5 ms·

Lots of comments here come off as very resistant to accepting the ideas presented here: that success at work is as much about the quality of your work as the ef

by xrd 7y ago

Lots of comments here come off as very resistant to accepting the ideas presented here: that success at work is as much about the quality of your work as the effort made to connect with the humans in an organization evaluating the work. Improv is a perfect frame for this: entertaining but doing deep preparation for that entertainment. What I'm really fascinated by is how this can be translated to remote working. I don't think water-cooler talk is possible in Slack. I would be really surprised to find anyone at the top of performance in any organization that isn't fully remote without resorting to Machiavellian tactics. I wonder if the stresses you saw at GitHub during their period of centralizing management in SF after really marketing themselves as remote first were evidence of this.

phlakaton 7y ago
Nonsense. At least 30% of the chat I do on Slack is "water cooler talk" of one sort or another. Music, games, city happenings, a smattering of politics, random Internet cuteness, the all-important channel devoted to mechanical keyboards, etc. etc. Haven't started up a channel on D&D podcasts yet but it's probably not far behind. ;-)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
pavel_lishin 7y ago
> I don't think water-cooler talk is possible in Slack. Probably not quite to the same level as in-person conversation, but nearly every place I've worked had a variety of off-topic channels (both for specific topics, and totally random discussion), and plenty of my 1:1 slack conversations end up evolving into personal discussions (e.g., "Hey, btw, I saw a cool-looking book on your shelf when you dialed into the meeting - what is that?")
- xrd 7y ago
  After I wrote that, I thought: maybe lots of people think that slack is for that. I think you are right. But, I do also think that a crucial distinction is that most people assume water cooler talk isn't recorded. I have several co-workers who have said something in slack, then noted this is probably available to the boss, and then deleted the comment (who really knows if it is actually deleted and not available to the boss as a paid upgrade!). The point is water cooler talk is risk free, and I think at least an important part of those conversations with your coworkers should be experimental and searching, and having a surveillance layer over there prohibits (or inhibits) that.
  - pavel_lishin 7y ago
    Well, I wouldn't say "risk-free", but I hear what you mean - HR isn't going to pull up a print-out of your exact words at the watercooler, with certain words and phrases circled in red sharpie. You're right - there are definitely things I've explicitly not said in Slack and saved for in-person discussions. I forgot about that aspect of it. :/
    - keenmaster 7y ago
      This is why 2-party consent to record laws will become increasingly important in the future. Eventually, AR virtual presence software with chatting avatars will proliferate in the corporate world. It would be stifling if you can’t be sure that the other party isn’t recording you. Unless you specifically agreed to allow your company to record all interactions, you should be afforded a reasonable degree of privacy: merely the same amount that you get around the watercooler in an office setting. Companies that record every utterance would face pressure from the labor market, though I’d prefer a law against that too, for the sanity of the populace.
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    Are Slack private messages accessible to anyone? I've never heard this before.
    - BurningFrog 7y ago
      They're still in the system and can at a minimum be subpoenaed. If they're available to your local Slack admin, I don't know.
    - avip 7y ago
      It must be for compliance. It's called "corporate export". https://slack.com/help/articles/201658943-export-your-workspace-data https://slack.com/help/articles/201658943-export-your-worksp...
      - StavrosK 7y ago
kristianc 7y ago
> Lots of comments here come off as very resistant to accepting the ideas presented here: that success at work is as much about the quality of your work as the effort made to connect with the humans in an organization evaluating the work. It's not just a case of making an effort to connect with the individuals evaluating the work - it's that siloing your individual contribution, however strong, actually makes you more difficult to work with and your contributions less impactful.
ramphastidae 7y ago
> I would be really surprised to find anyone at the top of performance in any organization that isn't fully remote without resorting to Machiavellian tactics. Can confirm. Switching to a fully remote company was eye-opening. The politics are much worse than my office jobs. Everything is back-channeled. So many secret private Slack channels and exclusive in-person meetups where actual decisions are made. At least in the office you could get a sense of the political landscape after a few weeks of meetings — I was unaware of how my remote organization actually worked for over a year until I raised some concerns and a co-worker clued me in. The shocking thing wasn’t that a remote company has politics, but that the entire company ethos was based on how much more transparent and less political fully remote organizations are.
- xrd 7y ago
  This says it. Yikes.
  - cs02rm0 7y ago
    FWIW it hasn't been my experience. I've spent about 9 years working with a fully remote company. The back channels exist, mostly as video calls in slack, but to me that's no different than a conversation in a quiet corner of the office. You can usually sniff out who talks to who and what the relationships are like. I find you do have to call people though, if you isolate yourself in a remote company it's probably even more, well, isolating. No one's going to accidentally bump into you.
avip 7y ago
I think the "resistance" is partially based on the fact [1] we all did see an introvert, quiet, bright engineer promoted to an influential and senior (s.a "principal engineer" or "system architect", and less often CTO) position - solely based on her technical expertise.
Nasrudith 7y ago
The real issue is the definition of "success". Climbing to the top of ladders by spoofing utility may work for their career advancement but to any whose paycheck doesn't depend upon it is clearly a pathology. The jumping from sinking ship to sinking ship after gnawing at the baseboards success model is success for them and useless sociopaths like them only and actively bad for everyone else. Their fuck ups are /why/ they need to pay consultants in the first place! Their methods are a plague on society which makes it abundantly clear why the status quo is fucked up and also why big players even can lose vs garage start ups despite their decades of experience and massive funds difference. While the start ups may be good and smart the vested interest's outright failures despite their advantages are more because they are frankly stupid than their rival's vast skill or genius. If remote working stops the spread of this virulence (I suspect they will need to mutate their playbooks) then it explains the resistance among current management to not having to pay for office space.

by xrd 7y ago

phlakaton 7y ago

Nonsense. At least 30% of the chat I do on Slack is "water cooler talk" of one sort or another. Music, games, city happenings, a smattering of politics, random Internet cuteness, the all-important channel devoted to mechanical keyboards, etc. etc. Haven't started up a channel on D&D podcasts yet but it's probably not far behind. ;-)

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

pavel_lishin 7y ago

> I don't think water-cooler talk is possible in Slack. Probably not quite to the same level as in-person conversation, but nearly every place I've worked had a variety of off-topic channels (both for specific topics, and totally random discussion), and plenty of my 1:1 slack conversations end up evolving into personal discussions (e.g., "Hey, btw, I saw a cool-looking book on your shelf when you dialed into the meeting - what is that?")

xrd 7y ago
After I wrote that, I thought: maybe lots of people think that slack is for that. I think you are right. But, I do also think that a crucial distinction is that most people assume water cooler talk isn't recorded. I have several co-workers who have said something in slack, then noted this is probably available to the boss, and then deleted the comment (who really knows if it is actually deleted and not available to the boss as a paid upgrade!). The point is water cooler talk is risk free, and I think at least an important part of those conversations with your coworkers should be experimental and searching, and having a surveillance layer over there prohibits (or inhibits) that.
- pavel_lishin 7y ago
  Well, I wouldn't say "risk-free", but I hear what you mean - HR isn't going to pull up a print-out of your exact words at the watercooler, with certain words and phrases circled in red sharpie. You're right - there are definitely things I've explicitly not said in Slack and saved for in-person discussions. I forgot about that aspect of it. :/
  - keenmaster 7y ago
    This is why 2-party consent to record laws will become increasingly important in the future. Eventually, AR virtual presence software with chatting avatars will proliferate in the corporate world. It would be stifling if you can’t be sure that the other party isn’t recording you. Unless you specifically agreed to allow your company to record all interactions, you should be afforded a reasonable degree of privacy: merely the same amount that you get around the watercooler in an office setting. Companies that record every utterance would face pressure from the labor market, though I’d prefer a law against that too, for the sanity of the populace.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  Are Slack private messages accessible to anyone? I've never heard this before.
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    They're still in the system and can at a minimum be subpoenaed. If they're available to your local Slack admin, I don't know.
  - avip 7y ago
    It must be for compliance. It's called "corporate export". https://slack.com/help/articles/201658943-export-your-workspace-data https://slack.com/help/articles/201658943-export-your-worksp...
    - StavrosK 7y ago

kristianc 7y ago

> Lots of comments here come off as very resistant to accepting the ideas presented here: that success at work is as much about the quality of your work as the effort made to connect with the humans in an organization evaluating the work. It's not just a case of making an effort to connect with the individuals evaluating the work - it's that siloing your individual contribution, however strong, actually makes you more difficult to work with and your contributions less impactful.

ramphastidae 7y ago

> I would be really surprised to find anyone at the top of performance in any organization that isn't fully remote without resorting to Machiavellian tactics. Can confirm. Switching to a fully remote company was eye-opening. The politics are much worse than my office jobs. Everything is back-channeled. So many secret private Slack channels and exclusive in-person meetups where actual decisions are made. At least in the office you could get a sense of the political landscape after a few weeks of meetings — I was unaware of how my remote organization actually worked for over a year until I raised some concerns and a co-worker clued me in. The shocking thing wasn’t that a remote company has politics, but that the entire company ethos was based on how much more transparent and less political fully remote organizations are.

xrd 7y ago
This says it. Yikes.
- cs02rm0 7y ago
  FWIW it hasn't been my experience. I've spent about 9 years working with a fully remote company. The back channels exist, mostly as video calls in slack, but to me that's no different than a conversation in a quiet corner of the office. You can usually sniff out who talks to who and what the relationships are like. I find you do have to call people though, if you isolate yourself in a remote company it's probably even more, well, isolating. No one's going to accidentally bump into you.

avip 7y ago

I think the "resistance" is partially based on the fact [1] we all did see an introvert, quiet, bright engineer promoted to an influential and senior (s.a "principal engineer" or "system architect", and less often CTO) position - solely based on her technical expertise.

Nasrudith 7y ago

The real issue is the definition of "success". Climbing to the top of ladders by spoofing utility may work for their career advancement but to any whose paycheck doesn't depend upon it is clearly a pathology. The jumping from sinking ship to sinking ship after gnawing at the baseboards success model is success for them and useless sociopaths like them only and actively bad for everyone else. Their fuck ups are /why/ they need to pay consultants in the first place! Their methods are a plague on society which makes it abundantly clear why the status quo is fucked up and also why big players even can lose vs garage start ups despite their decades of experience and massive funds difference. While the start ups may be good and smart the vested interest's outright failures despite their advantages are more because they are frankly stupid than their rival's vast skill or genius. If remote working stops the spread of this virulence (I suspect they will need to mutate their playbooks) then it explains the resistance among current management to not having to pay for office space.