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> all recurring group meetings What about when you are working on something but you also message somebody on Slack/Teams a question and they instantly hit you

> all recurring group meetings What about when you are working on something but you also message somebody on Slack/Teams a question and they instantly hit you back with "hey, instead of talking through it on chat, let's both stop everything we're doing and join a call"? By all means, I get it that sometimes (not sure how to measure it/what the answer is) it's quicker to "bite the bullet", hop on a call, screenshare, etc. but it does seem almost like a communication style preference. some people are super quick to want to jump on a call no matter what. and then the question becomes does it "impede" those whose communication style is not to jump on a call. it's like "rude" to say "i'd prefer not to jump on a call with you", forcing them to go from "call communication style" -> "type communication style" it really makes me wonder if some people are on 1 on 1 or small group calls basically 4+ hours out of the day (by choice. not scheduled meetings or on call incidents)

coffeeblack 4y ago
It’s “rude” to say you’re busy? I too prefer calls (not with Teams though), just because you can look at code together and also have some interaction with remote colleagues. But if the other person has no time, no problem. Why would that be rude?
- MuffinFlavored 4y ago
  > It’s “rude” to say you’re busy? I think this misses the point. How do you navigate this if you never want to do the voice call and always just handle it over text? I'd have to lie (every time they want to call me) saying "I'm busy". It's like you accepting the call is insisted/expected. I'm talking about preferring to never do a voice/video call.
  - coffeeblack 4y ago
    I have colleagues who never do calls, no problem. I prefer by video calls (except when I have to use Teams) over voice or text. But if others don’t, that’s okay too. No need to lie about “being busy”, just that you can explain or understand better over text.
  - chollida1 4y ago
    > I'm talking about preferring to never do a voice/video call. That would drive me crazy. I think you'll have to accept that somethings have to be face to face. And some companies prefer to do things that way. I guess you adapt or go to a company that can guarantee you'll never have to speak to someone at all. But face to face is the oldest form of human interaction. Its going to be hard to get along in the real world if you really don't like it. I'm trying to imagine how you'd do something like a lay off over chat or an interview or a performance review? That just seems like living life on the hardest possible mode.
    - uxp100 4y ago
      A video call isn’t face to face… I for one prefer actually face to face, then text chat, then voice chat, video chat never. Screen shares are almost always a signal that this call will be a huge waste of time, but I suppose it’s fairly necessary if you insist on voice chat. Video chat is obviously here to stay in the software industry, which is why I’ve left it. I worked started working remotely from 2015 onward, felt ambivalent about it, but the the proliferation of video meetings with the pandemic really made it bad. I worked in office in 2021 and 2022, but once the genie was out of the bottle, you’d get calls all the time. Used to be you could just send a status report to sync up with overseas teams, but now, why not a daily video call? just a bizarrely irritating and draining way to spend your day.
      - mindcrime 4y ago
        Screen shares are almost always a signal that this call will be a huge waste of time If you're talking about just sharing images of each other's faces, then sure. But if you're talking about an actual screen, with an editor, and code, and config files, and debug logs, or whatever, then "hard disagree" here. I can't even count the times somebody has pinged me for help with something, made it sound super mysterious and unsolvable while explaining through text chat, and then we had a Teams call and I saw something in (their code|their config|their debug logs|etc) that let me solve the problem for them in like 2 minutes. That shit is exactly why I agree with the person up-thread who said "I almost always want to jump on a call ..." IME, things get done quicker when I can actually see what's going on for myself instead of having to read someone else's abridged / misinterpreted / whatever version of events.
  - bluefirebrand 4y ago
    > How do you navigate this if you never want to do the voice call and always just handle it over text? It's fine to have preferences but to expect your company and team to let you always do things your personal preferred way is pretty unrealistic. I don't think even the CEO of any company gets to have their way 100% of the time (although they almost certainly get their way more than anyone else in the company does)
    - MuffinFlavored 4y ago
      > It's fine to have preferences but to expect your company and team to let you always do things your personal preferred way is pretty unrealistic. Another way to say this is "if you work a remote coding job, it is expected that you hop on a video/voice call pretty much whenever one of your teammates/managers/co-workers wants you to whenever they have a question they don't feel like typing out" because it's basically just a socially accepted norm. The majority of people prefer you stop what you're doing, get into a socially uncomfortable/awkward situation, and you're "the victim" until the person on the other end will let you hang up. Repeat that 4+ times a day on average 5 times a week and that $120k/yr comfortable soft 8am-5am "IT" job starts looking less attractive/more soul sucking/5-10 years in you're dreaming of buying a van and moving into a cabin in the woods.
      - jensensbutton 4y ago
        Then... move to the woods?
      - crent 4y ago
        I don’t think that’s another way to state that… The original statement is a bidirectional statement. Meaning you should also be able to decline calls and the other party will have to respect your preferences some of the time. It’s just basic balance and social graces, really.
  - natpalmer1776 4y ago
    White lies like "I'm busy at the moment, can you send me a message describing the issue instead?" are socially normal and expected in a professional work environment. Why? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Someone else could probably explain (or disagree & explain) better than I can.
    - q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
      <cynical-but-true> It's because we've built an industry-wide culture of never broaching a topic of feedback that might be even a little uncomfortable. So it's frowned upon to say the thing that would actually help both the other person and yourself — and, often, the other person would have no idea how to hear such a thing anyway. What we mean: "The exercise of writing out what you want/mean will help you clarify your own thoughts and end up saving us both a lot of time. It would make the whole company better if we were all disciplined about doing that first, genuinely trying to make progress asynchronously, and then only jumping on a call if really needed." Instead, we say: "My internet has been weird all week. Do you mind if we do this one over chat?" And then we hope that, after the 25th time we say this, they'll figure out the common-sense basics of human communication and empathy on their own. </cynical-but-true>
      - natpalmer1776 4y ago
        With slightly less cynicism, in many cases most folks outside of "the industry" will engage in the same behavior and most folks won't ever be conciously aware of this behavior. On a whole people tend to do a good job of working together in a way that minimizes instances of anger, dislike, or irritation. Not everyone is good at it, and few people are aware of what behaviors contribute to this cohesion. This is one of those behaviors.
  - dagw 4y ago
    If you are asking someone to take time out of what they are doing to help you with something, I think it is only polite to try to be accommodating to their preferred means of communications, be it calls or text.
bluefirebrand 4y ago
I'm one of those people who almost always wants to immediately get on a call to solve a problem rather than typing it out. I get that it's tiring being on calls all the time but it's also much more effective to have a call for most types of work conversations, even as a software dev. Here's the way I look at it. If you are asking me a question where my reply isn't time sensitive, and it doesn't need to turn into a conversation about my answer, that doesn't need to be a call. If you just want a status update on XYZ from me, which may be a short conversation, that probably does not need to be a call. If you want my help with just about anything code related, that's a call. Screensharing is way easier for me to see what you are talking about, and it's much easier for us to be on the same page if we're both looking at the same thing. It's also a massive peeve of mine when someone asks a question on messaging, refuses to have a call, and then proceeds to take forever getting back to me. It's one thing it I say something like "Try this, this, and this. Let me know what works" and then I can get back to my work. But if I'm trying to step you through something and you sometimes reply immediately, sometimes in 5 minutes, sometimes in a half hour, then you get to have calls whenever you want my help from then on
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- julianozen 4y ago
  My only counterpoint to this is that for some folks, particularly at the junior level, forcing them to write out their questions into text helps them focus their ideas and what they are trying to solve. This process often helps them find new avenues to search and helps them answer their own question
  - bluefirebrand 4y ago
    Sure. I don't just offer to have a call when someone says "Hey I need help" My approach is to have them write out the issue in text, and say what they've tried. Then I judge the urgency and if it's a barn burner I get on a call immediately. If it's a Junior blocked on something that I think they can solve I will tell them we can have a call in a half hour or something and very often they do solve it on their own. Essentially I use the async communication methods as the gatekeeper to prioritize the incoming requests for my time, but when I do give people my time it's on a call so I can give them my full attention.
don-code 4y ago
I've noticed this as a cultural difference between "self-improvement" type engineers, and "dark matter" type engineers. Self improvers are the ones reading Hacker News, going to conferences, and generally trying to hone their skill. Dark matter developers are a class I've shamelessly stolen from https://www.hanselman.com/blog/dark-matter-developers-the-unseen-99 https://www.hanselman.com/blog/dark-matter-developers-the-un... - which is definitely worth a read for the context, but the gist is that they're in this as a 9-to-5. The trouble comes where the two groups meet. We can all learn about how to ask better questions and more generally improve our communication skills, but it's vastly more difficult to _make someone care_ to do so. We've all seen and empathized with https://www.nohello.com/ https://www.nohello.com/, but if you link it to a dark matter coworker who behaves exactly this way, chances are they will see it as an attack, not as a recommendation - and that attack reflects poorly on you, rather than on them.
- DangitBobby 4y ago
  So which one of these groups prefers a call?
- bluefirebrand 4y ago
  Well yeah. Simply throwing a link at someone with no context is always going to come across as combative. I've had a lot of luck with "Hey, I appreciate that you always ask how I am when you're reaching out to me, but when you need something from me you can just ask upfront. You don't need to say Hi and wait for me to reply before asking. That way I don't keep you waiting and I can answer you as soon as I see your message" You don't have to tell them that you actually want to prioritize them based on their question, and absolutely will keep them waiting if you don't think it's urgent.
- scudsworth 4y ago
  if you've actually sent this website in response to someone chatting you, i guarantee that they think you're an ass. self-improvers too
  - molotovh 4y ago
dagw 4y ago
One advantage with "call communication" is that I can clear the problem in single 'block' of time and then get back to what I was doing know that the problem was put to bed. With "type communication" there is a risk I'll be pinging every 10 minutes with "no that didn't work, got this error message, any other ideas?" for an undefined amount of time, constantly taking me out of my flow.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  On the other hand, there exist people like me. I simply can not do research while on a call. It has happened plenty of times that I had a simple question during my research, and the other person very helpfully decided to help me solve the problem, instead of just answering. The result is always that it takes hours of both of our times to get little done, and the problem actually gets solved afterwards because the research was not all done yet.
yamtaddle 4y ago
The one guy I knew who'd consistently turn a quick async 5- or 8- message Slack between two or three people into a 15-minute scheduled phone call also double-booked a whole lot of his time and didn't seem to do much aside from say one or two not-very-useful things in meetings before leaving in the middle of it for the next one. I think he just wanted shit to stick on his calendar for the sake of having a (more than) full calendar, which I'm guessing he found useful for advancement or deflecting criticism. Given some of the other stuff he did and said I think an awful lot of his behavior was one kind of career-hack or another.
xyzzy123 4y ago
It gets worse in huge orgs, each team tends to have its own protocols. To talk with "foreign" team, you have to figure out if they are teams / meeting driven, slack driven, use webex, only reachable via email, have their own weird thing, ignore everything that doesn't come through a manager, or only respond to service now tickets, or require a ticket AND and followup (via one of the above methods) to get them to look at the ticket. Figuring out how to talk to all the different people you need to takes several months and a lot of people leave before working it out. If you stay long enough you end up with an informal network of people in the company you know and trust and work with them to get anything done. Often these are helpful ICs working around non-responsive management.

coffeeblack 4y ago

It’s “rude” to say you’re busy? I too prefer calls (not with Teams though), just because you can look at code together and also have some interaction with remote colleagues. But if the other person has no time, no problem. Why would that be rude?

MuffinFlavored 4y ago
> It’s “rude” to say you’re busy? I think this misses the point. How do you navigate this if you never want to do the voice call and always just handle it over text? I'd have to lie (every time they want to call me) saying "I'm busy". It's like you accepting the call is insisted/expected. I'm talking about preferring to never do a voice/video call.
- coffeeblack 4y ago
  I have colleagues who never do calls, no problem. I prefer by video calls (except when I have to use Teams) over voice or text. But if others don’t, that’s okay too. No need to lie about “being busy”, just that you can explain or understand better over text.
- chollida1 4y ago
  > I'm talking about preferring to never do a voice/video call. That would drive me crazy. I think you'll have to accept that somethings have to be face to face. And some companies prefer to do things that way. I guess you adapt or go to a company that can guarantee you'll never have to speak to someone at all. But face to face is the oldest form of human interaction. Its going to be hard to get along in the real world if you really don't like it. I'm trying to imagine how you'd do something like a lay off over chat or an interview or a performance review? That just seems like living life on the hardest possible mode.
  - uxp100 4y ago
    A video call isn’t face to face… I for one prefer actually face to face, then text chat, then voice chat, video chat never. Screen shares are almost always a signal that this call will be a huge waste of time, but I suppose it’s fairly necessary if you insist on voice chat. Video chat is obviously here to stay in the software industry, which is why I’ve left it. I worked started working remotely from 2015 onward, felt ambivalent about it, but the the proliferation of video meetings with the pandemic really made it bad. I worked in office in 2021 and 2022, but once the genie was out of the bottle, you’d get calls all the time. Used to be you could just send a status report to sync up with overseas teams, but now, why not a daily video call? just a bizarrely irritating and draining way to spend your day.
    - mindcrime 4y ago
      Screen shares are almost always a signal that this call will be a huge waste of time If you're talking about just sharing images of each other's faces, then sure. But if you're talking about an actual screen, with an editor, and code, and config files, and debug logs, or whatever, then "hard disagree" here. I can't even count the times somebody has pinged me for help with something, made it sound super mysterious and unsolvable while explaining through text chat, and then we had a Teams call and I saw something in (their code|their config|their debug logs|etc) that let me solve the problem for them in like 2 minutes. That shit is exactly why I agree with the person up-thread who said "I almost always want to jump on a call ..." IME, things get done quicker when I can actually see what's going on for myself instead of having to read someone else's abridged / misinterpreted / whatever version of events.
- bluefirebrand 4y ago
  > How do you navigate this if you never want to do the voice call and always just handle it over text? It's fine to have preferences but to expect your company and team to let you always do things your personal preferred way is pretty unrealistic. I don't think even the CEO of any company gets to have their way 100% of the time (although they almost certainly get their way more than anyone else in the company does)
  - MuffinFlavored 4y ago
    > It's fine to have preferences but to expect your company and team to let you always do things your personal preferred way is pretty unrealistic. Another way to say this is "if you work a remote coding job, it is expected that you hop on a video/voice call pretty much whenever one of your teammates/managers/co-workers wants you to whenever they have a question they don't feel like typing out" because it's basically just a socially accepted norm. The majority of people prefer you stop what you're doing, get into a socially uncomfortable/awkward situation, and you're "the victim" until the person on the other end will let you hang up. Repeat that 4+ times a day on average 5 times a week and that $120k/yr comfortable soft 8am-5am "IT" job starts looking less attractive/more soul sucking/5-10 years in you're dreaming of buying a van and moving into a cabin in the woods.
    - jensensbutton 4y ago
      Then... move to the woods?
    - crent 4y ago
      I don’t think that’s another way to state that… The original statement is a bidirectional statement. Meaning you should also be able to decline calls and the other party will have to respect your preferences some of the time. It’s just basic balance and social graces, really.
- natpalmer1776 4y ago
  White lies like "I'm busy at the moment, can you send me a message describing the issue instead?" are socially normal and expected in a professional work environment. Why? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Someone else could probably explain (or disagree & explain) better than I can.
  - q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
    <cynical-but-true> It's because we've built an industry-wide culture of never broaching a topic of feedback that might be even a little uncomfortable. So it's frowned upon to say the thing that would actually help both the other person and yourself — and, often, the other person would have no idea how to hear such a thing anyway. What we mean: "The exercise of writing out what you want/mean will help you clarify your own thoughts and end up saving us both a lot of time. It would make the whole company better if we were all disciplined about doing that first, genuinely trying to make progress asynchronously, and then only jumping on a call if really needed." Instead, we say: "My internet has been weird all week. Do you mind if we do this one over chat?" And then we hope that, after the 25th time we say this, they'll figure out the common-sense basics of human communication and empathy on their own. </cynical-but-true>
    - natpalmer1776 4y ago
      With slightly less cynicism, in many cases most folks outside of "the industry" will engage in the same behavior and most folks won't ever be conciously aware of this behavior. On a whole people tend to do a good job of working together in a way that minimizes instances of anger, dislike, or irritation. Not everyone is good at it, and few people are aware of what behaviors contribute to this cohesion. This is one of those behaviors.
- dagw 4y ago
  If you are asking someone to take time out of what they are doing to help you with something, I think it is only polite to try to be accommodating to their preferred means of communications, be it calls or text.

bluefirebrand 4y ago

I'm one of those people who almost always wants to immediately get on a call to solve a problem rather than typing it out. I get that it's tiring being on calls all the time but it's also much more effective to have a call for most types of work conversations, even as a software dev. Here's the way I look at it. If you are asking me a question where my reply isn't time sensitive, and it doesn't need to turn into a conversation about my answer, that doesn't need to be a call. If you just want a status update on XYZ from me, which may be a short conversation, that probably does not need to be a call. If you want my help with just about anything code related, that's a call. Screensharing is way easier for me to see what you are talking about, and it's much easier for us to be on the same page if we're both looking at the same thing. It's also a massive peeve of mine when someone asks a question on messaging, refuses to have a call, and then proceeds to take forever getting back to me. It's one thing it I say something like "Try this, this, and this. Let me know what works" and then I can get back to my work. But if I'm trying to step you through something and you sometimes reply immediately, sometimes in 5 minutes, sometimes in a half hour, then you get to have calls whenever you want my help from then on

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
julianozen 4y ago
My only counterpoint to this is that for some folks, particularly at the junior level, forcing them to write out their questions into text helps them focus their ideas and what they are trying to solve. This process often helps them find new avenues to search and helps them answer their own question
- bluefirebrand 4y ago
  Sure. I don't just offer to have a call when someone says "Hey I need help" My approach is to have them write out the issue in text, and say what they've tried. Then I judge the urgency and if it's a barn burner I get on a call immediately. If it's a Junior blocked on something that I think they can solve I will tell them we can have a call in a half hour or something and very often they do solve it on their own. Essentially I use the async communication methods as the gatekeeper to prioritize the incoming requests for my time, but when I do give people my time it's on a call so I can give them my full attention.

don-code 4y ago

I've noticed this as a cultural difference between "self-improvement" type engineers, and "dark matter" type engineers. Self improvers are the ones reading Hacker News, going to conferences, and generally trying to hone their skill. Dark matter developers are a class I've shamelessly stolen from https://www.hanselman.com/blog/dark-matter-developers-the-unseen-99 https://www.hanselman.com/blog/dark-matter-developers-the-un... - which is definitely worth a read for the context, but the gist is that they're in this as a 9-to-5. The trouble comes where the two groups meet. We can all learn about how to ask better questions and more generally improve our communication skills, but it's vastly more difficult to _make someone care_ to do so. We've all seen and empathized with https://www.nohello.com/ https://www.nohello.com/, but if you link it to a dark matter coworker who behaves exactly this way, chances are they will see it as an attack, not as a recommendation - and that attack reflects poorly on you, rather than on them.

DangitBobby 4y ago
So which one of these groups prefers a call?
bluefirebrand 4y ago
Well yeah. Simply throwing a link at someone with no context is always going to come across as combative. I've had a lot of luck with "Hey, I appreciate that you always ask how I am when you're reaching out to me, but when you need something from me you can just ask upfront. You don't need to say Hi and wait for me to reply before asking. That way I don't keep you waiting and I can answer you as soon as I see your message" You don't have to tell them that you actually want to prioritize them based on their question, and absolutely will keep them waiting if you don't think it's urgent.
scudsworth 4y ago
if you've actually sent this website in response to someone chatting you, i guarantee that they think you're an ass. self-improvers too
- molotovh 4y ago

dagw 4y ago

One advantage with "call communication" is that I can clear the problem in single 'block' of time and then get back to what I was doing know that the problem was put to bed. With "type communication" there is a risk I'll be pinging every 10 minutes with "no that didn't work, got this error message, any other ideas?" for an undefined amount of time, constantly taking me out of my flow.

marcosdumay 4y ago
On the other hand, there exist people like me. I simply can not do research while on a call. It has happened plenty of times that I had a simple question during my research, and the other person very helpfully decided to help me solve the problem, instead of just answering. The result is always that it takes hours of both of our times to get little done, and the problem actually gets solved afterwards because the research was not all done yet.

yamtaddle 4y ago

The one guy I knew who'd consistently turn a quick async 5- or 8- message Slack between two or three people into a 15-minute scheduled phone call also double-booked a whole lot of his time and didn't seem to do much aside from say one or two not-very-useful things in meetings before leaving in the middle of it for the next one. I think he just wanted shit to stick on his calendar for the sake of having a (more than) full calendar, which I'm guessing he found useful for advancement or deflecting criticism. Given some of the other stuff he did and said I think an awful lot of his behavior was one kind of career-hack or another.

xyzzy123 4y ago

It gets worse in huge orgs, each team tends to have its own protocols. To talk with "foreign" team, you have to figure out if they are teams / meeting driven, slack driven, use webex, only reachable via email, have their own weird thing, ignore everything that doesn't come through a manager, or only respond to service now tickets, or require a ticket AND and followup (via one of the above methods) to get them to look at the ticket. Figuring out how to talk to all the different people you need to takes several months and a lot of people leave before working it out. If you stay long enough you end up with an informal network of people in the company you know and trust and work with them to get anything done. Often these are helpful ICs working around non-responsive management.