7 ms·

Yea, the idea that Google simply hadn't thought of allowing WFH is idiotic. IME, they're well-aware of the advantages, but also well-aware of the disadvantages,

Yea, the idea that Google simply hadn't thought of allowing WFH is idiotic. IME, they're well-aware of the advantages, but also well-aware of the disadvantages, and their current condonement but not overencouragement of WFH reflects this balance. In every job I've had (including Google), I work from home when I need to get well-defined, focused,independent work done on a fairly rigid timeline, and try and work from the office fairly often to take advantage of 1) easier conversations when complicated coordination is required, 2) maintaining social relationships with coworkers during downtime, and 3) the creative sparks that occasionally fly from casual conversation or even overhearing a conversation. I was a wfh maximalist like many on this thread at the very beginning of my career, but AFAICT it just comes from some combination of a) being a junior engineer that works on isolated bits of work and didn't need to communicate cross-team much or b) having work that doesn't require much creative collaboration. As I got more senior and moved towards different types of problems, my appreciation for the value of (though I still do enjoy and make time for WFH). For those who say that Slack or email or VC are perfect substitutes: there's no substitute for the high-bandwidth, low-latency medium of personal communication. Get good enough at running meetijgs of more than two people and you realize how much of the task of efficiently running a meeting involves reading micro-expressions and pauses to pick up on cues that help you direct the conversation (not to mention having n points of failure in a VC being accessed by n network connections). My team has been remote for a week and I've already noticed good meeting runners have worse meetings and bad meetings runners have even worse meetings.

deleted 7y ago
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ZainRiz 7y ago
On top of that, right now people are going to be WFH in a house filled with their kids who are also not going to school, possibly having to make sure they're actually taking the online classes their schools have setup from them. Not exactly the most productive WFH conditions.
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  Right, I'm sort of stacking the deck in favor of the WFH maximalist argument by taking for granted that motivation and focus aren't an issue, even though, for many people (or in many circumstances), they are.
mnky9800n 7y ago
Yes this is totally correct. I work in a distributed research lab and basically what has happened is there are two labs. Slack was supposed to connect across the atlantic but all it did was show off that one part of the lab has way more going on than the other part.
- ckdarby 7y ago
  In brutal honesty, it is probably highlighting that one lab is underperforming vs the other one.
  - mnky9800n 7y ago
    Well more papers per scientist come out of my side, more chatter comes out of the other side. So from that metric I would say you are probably right.
pts_ 7y ago
> there's no substitute for the high-bandwidth, low-latency medium of personal communication. Only for people who can't read.
- sulam 7y ago
  Tone is notoriously hard to communicate in written form. Body language is never conveyed. Intonation is non-existent. At best you get some word choice signaling, but while I think low latency may be over-rated in the "catalogue" above, high-bandwidth is exactly the point vs reading an email/slack/etc. If you seriously think written text is as communicative as face to face communication, I would consider being evaluated by a professional for a social interaction disorder of some sort.
  - pts_ 7y ago
    Or, you know, learn to read the manual?
    - reciprocity 7y ago
      His point is that all in-person communication includes elements that cannot be translated over text. This includes things like facial expressions, non-verbal body language. You responded with "learn how to read the manual" which isn't addressing the point that the comment is making.
      - pts_ 7y ago
        Of course it is. At the end of it all lie the specs. So why dance around it?
    - dang 7y ago
      Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN. The site guidelines particularly ask you not to be snarky here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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planetzero 7y ago
"being a junior engineer that works on isolated bits of work" Most Junior engineers aren't working remotely. I've been working remotely for a decade with different companies and almost all of the developers on my teams have been mid-level to senior. The junior developers always struggled and had so many roadblocks, it made working remotely difficult. It's really not that difficult to replace an in-person meeting with Webex voice call and/or screensharing. I go onsite once every 3 months for a couple of hours and it's all that's needed. Our meetings regularly have 10+ people from different departments.
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  > It's really not that difficult to replace an in-person meeting with Webex voice call and/or screensharing. I go onsite once every 3 months for a couple of hours and it's all that's needed. This is very much not my experience. I don't know what field you're in or the structure of your company, so I don't want to hazard a guess as to the difference. But the majority of the time I call a meeting, it's to have a fairly complex, dynamic conversation for which the communication bandwidth of Slack/email/GDoc is too low (otherwise we'd stick with async/chat). This means that few meetings consist of conversations that're fairly predictable. Which means the person running the meeting needs to know when to cut a conversation off or let it continue, what direction to take the conversation, pick up on silent hesitancy or disagreement from any of the ten people in the room, etc etc etc. I can go on and on about the techniques I've seen people use to run extremely effective meetings, as well as how poorly-run meetings don't use them. As mentioned, these rely on visual and timing cues that humans use to communicate, sometimes unconsciously. (I'm keenly aware of good and bad meetings because I hate meetings)

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ZainRiz 7y ago

On top of that, right now people are going to be WFH in a house filled with their kids who are also not going to school, possibly having to make sure they're actually taking the online classes their schools have setup from them. Not exactly the most productive WFH conditions.

wutbrodo 7y ago
Right, I'm sort of stacking the deck in favor of the WFH maximalist argument by taking for granted that motivation and focus aren't an issue, even though, for many people (or in many circumstances), they are.

mnky9800n 7y ago

Yes this is totally correct. I work in a distributed research lab and basically what has happened is there are two labs. Slack was supposed to connect across the atlantic but all it did was show off that one part of the lab has way more going on than the other part.

ckdarby 7y ago
In brutal honesty, it is probably highlighting that one lab is underperforming vs the other one.
- mnky9800n 7y ago
  Well more papers per scientist come out of my side, more chatter comes out of the other side. So from that metric I would say you are probably right.

pts_ 7y ago

> there's no substitute for the high-bandwidth, low-latency medium of personal communication. Only for people who can't read.

sulam 7y ago
Tone is notoriously hard to communicate in written form. Body language is never conveyed. Intonation is non-existent. At best you get some word choice signaling, but while I think low latency may be over-rated in the "catalogue" above, high-bandwidth is exactly the point vs reading an email/slack/etc. If you seriously think written text is as communicative as face to face communication, I would consider being evaluated by a professional for a social interaction disorder of some sort.
- pts_ 7y ago
  Or, you know, learn to read the manual?
  - reciprocity 7y ago
    His point is that all in-person communication includes elements that cannot be translated over text. This includes things like facial expressions, non-verbal body language. You responded with "learn how to read the manual" which isn't addressing the point that the comment is making.
    - pts_ 7y ago
      Of course it is. At the end of it all lie the specs. So why dance around it?
  - dang 7y ago
    Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN. The site guidelines particularly ask you not to be snarky here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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planetzero 7y ago

"being a junior engineer that works on isolated bits of work" Most Junior engineers aren't working remotely. I've been working remotely for a decade with different companies and almost all of the developers on my teams have been mid-level to senior. The junior developers always struggled and had so many roadblocks, it made working remotely difficult. It's really not that difficult to replace an in-person meeting with Webex voice call and/or screensharing. I go onsite once every 3 months for a couple of hours and it's all that's needed. Our meetings regularly have 10+ people from different departments.

wutbrodo 7y ago
> It's really not that difficult to replace an in-person meeting with Webex voice call and/or screensharing. I go onsite once every 3 months for a couple of hours and it's all that's needed. This is very much not my experience. I don't know what field you're in or the structure of your company, so I don't want to hazard a guess as to the difference. But the majority of the time I call a meeting, it's to have a fairly complex, dynamic conversation for which the communication bandwidth of Slack/email/GDoc is too low (otherwise we'd stick with async/chat). This means that few meetings consist of conversations that're fairly predictable. Which means the person running the meeting needs to know when to cut a conversation off or let it continue, what direction to take the conversation, pick up on silent hesitancy or disagreement from any of the ten people in the room, etc etc etc. I can go on and on about the techniques I've seen people use to run extremely effective meetings, as well as how poorly-run meetings don't use them. As mentioned, these rely on visual and timing cues that humans use to communicate, sometimes unconsciously. (I'm keenly aware of good and bad meetings because I hate meetings)