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Is people immediately responding to you a measure of the work they do? Does it seem productive they are interrupting whatever they were working on and losing t

Is people immediately responding to you a measure of the work they do? Does it seem productive they are interrupting whatever they were working on and losing their train of thought to answer your questions? I know my team has had the talk that Teams is an async communication method, and that we'll get back to each-other when we have spare brain cycles. The message is instant, but there's no expectation the response will be.

hot_gril 4y ago
No, but I expect someone who has committed to a joint project to pay attention to code or design reviews and respond within a week. Which started happening less often.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  If people are going AWOL for more than a week you need to start firing.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    They're not AWOL, they just started being less responsive, missing more things, and generally talking less. Pretty often I'll have no idea what most of my teammates are doing. I know they're working on something is all.
    - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      Seems like that's a failure to set and enforce expectations.
    - jwestbury 4y ago
      Just as a counterpoint of anecdata, I saw more or less the opposite behaviour when I was at Dropbox during the pandemic -- I heard from my coworkers more than I ever did working in-office, and was better-connected to the work they were doing. I personally felt more productive, and most of my team seemed pretty productive. The downside is that a junior teammate was probably less effective than they could have been because of a lack of in-person mentoring -- their learning was slower than I would have expected in-office, but, then, that could be this particular person rather than remote work. I don't doubt your experience, to be clear -- I just mean to say that I think the situation is more complex than "people are less productive" or "people are more productive."
      - hot_gril 4y ago
        My first SWE jobs were remote too, as well as one after 2020, and it worked great. I should have mentioned that earlier. Was just thinking about my main big-tech job where things were/are lackluster.

hot_gril 4y ago

No, but I expect someone who has committed to a joint project to pay attention to code or design reviews and respond within a week. Which started happening less often.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
If people are going AWOL for more than a week you need to start firing.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  They're not AWOL, they just started being less responsive, missing more things, and generally talking less. Pretty often I'll have no idea what most of my teammates are doing. I know they're working on something is all.
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    Seems like that's a failure to set and enforce expectations.
  - jwestbury 4y ago
    Just as a counterpoint of anecdata, I saw more or less the opposite behaviour when I was at Dropbox during the pandemic -- I heard from my coworkers more than I ever did working in-office, and was better-connected to the work they were doing. I personally felt more productive, and most of my team seemed pretty productive. The downside is that a junior teammate was probably less effective than they could have been because of a lack of in-person mentoring -- their learning was slower than I would have expected in-office, but, then, that could be this particular person rather than remote work. I don't doubt your experience, to be clear -- I just mean to say that I think the situation is more complex than "people are less productive" or "people are more productive."
    - hot_gril 4y ago
      My first SWE jobs were remote too, as well as one after 2020, and it worked great. I should have mentioned that earlier. Was just thinking about my main big-tech job where things were/are lackluster.