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> I won't overhear the the conversation my colleagues are having about a pain-point I solved 2 days ago. Listen, I agree that this happens. But in my experienc

by geoka9 10y ago

> I won't overhear the the conversation my colleagues are having about a pain-point I solved 2 days ago. Listen, I agree that this happens. But in my experience it happens so rarely that it does not outweigh all the negatives of having to drag a bunch of people to the office against their will day in, day out. As for slack and such being a poor replacement to face to face, I'd say that it's because not all people are cut out for remote work. For me personally, I don't like it when somebody chats me up about things that are better suited for a slack (or even email) conversation. Things like getting the spec details buttoned down (which is actually the bulk of shop conversations, unless you're at a very early stage in your project) - you'd want to have a paper trail/reference to go back to once you start implementing. And remembering details from hallway conversations is hard, so you have to distract people from their work again or get blocked.

intern4tional 10y ago
My experience has been the opposite of yours. I worked on a remote team for several years and recently migrated to an in the office job in a similar line of employment and was surprised how often such things occur. In your case it may either be that your work does not lend itself to such activities or you are potentially unaware that they are occurring. Slack is poor replacement for face to face. It is good for communication for many types of projects and teams, but it cannot convey a person's facial expressions or emotions that otherwise might be present in their voice. My current organization, while onsite, has teams spread across the globe that we interact with. Attempting to solve complex engineering problems via email and chat is doable, but takes longer than throwing a couple of the engineers in a room with a whiteboard (and so the company pays for travel when that is needed). In my experience, remote work is very situational. Certain jobs, tasks, and teams will lend themselves to remote work, but those items are not the majority of work yet.
- geoka9 10y ago
  > but it cannot convey a person's facial expressions or emotions that otherwise might be present in their voice. We're now talking software development, right? I accept that those things can be very important in other endeavours, but to me the person's well thought out and articulated opinions are much more useful than all those things. I agree, it takes time to put your thoughts in writing and often you end up tweaking your original ideas because you realized a better way of doing something while writing them down, but that saves a lot of time for both parties, provides a solid piece of documentation you can refer back to afterwards, and usually results in a better implementation which covers more edge cases, has fewer bugs and is more maintainable in the end. > and so the company pays for travel when that is needed In my experience it's almost always been a waste of time and money. It did provide other benefits, such as getting the remote people to hang out together, but that's neither here nor there. But then again, I never really valued whiteboard conversations much over discussing in writing (slack/email).

by geoka9 10y ago

intern4tional 10y ago

My experience has been the opposite of yours. I worked on a remote team for several years and recently migrated to an in the office job in a similar line of employment and was surprised how often such things occur. In your case it may either be that your work does not lend itself to such activities or you are potentially unaware that they are occurring. Slack is poor replacement for face to face. It is good for communication for many types of projects and teams, but it cannot convey a person's facial expressions or emotions that otherwise might be present in their voice. My current organization, while onsite, has teams spread across the globe that we interact with. Attempting to solve complex engineering problems via email and chat is doable, but takes longer than throwing a couple of the engineers in a room with a whiteboard (and so the company pays for travel when that is needed). In my experience, remote work is very situational. Certain jobs, tasks, and teams will lend themselves to remote work, but those items are not the majority of work yet.

geoka9 10y ago
> but it cannot convey a person's facial expressions or emotions that otherwise might be present in their voice. We're now talking software development, right? I accept that those things can be very important in other endeavours, but to me the person's well thought out and articulated opinions are much more useful than all those things. I agree, it takes time to put your thoughts in writing and often you end up tweaking your original ideas because you realized a better way of doing something while writing them down, but that saves a lot of time for both parties, provides a solid piece of documentation you can refer back to afterwards, and usually results in a better implementation which covers more edge cases, has fewer bugs and is more maintainable in the end. > and so the company pays for travel when that is needed In my experience it's almost always been a waste of time and money. It did provide other benefits, such as getting the remote people to hang out together, but that's neither here nor there. But then again, I never really valued whiteboard conversations much over discussing in writing (slack/email).