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Sounds like a pretty toxic environment. Working with remote employees is no different than working with someone in another office. Consider the pre-pandemic pr

by mike_d 4y ago

Sounds like a pretty toxic environment. Working with remote employees is no different than working with someone in another office. Consider the pre-pandemic prevalence of "phone booths" and one person conference rooms, so you can be in a meeting as the only local attendee. As far as the other location is considered, you are remote just with access to a bigger coffee maker.

alistairSH 4y ago
Working with remote employees is no different than working with someone in another office. True, but it's possible that a company had nearly 100% co-located teams prior to COVID.
ghaff 4y ago
The reality with a lot of teams at many large companies is that meetings of any size will involve people in different offices/fully remote/traveling/etc. Even if I and others nominally assigned to my local office all came in, I'm not sure I'd know a single person on a given day.
- oregano 4y ago
  I work at a large company based in Seattle and this is exactly my experience. I go into the office maybe once every few weeks and maybe talk to one or two people from my org. We do coordinate to get together in the office every couple months which is kind of fun but not worth doing on a weekly basis as our team is already distributed across the country and world.
jayd16 4y ago
Its toxic to not want to be on zoom or have to book a meeting room to talk? >no different than working with someone in another office Given the choice, they'd likely prefer someone local in this case as well.
- ghaff 4y ago
  I might have used a different word than toxic. But, in general, it's unrealistic for many teams at many larger companies to expect everyone to be local and physically available for a random meeting. On my team people are scattered all over the US and at least one is in Europe. And that's not at all unusual.
  - jayd16 4y ago
    Well ok, but its also quite realistic for many teams and for many careers its the only option. Why are we pretending that in person work isn't still the norm for most people? I'm not sure I understand what point you're making, exactly.
- mike_d 4y ago
  > Its toxic to not want to be on zoom or have to book a meeting room to talk? Refusing to work with people because of their office situation is toxic behavior. How would the PM who is in remission from cancer or the engineer with a disabled child supposed to feel when someone says that they prefer to not work with them because they need to stay home?
whywhywhywhy 4y ago
> Working with remote employees is no different than working with someone in another office This is just a straight up lie, the speed of communication is literally 50% in real life by my reckoning. The huge vocal delay pauses, the having to focus more to get information out of low bandwidth sound, lack of body language (camera body language doesn't translate the same as in person). That's before we get to "ummmmmm.... errrr..." "Sorry can you repeat that" "oh sorry no you go first" "Oh can you mute your mic please I can hear myself" and videocall bandwidth only allowing 1 person to talk at once with a 2 second barrier either side of each thought from the sound delay and mute dance. Literally video calls are so broken that you can't do creative discussions in them, if the tech was magnitudes better then maybe but these small delays and lack of presence make it a objectively different beast to working in the same space.

by mike_d 4y ago

alistairSH 4y ago

Working with remote employees is no different than working with someone in another office. True, but it's possible that a company had nearly 100% co-located teams prior to COVID.

ghaff 4y ago

The reality with a lot of teams at many large companies is that meetings of any size will involve people in different offices/fully remote/traveling/etc. Even if I and others nominally assigned to my local office all came in, I'm not sure I'd know a single person on a given day.

oregano 4y ago
I work at a large company based in Seattle and this is exactly my experience. I go into the office maybe once every few weeks and maybe talk to one or two people from my org. We do coordinate to get together in the office every couple months which is kind of fun but not worth doing on a weekly basis as our team is already distributed across the country and world.

jayd16 4y ago

Its toxic to not want to be on zoom or have to book a meeting room to talk? >no different than working with someone in another office Given the choice, they'd likely prefer someone local in this case as well.

ghaff 4y ago
I might have used a different word than toxic. But, in general, it's unrealistic for many teams at many larger companies to expect everyone to be local and physically available for a random meeting. On my team people are scattered all over the US and at least one is in Europe. And that's not at all unusual.
- jayd16 4y ago
  Well ok, but its also quite realistic for many teams and for many careers its the only option. Why are we pretending that in person work isn't still the norm for most people? I'm not sure I understand what point you're making, exactly.
mike_d 4y ago
> Its toxic to not want to be on zoom or have to book a meeting room to talk? Refusing to work with people because of their office situation is toxic behavior. How would the PM who is in remission from cancer or the engineer with a disabled child supposed to feel when someone says that they prefer to not work with them because they need to stay home?

whywhywhywhy 4y ago

> Working with remote employees is no different than working with someone in another office This is just a straight up lie, the speed of communication is literally 50% in real life by my reckoning. The huge vocal delay pauses, the having to focus more to get information out of low bandwidth sound, lack of body language (camera body language doesn't translate the same as in person). That's before we get to "ummmmmm.... errrr..." "Sorry can you repeat that" "oh sorry no you go first" "Oh can you mute your mic please I can hear myself" and videocall bandwidth only allowing 1 person to talk at once with a 2 second barrier either side of each thought from the sound delay and mute dance. Literally video calls are so broken that you can't do creative discussions in them, if the tech was magnitudes better then maybe but these small delays and lack of presence make it a objectively different beast to working in the same space.