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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 remot

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.

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.