all ask me whether my company serious about going to in person, will that slowly fade away based on covid. I asked the recruiters and they said almost all the recruits ask that question too. I've always been in person at faang type companies and now about every month our vp of engineering schedules a new 'go back to the office' date, but it keeps going backward. Next date was going to be January something, but I'll put money on it going back monthly. One last whine, they keep saying they will do a survey of employee desires and concerns around this, but they keep delaying it for some reason.
I think the activism is because companies are already trying to push back hard against it, when actually it should be a matter of personal preference.
For lab work I can see why wfh is not an option, but for software development and lots of other work that could be done from home the decision should in principle lie with the employee, whatever works best for them, assuming that they are able to function like that.
For lab work I can see why wfh is not an option, but for software development and lots of other work that could be done from home the decision should in principle lie with the employee, whatever works best for them, assuming that they are able to function like that.
My experience is/was very different. Email and JIRA are the #1 communication tools. And occasionally (a few times a year) a 5 minutes mobile phone call to resolve an issue that couldn’t be resolved asynced. It works great. Constantly being pinged by Slack etc. would be annoying and negatively impact productivity.
So no email and lots of slack messages interrupting you, I have to wonder how does anything get done? I also find Slack (and all other IM platforms) to be horrendous when it comes to holding information that you might need later.
I've started keeping my slack status off permanently in working hours. It discourages people from contacting me, but I imagine the effect will wear off with time, as people catch on. The bigger picture takeaway is Slack status is not synonymous with me doing work that delivers company value (eg: doesn't mean I'm afk gaming or whatever).
The expectation of 'always on' is draining. I withdrew from social media for this reason, and now I'm applying that lens to professional communication software, in an effort to enforce barriers a bit better.
The expectation of 'always on' is draining. I withdrew from social media for this reason, and now I'm applying that lens to professional communication software, in an effort to enforce barriers a bit better.
Wow, that sounds awful. Mostly asynchronous Slack/Teams/whatever is so so productive. You need a team that is all committed to deprioritizing message checking and knowing how to @at the right person or group when something is actually urgent in order for it to work though.
That's a privilege that our architect/principal engineer enjoyed. Everyone knew that he was too important to bother, so people generally didn't ask him questions. He'd reach out to you if he needed something, and otherwise he'd scan Slack and code reviews once a day and that was all the comms you'd get from him. He basically delivered solutions, and then it was our job to fix, maintain, and support them.
Wow, that sounds very bad.
Does it? They've carved out the essential space needed for deep thinking and are still responsive to questions on a daily basis. Sounds fine to me.
It could be very dysfunctional if someone is throwing stuff over the wall, but isn't so involved in day to day understands of what is needed, what are the problems. That's a hard thing to be successful at, that remoteness.
It's the typical American corporate culture of shuffling responsibility away from yourself, akin to a game of musical chairs.
Notice how most actions here are not designed to maximize productivity and finish the task quickly, but to maximize virtue signaling and to have as much plausible deniability as possible.
Personally, I would go bonkers in such an environment. I have some very harsh words that are best left off HN for people who engage in, perpetuate and sometimes (yes, some managers) encourage this behavior whether by ignorance or by deliberate example.
Notice how most actions here are not designed to maximize productivity and finish the task quickly, but to maximize virtue signaling and to have as much plausible deniability as possible.
Personally, I would go bonkers in such an environment. I have some very harsh words that are best left off HN for people who engage in, perpetuate and sometimes (yes, some managers) encourage this behavior whether by ignorance or by deliberate example.
There's another less sinister explanation.
Most of what people think is important to document simply isn't. Particularly, collaborative sessions.
If a customer reports a bug in production, it really doesn't matter what was spec'd because the spec might be wrong. You need to evaluate the case and decide if something actually needs to be fixed.
Most of what people think is important to document simply isn't. Particularly, collaborative sessions.
If a customer reports a bug in production, it really doesn't matter what was spec'd because the spec might be wrong. You need to evaluate the case and decide if something actually needs to be fixed.
Try that trick in a regulated industry and I guarantee you that you'll be out the door the first time.
What is in the spec is crucial and if the spec is wrong you fix the spec, assuming you have the authority to do so.
What is in the spec is crucial and if the spec is wrong you fix the spec, assuming you have the authority to do so.
It would be good to have a spec so you know if it is a bug or not. That is independent of your customer thinking it is a bug.
No, this is exactly wrong.
Slack in real time = I ran into a problem and I will bother you in real time until you fix it. Endemic to data scientists!
Not writing email = I need you to answer me now, not later. Also, I don't want to waste time composing text when I can just talk to you over video right now.
Meetings all the time = I want the highest bandwidth communication immediately, instead of having to wait for an unspecified length of time, only to realize that I have a follow-up question.
This is precisely about responsibility and responsiveness, right now, immediately, and in real time, until the problem is solved. It's very much a young person and startup thing. Maybe it works differently if you contract with a large, slow bigcorp of some kind, but I've never worked in such an environment.
Slack in real time = I ran into a problem and I will bother you in real time until you fix it. Endemic to data scientists!
Not writing email = I need you to answer me now, not later. Also, I don't want to waste time composing text when I can just talk to you over video right now.
Meetings all the time = I want the highest bandwidth communication immediately, instead of having to wait for an unspecified length of time, only to realize that I have a follow-up question.
This is precisely about responsibility and responsiveness, right now, immediately, and in real time, until the problem is solved. It's very much a young person and startup thing. Maybe it works differently if you contract with a large, slow bigcorp of some kind, but I've never worked in such an environment.
No, meetings and slack pings happen all the time in bigcorp land too.
Actually not true. That is the typical environment of big corps in my experience. And also for companies who didnt adapt correctly to remote work. I work from Europe with a NY based startup and these problems were resolved. If some work may require people involved in some critical path, it is scheduled in advance. And there is always someone on call for each critical system.
You keep using problems that are not related to remote work neccesarily, but to the way the company works.
You keep using problems that are not related to remote work neccesarily, but to the way the company works.
> This is precisely about responsibility and responsiveness
Yes, it's about placing the responsibility on the person you're bothering, and doing less of it yourself. So I think you're actually agreeing with me or somehow misinterpreted my post.
Here's your cases laid out:
1. I think my problem is more important than whatever it is you're doing, so it's Ok to bother you.
2. I can't bother to organize my thoughts and compose them in writing, so have fun parsing my word salad over voice, because obviously you have nothing better to do.
3. I am horrible at planning and cannot think of questions in advance, so it's your fault.
> It's very much a young person and startup thing
Right, so the toxic business practices.
Yes, it's about placing the responsibility on the person you're bothering, and doing less of it yourself. So I think you're actually agreeing with me or somehow misinterpreted my post.
Here's your cases laid out:
1. I think my problem is more important than whatever it is you're doing, so it's Ok to bother you.
2. I can't bother to organize my thoughts and compose them in writing, so have fun parsing my word salad over voice, because obviously you have nothing better to do.
3. I am horrible at planning and cannot think of questions in advance, so it's your fault.
> It's very much a young person and startup thing
Right, so the toxic business practices.
Yes, this is called "seniority" and "delegation." As you get more senior, your problems get more important, your time gets more valuable, your needs get more urgent. This is why there are more junior employees than senior employees, why companies are structured like pyramids, why a team generally has one lead, and so on.
So: all of the Slack pings you're talking about are coming from further up the heirarchy?
My point was - I don't mind being pinged and generally making myself more available to my immediate senior managers.
I do take issue if I constantly get pinged from people who are in lateral teams and positions and in companies where there's no clearly defined structure and everyone pings everyone. Then it's pure toxic chaos.
Hope that clarifies it.
I do take issue if I constantly get pinged from people who are in lateral teams and positions and in companies where there's no clearly defined structure and everyone pings everyone. Then it's pure toxic chaos.
Hope that clarifies it.
True if you are a bad manager. False if you know how to hire competent people and delegate effectively. The best managers are not busy at all. The worst managers are constantly trying to fix problems ultimately created by themselves.
What you are describing is a disfunctional company. A company that doesn’t know how to organise tasks and people to not block each other.
The post hit on some of the main points that I used to teach folks who were working remotely for the first time. The main point that resonated with me was asking good questions via IM.
Bad examples:
Bad examples:
Hey, do you have a minute?
Hey how's it going?
I have a question for you.
Have you heard of $x?
Hey there! I hope you're well. How's your dog holding up since he had that run in with the porcupine? I didn't even know you had those in Barbados. Anyway, I have a question regarding $thing. I ran into an issue with $thing and it looks to be related to $otherthing. But when I googled $thing, I got results for $completelydifferentthing. I'm not sure where I'm going wrong. Can you help set me straight? Here's every detail I can think of you needing:
Interesting example, but for me it is the exact opposite. Please be brief and to the point, I do not care if you (pretend) to care about my dog.
Skip the dog part, but please please please try put as much details in the first IM as opposed to starting with 'hey'.
And please, please, do not start with "Hi Name", send that, then proceed to spend the next five minutes typing your message.
It is just fine to lead with hi, as long as it arrives at the same time as everything else.
It is just fine to lead with hi, as long as it arrives at the same time as everything else.
I reply with this link when people do that to me :
https://nohello.net/
They learn quickly.
https://nohello.net/
They learn quickly.
You may also want to learn that using a hello before going further (or at least separated from the rest of the im) is a way to make sure your are comfortable having the message pop up on your screen.
You would learn fast when you have someone looking at your screen and receiving "have you slept with Jenny yet?", or "you should not have called Jack a dick" when Jack is with you.
You would learn fast when you have someone looking at your screen and receiving "have you slept with Jenny yet?", or "you should not have called Jack a dick" when Jack is with you.
The lesson to learn from that is that you shouldn't stick your nose in other peoples' business.
…this is insanity.
If you have someone looking over your shoulder, you silencing all notifications.
But why would you send crazy gossip like that anyway? Please just keep things work related so we can all focus on producing results.
If you have someone looking over your shoulder, you silencing all notifications.
But why would you send crazy gossip like that anyway? Please just keep things work related so we can all focus on producing results.
> you silencing all notifications
Good luck with that when you have 5 or 10 messaging systems.
> But why would you send crazy gossip like that anyway?
It was obviously to show an extreme. replace this with confidential business information and there you are.
Good luck with that when you have 5 or 10 messaging systems.
> But why would you send crazy gossip like that anyway?
It was obviously to show an extreme. replace this with confidential business information and there you are.
we work hard and we play hard, together! that can mean working 14 hour days, together! but it's ok we are all one big happy family, we choose our own families, we are together. This company IS my life!
Please keep all messages strictly work related!
Please keep all messages strictly work related!
It's rude to just reply with that, but to put it in your status and to ask them politely afterwards usually works way better.
You should cultivate a relationship where you aren't afraid of being to the point.
I haven't got time in my life to carefully and delicately walk around people's feelings with every single small work matter. If someone takes something like a link to nohello very personally, you've got to fix that relationship.
I haven't got time in my life to carefully and delicately walk around people's feelings with every single small work matter. If someone takes something like a link to nohello very personally, you've got to fix that relationship.
You often do not have a relationship with people who don't know about your nohello.net thing, because your getting support questions, and you cannot cultivate a relationship with everyone.
So in the spirit of being direct, your attitude has probably caused issues in your personal life and career that you are not aware of, and has probably created a reputation in your company as 'the grumpy/rude one'. It's not that much more work to be polite and your attitude probably spreads to other actions in your work.
So in the spirit of being direct, your attitude has probably caused issues in your personal life and career that you are not aware of, and has probably created a reputation in your company as 'the grumpy/rude one'. It's not that much more work to be polite and your attitude probably spreads to other actions in your work.
I wish I'd remembered that. I actually used that in my training at one point!
God forbid your colleagues attempt to socialize with you. You might as well be a robot to them.
I am exactly like parent. I just can't do the small talk. Get to the point already is my attitude whole life. It's not that I don't care about others well being or their dog, I do. It's just that when someone asks me I always tell them I am fine even if I am not. I don't want to bother them with my troubles. And I assume they have similar mental process which recently I have come to realize is not true.
> It's just that when someone asks me I always tell them I am fine even if I am not. I don't want to bother them with my troubles.
Maybe this is generational, but to me that's just the basic social contract?
I remember visiting a friend in North Carolina, and as we were walking a complete stranger asked "How are you?". Without missing a beat my friend nods and asks "How are you?" in reply and continues on... and apparently that was normal to him.
It's not really about asking someone to dump their troubles on your plate, it's about acknowledging the person before you make an ask.
As long as you're not pinging someone multiple times over it, I don't see an issue. The idea is just don't make someone switch contexts a bunch of times over niceties
Maybe this is generational, but to me that's just the basic social contract?
I remember visiting a friend in North Carolina, and as we were walking a complete stranger asked "How are you?". Without missing a beat my friend nods and asks "How are you?" in reply and continues on... and apparently that was normal to him.
It's not really about asking someone to dump their troubles on your plate, it's about acknowledging the person before you make an ask.
As long as you're not pinging someone multiple times over it, I don't see an issue. The idea is just don't make someone switch contexts a bunch of times over niceties
> And I assume they have similar mental process which recently I have come to realize is not true.
How did you realize it? I'm asking because you sound a lot like myself.
How did you realize it? I'm asking because you sound a lot like myself.
Multiple failed relationships, I am afraid. We are all same but there are also some fundamental differences in how people process certain experiences. Some people care a lot about others while others might care less about others or some might not care at all and I think that changes perception of reality drastically of each person. And that's just one parameter, empathy. In reality, there could 100s of parameters shaping an individual's perception resulting in so many variations and so many misunderstandings. People usually project there own good/bad traits on others like I used to think that people think like me which is far from reality.
But I think these differences are absolutely needed and the evolution kind of selected this approach for the world to move forward. Also, even if this world had come this far with only 1 trait I believe it would have been pretty boring place to be.
But I think these differences are absolutely needed and the evolution kind of selected this approach for the world to move forward. Also, even if this world had come this far with only 1 trait I believe it would have been pretty boring place to be.
Yes, but some of us have work to do and if you communicate in installments instead of just coming to the point it will take five interruptions instead of one interruption to get you unstuck.
I don't mind the socializing, just put it in a separate comment thread so I can keep organized!
While I usually prefer the brief message as well one tenant of remote work that I learned a while back is “better to over-communicate than to under communicate.
Adding a bit of context to your messages might seem like unnecessary padding, but people loose context, multitask, and read stuff asynchronously. Restoring that context helps a lot.
As for the small talk, I think its very important what information you communicate. If you say “how was your weekend” what you usually are communicating is “I have no idea who you are, and want to warm up to your graces so you are more likely to do the work I actually want you to do” People hate that.
But if you ask them “how is your dog doing? I’ve heard it got its ear bit off that time hope they’re ok” Now you’ve communicated “I’m actually interested in who you are as a person, and what your life is. The work bit is nice to have but secondary” People do pick up on that, especially if you do it _without_ work requests from time to time. You trigger all the “they are part of my tribe” responses and will get your answers much quicker later.
It’s just very important to care about the people behind the handles and avatars, and establish connections with them.
Adding a bit of context to your messages might seem like unnecessary padding, but people loose context, multitask, and read stuff asynchronously. Restoring that context helps a lot.
As for the small talk, I think its very important what information you communicate. If you say “how was your weekend” what you usually are communicating is “I have no idea who you are, and want to warm up to your graces so you are more likely to do the work I actually want you to do” People hate that.
But if you ask them “how is your dog doing? I’ve heard it got its ear bit off that time hope they’re ok” Now you’ve communicated “I’m actually interested in who you are as a person, and what your life is. The work bit is nice to have but secondary” People do pick up on that, especially if you do it _without_ work requests from time to time. You trigger all the “they are part of my tribe” responses and will get your answers much quicker later.
It’s just very important to care about the people behind the handles and avatars, and establish connections with them.
I worked very briefly with someone who said the same: better to over-communicate. In practice this meant that they liked to write a lot, and not really read.
You are correct. I also do like to write, though I don’t think I’ve reduced my reading by any means.
Writing itself is an art form. Its important to have tldr; sections, to consider your audience and not to just braindump and call it a day.
At the end of the day though most orgs live or die by how aligned are their members, and how tenacious they are. Both of which require information to flow through it. And I think its way easier to tone things down/ignore/filter if you have too much than to try to infer “what other people actually mean”.
Writing itself is an art form. Its important to have tldr; sections, to consider your audience and not to just braindump and call it a day.
At the end of the day though most orgs live or die by how aligned are their members, and how tenacious they are. Both of which require information to flow through it. And I think its way easier to tone things down/ignore/filter if you have too much than to try to infer “what other people actually mean”.
The example appeared to overemphasise the "small talk" part, in practice it is usually boiled down to "I hope you had a good weekend..." on Mondays, or "I hope you are well..." on other days of the week.
I do not care if you (pretend) to care about my dog.
99% of people would prefer their colleagues talk to them in a friendly, humanizing way after spending 7 or 8 hours a day on their own though. On the whole people are social animals, and we get depressed when we're 'forced' to spend time alone, or even in groups if the group is exclusively focused on a task.
There are people who don't want that social aspect in their work life for various reasons, but they're unusual. The advice here is aimed at most people, not you specifically.
99% of people would prefer their colleagues talk to them in a friendly, humanizing way after spending 7 or 8 hours a day on their own though. On the whole people are social animals, and we get depressed when we're 'forced' to spend time alone, or even in groups if the group is exclusively focused on a task.
There are people who don't want that social aspect in their work life for various reasons, but they're unusual. The advice here is aimed at most people, not you specifically.
Those things are like the leader tones in modem protocols: they work to establish that the other party is listening. But IM isn't a modem, if the other party isn't listening then it doesn't matter what you write so you may as well come to the point and make the whole thing self contained.
"Hey Jim, if you see this in the next couple of minutes, the foo is hitting the bar and I don't know if that's serious, if you don't or can't respond, no worries, I'll take it elsewhere."
But that requires a bit more forethought and just doing 'hi' is the easy way out to be thinking your way through as you go along. Which implicitly assumes the other person is just sitting there waiting for you, something that may well not be true.
"Hey Jim, if you see this in the next couple of minutes, the foo is hitting the bar and I don't know if that's serious, if you don't or can't respond, no worries, I'll take it elsewhere."
But that requires a bit more forethought and just doing 'hi' is the easy way out to be thinking your way through as you go along. Which implicitly assumes the other person is just sitting there waiting for you, something that may well not be true.
I believe developers could be particularly good at identifying and communicating all required information from the start. We spend our lives thinking about how to pass information around, and get a lot of immediate feedback about it.
Think about it as a function: What arguments (information) would a function need to be able to return a value?
Think about it as a function: What arguments (information) would a function need to be able to return a value?
Genuinely curios (since I can’t seem to google that) - what are those cultures you speak of? Ime certainly not anywhere in europe (especially eastern) or asia (my experience there is only limited to Korea and China but I assume it’s similar). I think it might be just the US and possibly Canada
The "Hi!" message is the equivalent of a modem connection negotiation. The user wants to make sure the keyboard time isn't wasted until they know you are all ears. That it wastes your time they haven't even thought about until you explain.
They would still have to type it at some point if I were busy when they originally had the question. It’s not a waste of keyboard time for them to type it now, even if I don’t read it until later.
Just explaining why it happens, not saying it improves anything. I try to get them to use email instead since that has the function they are after. I (often) get all the info I need at once and I can schedule it easily and mark as done in the mail client so I don't forget it. And they don't have to copy+paste it to the email because I wasn't online on slack.
The worst is people that ping you with a generic hello message and don't continue on with their actual question. Fortunately this get trained out slowly if you refuse to return a "hello" until they ask the question.
https://nohello.net/
Your second example wastes so much time.
>various cultures where some people feel it is rude to have a conversation without first checking on somebody
Which cultures?
Your second example wastes so much time.
>various cultures where some people feel it is rude to have a conversation without first checking on somebody
Which cultures?
This depends on:
1) the culture. not all are like this
2) how often you talk with them. if it's daily then it could definitely be annoying over the long run
Oh I disagree. I don’t mind if you ramble during a video/voice call but please don’t send me whole paragraphs in slack unless you need to.
I had worked remotely for clients such as Disney, Macromedia, STARZ, Obeo, Pearson, Ultrashock, etc. My communications were exclusively emails, sometimes punctuated with scheduled IMs. Skype did helped when it came out.
The Timezone difference was indeed a blessing for me.
I adopted and used checklist and/or bullet communication with most of my emails. I worked when my clients were sleeping on the other side of the world; when they woke up my emails will be asking questions and answering/update from the previous work. When I woke up and ready to work, I have the details/feedbacks from the clients.
It did came with its limitations and was harder in the beginning. Besides many lessons learnt, one of the best and most effective was communicate, communicate, and over-communicate.
The Timezone difference was indeed a blessing for me.
I adopted and used checklist and/or bullet communication with most of my emails. I worked when my clients were sleeping on the other side of the world; when they woke up my emails will be asking questions and answering/update from the previous work. When I woke up and ready to work, I have the details/feedbacks from the clients.
It did came with its limitations and was harder in the beginning. Besides many lessons learnt, one of the best and most effective was communicate, communicate, and over-communicate.
One of the best experiences of my career was working with an Indian offshore team. 80% of the time they would have a full day's iteration ready for review overnight. It was magical, except when we were imprecise in which case a full night's work was wasted.
Oh god, working with an offshore team in India... one of the least productive projects in my life. I think they were all brought in by their lead Suresh, who they all relied on to run interference for them.
Target the new API? Talk to Suresh. Follow up on how an issue was resolved? Talk to Suresh. Ask someone on the team a question? Not without Suresh in the room.
And then Suresh would throw a ton of obstructions in your path. New API? We will require multiple days of in-person training. Issue not resolved satisfactorily? Let's do multiple rounds of revisions on a new triage protocol. Schedule a call with Suresh? He'll be free in 2-3 days.
Anything, absolutely anything at all having to do with interacting with the offshore team took a least a week.
Target the new API? Talk to Suresh. Follow up on how an issue was resolved? Talk to Suresh. Ask someone on the team a question? Not without Suresh in the room.
And then Suresh would throw a ton of obstructions in your path. New API? We will require multiple days of in-person training. Issue not resolved satisfactorily? Let's do multiple rounds of revisions on a new triage protocol. Schedule a call with Suresh? He'll be free in 2-3 days.
Anything, absolutely anything at all having to do with interacting with the offshore team took a least a week.
Remote work is kind of tough if you're a junior employee. You probably don't own a house yet, you don't have a "spare room." Your desk probably faces the bed you sleep in. You probably don't leave your bedroom much over the course of a day. You might put cardboard over the window to block out the sun. You're basically living in a prison cell at this point.
On the plus side, wfh allows you to move to an area where you probably can have that spare room. It's the people that get caught out by moving to the city to live close to work and then having to work from home that have a real problem, especially if they and their s.o. are both suddenly working from home. A studio apartment can work for two if it is just to spend time after work and to sleep. But it really doesn't work if you have to spend the whole day there working with two people as well.
We both have family nearby, moving away from them to a remote LCOL area for the sake of work sounds dumb.
Lots of people move because of work. If you have family nearby then that is what constrains you, not the work... And that's the right priority but for a lot of people that would count as a luxury.
So far, my experience with remote work is people telling me to accept a worse outcome and like it, because it's somehow better in their minds in some idealized noble way.
As someone who had to sit in crappy aircraft and sleep in hotels once a week until the pandemic broke out it's been a net positive for me. But I appreciate that this is not the case for everyone and that there are large numbers of people that like to work in an office.
Trust me, I've had to work from client sites for weeks at a time on less than a day's notice, take multi-hour hair-on-fire support calls at 3 in the morning from on-site engineers 12 time zones away, and take over productions systems from international teams with zero continuity. I understand! All of these things are terrible to experience, but enforced remote work normalized many of them. The best work environment is working in close proximity with other people who are all in the same time zone as you, who can tell by looking at you that you're too busy to bother at the moment.
> The best work environment is working in close proximity with other people who are all in the same time zone as you, who can tell by looking at you that you're too busy to bother at the moment.
I think that is a matter of personal preference. I - and my colleagues - hail from al over Europe and even though we miss seeing each other in person the productivity is up tremendously compared to pre-pandemic and the lack of travel, positive contribution to climate impact and extra time not wasted on travel have been an definite plus. But I fully appreciate that that is not for everybody.
I think that is a matter of personal preference. I - and my colleagues - hail from al over Europe and even though we miss seeing each other in person the productivity is up tremendously compared to pre-pandemic and the lack of travel, positive contribution to climate impact and extra time not wasted on travel have been an definite plus. But I fully appreciate that that is not for everybody.
That is also the case when studying, and people may go to libraries or other places. That's an option too.
The bright side is that a junior eng. is young, motivated and full of energy, so it can be done for a while until the salary helps to move up. Unless you are in Bay area. Avoid Bay area :D
The bright side is that a junior eng. is young, motivated and full of energy, so it can be done for a while until the salary helps to move up. Unless you are in Bay area. Avoid Bay area :D
Libraries are great for studying, not for video calls. Also, having to wear a mask all day kind of sucks.
Yes, life sometimes sucks. It is also bad to have to commute for 1 hour or more when you're a junior and have no car, so what?
When you're young you will struggle with things, we all did.
P.S.: if you are mostly doing videocalls in your daily work, you may want to change jobs. You should be ok in a library and going out to some room or hall for videocalls. Sucks? Yeah, not the best, but better than the jail that you said is your room.
When you're young you will struggle with things, we all did.
P.S.: if you are mostly doing videocalls in your daily work, you may want to change jobs. You should be ok in a library and going out to some room or hall for videocalls. Sucks? Yeah, not the best, but better than the jail that you said is your room.
I don't know if we have the same concept of what a library is.
And yeah, it sucks, but I hope things start getting better. I'd much prefer to work in an office, at a company where everyone works from the office.
And yeah, it sucks, but I hope things start getting better. I'd much prefer to work in an office, at a company where everyone works from the office.
This was me last year haha. The room I was in even had unpainted walls and bare concrete floor because it couldn’t be painted while I was living there. I just looked up a picture and it almost looks like a prison. But at the time I didn’t think twice about it and I was loving life when I didn’t have to spend an hour getting to and from work.
My last job also didn’t really use webcams so being in my bedroom didn’t really matter.
My last job also didn’t really use webcams so being in my bedroom didn’t really matter.
Were you not allowed to paint your walls? It's not particularly hard...
It's probably hard to paint a room after you have moved your belongings into it and can't leave overnight while the paint is drying.
This was it. Can't paint a room full of stuff. And you don't want to sleep in a freshly painted room either.
Dealing with the other party's poor communication and sometimes lack of engagement has been the most challenging thing for me over the course of say ten plus years of remote work, mostly for individuals. The secret really is choosing good clients and having good project management. But even if it's a good client, sometimes people are just busy.
The ideal thing is that you have a group of normal people who can log in and respond in a chat room or GitHub issues once or twice a day or so.
Sometimes it makes more sense to just do a phone call or voice meeting. For many people, especially non-technical that is just much easier, and you may get more out of it.
But I have found that some people just are not good at communicating over email, or in a chat room, etc. They can't really focus properly without being in a meeting. Again, non-developers (usually). You might consider just dropping those clients. But for me, I like to try to give each project I start a good chance of success, at least from a technical perspective. So sometimes that means the only working channel is a phone call and I get it once a week. Sometimes that's enough. If its other programmers then you would need to fire them probably.
The ideal thing is that you have a group of normal people who can log in and respond in a chat room or GitHub issues once or twice a day or so.
Sometimes it makes more sense to just do a phone call or voice meeting. For many people, especially non-technical that is just much easier, and you may get more out of it.
But I have found that some people just are not good at communicating over email, or in a chat room, etc. They can't really focus properly without being in a meeting. Again, non-developers (usually). You might consider just dropping those clients. But for me, I like to try to give each project I start a good chance of success, at least from a technical perspective. So sometimes that means the only working channel is a phone call and I get it once a week. Sometimes that's enough. If its other programmers then you would need to fire them probably.
What's really been killing us is that there are two of us working from home, and we ideally need two separate home offices in our one-bedroom apartment. Two standing desks, two office chairs, multiple monitors. Ideally, not facing into each other's webcams or with direct sunlight falling on someone's workstation for much of the day. This has really eaten into the satisfaction of remote work for us. Either one of us has a crappy, cramped workstation, or we have simultaneous video calls, or one of us gets to stare into the afternoon sun for two hours each day.
Offices make so much sense. Remote work in the limit just offloads office costs onto the employee. Many people will be happy with that, as they’re privileged to live in big houses with spare rooms, but the young and less well off will suffer. Kinda annoying to hear execs of banks or whatever see remote work as cost cutting.
Even if you compensate people for the extra space and wear and tear on their property, you’ll end up further inflating the housing bubble as larger homes are in short supply.
Even if you compensate people for the extra space and wear and tear on their property, you’ll end up further inflating the housing bubble as larger homes are in short supply.
The young and less well off can just move back in with their parents. Most engineers I know come from relative wealth (parents are lawyers/real estate investors/company owners), so a lot of my peers are doing exactly that.
I think it's mostly HackerNews types who believe that losing free meal service and providing their employer with free office space makes them truly free.
I think it's mostly HackerNews types who believe that losing free meal service and providing their employer with free office space makes them truly free.
This is a terrible idea, especially if you want to have any sort of romantic life...
It isn't an absolute fix, but there are some window tinting kits on Amazon that are relatively cheap and don't permanently damage the windows. Might be worth a try! I have in the last made good use of cardboard to block out unhelpful sun exposure as well in a pinch.
Fair warning, if you want enough tint to make direct line of sight with the sun bearable, you're looking at welding shade 14 or so. Better to just tape up some cardboard
I know it’s a bit old fashioned, but I use blinds or curtains.
The office I until very recently occupied (now exclusively wfh) had that problem, I just taped a large whiteboard to the window frame. That nicely solved it.
Get a new desk that doesn't face the sun?
Facing the sun is not an inherent property of a desk, it's that we either have one desk facing the window or we turn our living room into an office. Buying another desk doesn't change this fact.
Asynchronous communication does improve my communication skills by a few notches. Back in my early career days I tend to ask permission to ask a question but it quickly turns into a very bad thing when the time is doubled.
Yes, I became more explicit, always try to remove as much ambiguity as possible.
I've been working remotely my whole career. Here is my 5 cents:
> Timezones suck. I wish this section was as simple as saying: use UTC for everything, but it’s never that easy.
Use Google Calendar (or similar). It converts timezones seemingly. You can see other participants schedules right when scheduling a new event, if they have "public availability" enabled.
huh... I was expecting this post to be longer. It ends kinda abruptly.
> Timezones suck. I wish this section was as simple as saying: use UTC for everything, but it’s never that easy.
Use Google Calendar (or similar). It converts timezones seemingly. You can see other participants schedules right when scheduling a new event, if they have "public availability" enabled.
huh... I was expecting this post to be longer. It ends kinda abruptly.
Some good suggestions there, especially around buying good quality keyboards and chairs.
As for the communications thing, some places have gone completely toxic during the last couple of years.
I was dragged back to work a short contract for an old employer earlier this year and the amount of bullying via those stupid apps like slack, jira and ms teams was mind blowing.
Managers pulling stupid stunts like opening half a dozen jira things against a poor drone 10 minutes before a stand up meeting, deliberately using side channels during a meeting to coordinate dog piles, the toxic nature of it had me noping out of there.
I was lucky in that I could have used the money but decided I didn't need it that bad. I would rather be broke than be involved in that bullshit.
As for the communications thing, some places have gone completely toxic during the last couple of years.
I was dragged back to work a short contract for an old employer earlier this year and the amount of bullying via those stupid apps like slack, jira and ms teams was mind blowing.
Managers pulling stupid stunts like opening half a dozen jira things against a poor drone 10 minutes before a stand up meeting, deliberately using side channels during a meeting to coordinate dog piles, the toxic nature of it had me noping out of there.
I was lucky in that I could have used the money but decided I didn't need it that bad. I would rather be broke than be involved in that bullshit.
So, no calendar app which works right for multiple time zones and distributed teams and removes anxiety of planning events properly?
- No one uses email. Literally no one. The only things I get from email is automated notifications and meeting invites.
- Everyone uses Slack synchronously. I get multiple pings per hour. Sometimes I have to carry on 2-3 conversations in real time, simultaneously.
- Everyone says they hate meetings, but they schedule them compulsively anyway.
- Absolutely nothing is in writing: not meeting outcomes, not project plans, not reported issues. Messages in our Slack expire automatically after 60 days, so there is no written record of anything either.