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I think successful remote work has to take the position that asking for help 1:1 is bad, actually. * If you go through the process of figuring it out, you gain

I think successful remote work has to take the position that asking for help 1:1 is bad, actually. * If you go through the process of figuring it out, you gain a durable understanding of the subject matter which you can use to solve other problems. * If either you (after your investigation) or the subject matter expert (on request) produces documentation of the subject, other people in the future can use this artifact to unblock themselves. * If you ask in a public Slack channel, at least those who are channel-surfing or searching during the retention period might see it and learn something. Getting an answer 1:1 is empty calories. It gives quick satisfaction in the moment, but only leads to more and more communication down the line. Communication kills productivity.

KaiserPro 4y ago
> position that asking for help 1:1 is bad, actually. Which is fine for some things. But also really really bad for virtually everything else. It's exceedingly hostile, especially for places where there is no written documentation, and lots of old timers who have tribal knowledge and are "far too productive" to answer messages.
ketzo 4y ago
But there's gotta be a balance. It's totally conceivable for a new/junior employee to spend hours or days solving a problem that's already been solved in your codebase, and someone with experience could fix the issue in literally 5 minutes or less. Yes, it's good to learn things on your own. But especially in a small environment, sometimes you gotta move faster than that. Sometimes getting an answer 1:1 is "empty calories", and you're not learning how to solve the problem. But that might be because the problem doesn't need to be solved, and you were wasting hours or days trying to solve it.
marcosdumay 4y ago
People can't go into the process of figuring it out if they have no direction of what to figure out, what they are expected to accomplish, where the documentation is, how it's organized, who are they expected to report to, and a lot of other things. Juniors aren't born knowing any of those things.
mmcnl 4y ago
I don't know what universe you're from. Communication kills productivity? The opposite is true. Getting feedback early and often is a productivity booster. Sure, sometimes it's better to ask in a public channel instead of 1:1, but to state that it is actually bad is absolutely false.
- closeparen 4y ago
  “Work is work” [0]. As an organization scales, an increasing fraction of employee time is spent on communication instead of work, leading at best to diminishing returns on headcount and sometimes to total gridlock. To the extent that an organization wants to derive marginal productivity from marginal headcount, it needs to find ways to get employees to talk to each other less. [0] https://codahale.com/work-is-work/ https://codahale.com/work-is-work/

KaiserPro 4y ago

> position that asking for help 1:1 is bad, actually. Which is fine for some things. But also really really bad for virtually everything else. It's exceedingly hostile, especially for places where there is no written documentation, and lots of old timers who have tribal knowledge and are "far too productive" to answer messages.

ketzo 4y ago

But there's gotta be a balance. It's totally conceivable for a new/junior employee to spend hours or days solving a problem that's already been solved in your codebase, and someone with experience could fix the issue in literally 5 minutes or less. Yes, it's good to learn things on your own. But especially in a small environment, sometimes you gotta move faster than that. Sometimes getting an answer 1:1 is "empty calories", and you're not learning how to solve the problem. But that might be because the problem doesn't need to be solved, and you were wasting hours or days trying to solve it.

marcosdumay 4y ago

People can't go into the process of figuring it out if they have no direction of what to figure out, what they are expected to accomplish, where the documentation is, how it's organized, who are they expected to report to, and a lot of other things. Juniors aren't born knowing any of those things.

mmcnl 4y ago

I don't know what universe you're from. Communication kills productivity? The opposite is true. Getting feedback early and often is a productivity booster. Sure, sometimes it's better to ask in a public channel instead of 1:1, but to state that it is actually bad is absolutely false.

closeparen 4y ago
“Work is work” [0]. As an organization scales, an increasing fraction of employee time is spent on communication instead of work, leading at best to diminishing returns on headcount and sometimes to total gridlock. To the extent that an organization wants to derive marginal productivity from marginal headcount, it needs to find ways to get employees to talk to each other less. [0] https://codahale.com/work-is-work/ https://codahale.com/work-is-work/