14 ms·
I am in the same situation. People tell me all the time how lucky I am to work remotely, and I was excited when it started. But it definitely has some drawbacks
by dexwiz 10y ago
I am in the same situation. People tell me all the time how lucky I am to work remotely, and I was excited when it started. But it definitely has some drawbacks that I didn't expect, especially in the mental health department.
Webex/Hangouts/GTM is fine for 90% of the banal, communication meetings. But it really fails for any design meetings that need a whiteboard. I have tried getting my team to use some alternatives, but there is always some eye rolling, and it never sticks around. It doesn't help that the majority of our team is onsite, so any alternative is 100% for my benefit. Also I haven't found an app that can compete with the tactile feeling of a physical board.
Also I feel like I miss out on the "water cooler" talk. Any sort of communication I have is very formal. My team doesn't like using chat casually, so it really hampers my ability to form relationships with them.
Finally, time management is an issue. When you have an office, its much easier to turn on and off. When I am at home too many mornings start late, and too many evenings run long.
- IshKebab 10y agoI think the surface hubs may change that - the experience is almost better than a real whiteboard. They are hilariously expensive though.
- Godel_unicode 10y agoMicrosoft is in a really interesting place as far as workplace collaboration goes. Between the Surface {Hub,Book,Pro} lines and their enterprise messaging technology, it really seems like they just need to fix SharePoint. I do wish that Microsoft would have standardized on thunderbolt 3 as opposed to the surface connector, but between power and all the compatability problems I suppose I get it.
- tonyedgecombe 10y agoI don't think it's a problem that can be solved by more technology.
- vollmond 10y agoIt doesn't help that the majority of our team is onsite, so any alternative is 100% for my benefit. This really seems key. I've done various sorts of mixed telework/onsite teams, and it never works well. I think either the whole team should be onsite, or the whole team should telework. Anything else will leave some people out of important interactions. You can even mix on a day-to-day basis, as long as you follow the same schedule. One office had a general practice of everyone in the office Mon-Thur, and then everyone teleworked on Friday. It was great. The office I'm in now, though, has some people teleworking one day a week, and working four 10s so they're off completely on Friday, and some others working five 8's, in the office every day. It's murder to schedule a time when everyone has access to the same interaction tools.