7 ms·

One interesting aspect of this is that they still explicitly expect "synchronous" work, timezones be damned: > We have initially designated 9am to 3pm Pacific

by Leszek 6y ago

One interesting aspect of this is that they still explicitly expect "synchronous" work, timezones be damned: > We have initially designated 9am to 3pm Pacific Time as “coordination hours” where most employees will be expected to be available for meetings and impromptu communication, regardless of where they are located. This maps to 6am to 12pm in Hawaii, 12pm to 6pm Eastern Time, 5pm to 11pm in the UK, and 6pm to 12am across most of Europe I know that I wouldn't work for them from Europe if those were the conditions.

Havoc 6y ago
That’s a pretty insane expectation given that their physical office presumably don’t require working at midnight. (Good luck getting that one past European regulators)
- mirekrusin 6y ago
  I used to work from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for a company in Sydney, Australia for few years. Interesting dynamics working for the company on the other side of the globe, I think it was 13h difference. Some aspects were good, you were basically left to do your job without interruptions for the day. You/they wake up to the updates on the other side.
  - unixhero 6y ago
    Sounds like you had a pretty sweet gig.
- miracle2k 6y ago
  Why would regulators be involved in setting employees working hours?
  - adwn 6y ago
    > Why would regulators be involved in setting employees working hours? That's what regulators do: they regulate stuff. That "stuff" includes – in particular in many European countries – employee working hours.
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    Let me introduce to something called labour laws. You'll find this surprising, but they exist in the US as well (even though they are much more lax there). Another surprise for you: work is not supposed to be indentured servitude anymore.
- dtech 6y ago
  In my European country you're required to pay 125-200% for night and sunday shifts, I wonder if they will do that.
  - balfirevic 6y ago
    Baseline pay is arbitrary, so if you're always working the same night hours it doesn't matter what part is called base salary and what part is additional payment for night work.
    - mschuster91 6y ago
      > Baseline pay is arbitrary Nope. Most of Europe has minimum wage regulations, and especially tech workers have the freedom to walk whenever they choose and go to competition.
      - balfirevic 6y ago
        Of course I'm aware of minimum wages, presumably Quora is not paying it's tech workers minimum wage.
  - marcinzm 6y ago
    They'll just do the usual thing when regulations pose a problem: work around them or not hire in that region. That's the tradeoff with regulations, you lose some potentials business.
rakoo 6y ago
European here, and the 6PM-12AM window is the one I feel the most productive in. I guess it will be a big change for a majority of people but I would definitely be interested by this. Moreover when I work, I work, so if the sun is already down I'm ok with it; when it's up I can do all the active parts of my day that are more enjoyable during the day. Still, it's not perfect. I don't think it would be that big of a deal for social life, because most events happen during the weekend anyway, but you'd still be expected to not be available for anything. Hopefully this is just the first phase for Quora, and they'll realize at some point that the whole point of working remote is that everything is asynchronous and synchronous is the exception
- valkon 6y ago
  With the condition that you can work those hours specifically? I don't believe they are that flexible.
- toyg 6y ago
  Doesn’t work for families. 6pm - 9pm is primetime for kids. But who cares about them oldies, right? /s
  - barbecue_sauce 6y ago
    Many oldies don't have families.
    - donohoe 6y ago
      Can’t tell if you’re mildly trolling or serious. The obvious point is that enough people in EU have children/families to make these hours a huge burden if not outright unworkable.
      - michaelt 6y ago
        Presumably they think "workers in EU timezones will have to work unsociable hours" is a more generous policy than "we don't hire workers in EU timezones" Of course, policies like "no cross-continent teams" or "no meetings whatsoever" would be even better - but that's an even bigger corporate re-organisation.
bambax 6y ago
> 5pm to 11pm in the UK, and 6pm to 12am across most of Europe This is completely ridiculous and means abandoning any kind of family or social life. It also means they probably only hire young, single people with no kids. Based on this, they sound like a seriously insensitive and diversity-hostile company.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  > It also means they probably only hire young, single people with no kids. I worked at a company that did this. It actually attracted a lot of parents who wanted to spend mornings with their kids while their spouse was at work, rather than send them off to childcare. Just because it doesn’t work for you doesn’t mean it won’t be ideal for someone else. Always good to have options.
- DangerousPie 6y ago
  I think it sounds much more reasonable if you read it as them saying "We suggest you stay within the PST time zone. If you want to live in a different time zone that's fine, but we won't change our core hours for you".
- marcinzm 6y ago
  The parents I know who could do flex-time liked to spend the morning/afternoon with their kids and then work in the evenings. For younger kids that allows you to split-shift with your partner while for older kids you get to be there when they get ready/get home from school.
  - bambax 6y ago
    In France kids from 6 years old onward, get home from school between 5 and 6 pm and usually have extracurricular activities after that. Then they are supposed to go to bed at around 10 pm. So if you're working 5-11 pm you're only going to see your kids at breakfast at best (if they don't skip it because they're late). You're also not going to have dinner together as a family, which, to me, would be unacceptable.
- oiasdjfoiasd 6y ago
jfengel 6y ago
It seems an excessively long window. Six hours isn't a "coordination window"; it's a workday. It's reasonable to have a set time when you can ensure that everybody will be together, so that you have at least some overlap for synchronous communication every day. But one or two hours seems appropriate, rather than six. Even within the US, there are workers who want to work shift like 10-6, or even 12-8, without seeming entirely out of touch with the staff. It's good to mix such people into your team: it means you get some kind of coverage later in the day for people working late, emergencies, etc.
ubermonkey 6y ago
My assumption is that Quora is very CONUS-focussed, no? So a 9-3 PT window is pretty reasonable for that region, especially if they're transitioning from offices where you were expected to be at a desk. It's absolutely true that the work window is unpalatable much east of Nova Scotia, but they also don't have any people IN those zones now. OTOH, being able to move to Ireland (e.g.) and keep your job -- albeit with super weird hours -- is pretty neat.
matz1 6y ago
>I know that I wouldn't work for them from Europe if those were the conditions. There is no system that would satisfy everyone. You wouldn't work for them but pretty sure many other people wouldn't find it a burden. In this modern day the concept of working only during the daylight is slowly disappear. In most big city, night time can still pretty lively.
im3w1l 6y ago
If remote-first with American timezone becomes a trend, I could see Indians and Chinese moving to South America.
marcinzm 6y ago
Seems senior management wants the same amount of synchronous meetings rather than investing in more asynchronous communication. If they're just mimicking in-person approaches then that bodes ill for the whole initiative in my view. I say senior management because they're usually the only ones who have 6+ hours of meetings per day.
wenc 6y ago
Timezones matter. London is a financial hub because it's able to work with both the US east coast (NY) and also most of Asia-Pacific. NY and Asia-Pacific though is doable but tougher (12-13h difference). The toughest is when you need to include folks from SF, London and HK [1]. There's just no good overlap. Either you rotate the suffering or you get disgruntled employees. One solution is to decide which timezone is most important to you, and then restricting hiring +/- 6 hours from that timezone. Or split up synchronous meetings to two different sessions for two different sides of the world (this might lead to content bifurcation but may work in some instances). It's a serious quality of life issue that employers ignore or downplay at their peril -- by not respecting timezones, employers are signaling they don't care. Employees on the short end of the stick with respect to timezone feel unimportant and excluded (first hand knowledge of this), especially if it's imposed from above without consultation. Even small timezone differences are annoying -- I'm in Central Time and people in Eastern Time keep scheduling meetings around my lunchtime. The only way to get around this is to add fake calendar items around lunch time to block off that time. [1] https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html

by Leszek 6y ago

Havoc 6y ago

That’s a pretty insane expectation given that their physical office presumably don’t require working at midnight. (Good luck getting that one past European regulators)

mirekrusin 6y ago
I used to work from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for a company in Sydney, Australia for few years. Interesting dynamics working for the company on the other side of the globe, I think it was 13h difference. Some aspects were good, you were basically left to do your job without interruptions for the day. You/they wake up to the updates on the other side.
- unixhero 6y ago
  Sounds like you had a pretty sweet gig.
miracle2k 6y ago
Why would regulators be involved in setting employees working hours?
- adwn 6y ago
  > Why would regulators be involved in setting employees working hours? That's what regulators do: they regulate stuff. That "stuff" includes – in particular in many European countries – employee working hours.
- dmitriid 6y ago
  Let me introduce to something called labour laws. You'll find this surprising, but they exist in the US as well (even though they are much more lax there). Another surprise for you: work is not supposed to be indentured servitude anymore.
dtech 6y ago
In my European country you're required to pay 125-200% for night and sunday shifts, I wonder if they will do that.
- balfirevic 6y ago
  Baseline pay is arbitrary, so if you're always working the same night hours it doesn't matter what part is called base salary and what part is additional payment for night work.
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    > Baseline pay is arbitrary Nope. Most of Europe has minimum wage regulations, and especially tech workers have the freedom to walk whenever they choose and go to competition.
    - balfirevic 6y ago
      Of course I'm aware of minimum wages, presumably Quora is not paying it's tech workers minimum wage.
- marcinzm 6y ago
  They'll just do the usual thing when regulations pose a problem: work around them or not hire in that region. That's the tradeoff with regulations, you lose some potentials business.

rakoo 6y ago

European here, and the 6PM-12AM window is the one I feel the most productive in. I guess it will be a big change for a majority of people but I would definitely be interested by this. Moreover when I work, I work, so if the sun is already down I'm ok with it; when it's up I can do all the active parts of my day that are more enjoyable during the day. Still, it's not perfect. I don't think it would be that big of a deal for social life, because most events happen during the weekend anyway, but you'd still be expected to not be available for anything. Hopefully this is just the first phase for Quora, and they'll realize at some point that the whole point of working remote is that everything is asynchronous and synchronous is the exception

valkon 6y ago
With the condition that you can work those hours specifically? I don't believe they are that flexible.
toyg 6y ago
Doesn’t work for families. 6pm - 9pm is primetime for kids. But who cares about them oldies, right? /s
- barbecue_sauce 6y ago
  Many oldies don't have families.
  - donohoe 6y ago
    Can’t tell if you’re mildly trolling or serious. The obvious point is that enough people in EU have children/families to make these hours a huge burden if not outright unworkable.
    - michaelt 6y ago
      Presumably they think "workers in EU timezones will have to work unsociable hours" is a more generous policy than "we don't hire workers in EU timezones" Of course, policies like "no cross-continent teams" or "no meetings whatsoever" would be even better - but that's an even bigger corporate re-organisation.

bambax 6y ago

> 5pm to 11pm in the UK, and 6pm to 12am across most of Europe This is completely ridiculous and means abandoning any kind of family or social life. It also means they probably only hire young, single people with no kids. Based on this, they sound like a seriously insensitive and diversity-hostile company.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
> It also means they probably only hire young, single people with no kids. I worked at a company that did this. It actually attracted a lot of parents who wanted to spend mornings with their kids while their spouse was at work, rather than send them off to childcare. Just because it doesn’t work for you doesn’t mean it won’t be ideal for someone else. Always good to have options.
DangerousPie 6y ago
I think it sounds much more reasonable if you read it as them saying "We suggest you stay within the PST time zone. If you want to live in a different time zone that's fine, but we won't change our core hours for you".
marcinzm 6y ago
The parents I know who could do flex-time liked to spend the morning/afternoon with their kids and then work in the evenings. For younger kids that allows you to split-shift with your partner while for older kids you get to be there when they get ready/get home from school.
- bambax 6y ago
  In France kids from 6 years old onward, get home from school between 5 and 6 pm and usually have extracurricular activities after that. Then they are supposed to go to bed at around 10 pm. So if you're working 5-11 pm you're only going to see your kids at breakfast at best (if they don't skip it because they're late). You're also not going to have dinner together as a family, which, to me, would be unacceptable.
oiasdjfoiasd 6y ago

jfengel 6y ago

It seems an excessively long window. Six hours isn't a "coordination window"; it's a workday. It's reasonable to have a set time when you can ensure that everybody will be together, so that you have at least some overlap for synchronous communication every day. But one or two hours seems appropriate, rather than six. Even within the US, there are workers who want to work shift like 10-6, or even 12-8, without seeming entirely out of touch with the staff. It's good to mix such people into your team: it means you get some kind of coverage later in the day for people working late, emergencies, etc.

ubermonkey 6y ago

My assumption is that Quora is very CONUS-focussed, no? So a 9-3 PT window is pretty reasonable for that region, especially if they're transitioning from offices where you were expected to be at a desk. It's absolutely true that the work window is unpalatable much east of Nova Scotia, but they also don't have any people IN those zones now. OTOH, being able to move to Ireland (e.g.) and keep your job -- albeit with super weird hours -- is pretty neat.

matz1 6y ago

>I know that I wouldn't work for them from Europe if those were the conditions. There is no system that would satisfy everyone. You wouldn't work for them but pretty sure many other people wouldn't find it a burden. In this modern day the concept of working only during the daylight is slowly disappear. In most big city, night time can still pretty lively.

im3w1l 6y ago

If remote-first with American timezone becomes a trend, I could see Indians and Chinese moving to South America.

marcinzm 6y ago

Seems senior management wants the same amount of synchronous meetings rather than investing in more asynchronous communication. If they're just mimicking in-person approaches then that bodes ill for the whole initiative in my view. I say senior management because they're usually the only ones who have 6+ hours of meetings per day.

wenc 6y ago

Timezones matter. London is a financial hub because it's able to work with both the US east coast (NY) and also most of Asia-Pacific. NY and Asia-Pacific though is doable but tougher (12-13h difference). The toughest is when you need to include folks from SF, London and HK [1]. There's just no good overlap. Either you rotate the suffering or you get disgruntled employees. One solution is to decide which timezone is most important to you, and then restricting hiring +/- 6 hours from that timezone. Or split up synchronous meetings to two different sessions for two different sides of the world (this might lead to content bifurcation but may work in some instances). It's a serious quality of life issue that employers ignore or downplay at their peril -- by not respecting timezones, employers are signaling they don't care. Employees on the short end of the stick with respect to timezone feel unimportant and excluded (first hand knowledge of this), especially if it's imposed from above without consultation. Even small timezone differences are annoying -- I'm in Central Time and people in Eastern Time keep scheduling meetings around my lunchtime. The only way to get around this is to add fake calendar items around lunch time to block off that time. [1] https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html