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> How about let those who like face to face interactions go to office and discuss away while those who prefer to wfh from home are allowed to do so? If you hav

> How about let those who like face to face interactions go to office and discuss away while those who prefer to wfh from home are allowed to do so? If you have never worked in that way, let me tell you it's the absolute worst situation. I'd rather go back to the office instead of having it work like that. People at the office will have hours of discussions that are not recorded anywhere, might even make decisions without your input and you are always playing catch up. If a company has remote workers, the company ought to be remote first otherwise it's horrible for everybody and resentment is the only thing you reap from it.

InCityDreams 3y ago
> People at the office will have hours of discussions that are not recorded anywhere, might even make decisions without your input and you are always playing catch up. Er, they've been doing that even pre-pandemic, and even when I'm in the same room.
ChuckNorris89 3y ago
>People at the office will have hours of discussions that are not recorded anywhere, might even make decisions without your input and you are always playing catch up. That happened a lot even during the in-office days as well. People with more seniority and influence would whiteboard new ideas and then bring you up to speed on the next daily standup on what they decided. If you were indeed that vital to the engineering effort they would definitely rope you in for the whiteboard session. It's not the end of the world if you find out the decisions the next day. If you have some stellar feedback, you can bring it up then and I'm sure they'll consider it. And honestly, roping in everyone to attend every single impromptu meeting just so you're up to speed on everything would be a huge time sink in terms of interruptions and I assure you you would complain about that too. Seems like you can never please developers: If you don't invite them to attend all the meetings, then they're offended because they feel left out from important decisions. If you invite them to all the meetings then they're angry because you're interrupting their productivity with useless meetings. You can never win. Developers should cut out the Mary Sue, and come down to earth for a bit, we're just cogs in a machine doing work for a paycheck, that's it, and even without you, your company and projects will still go on. You're most likely not the be-all end-all of your company as you imagine.
- noisy_boy 3y ago
  > If you were indeed that vital to the engineering effort they would definitely rope you in for the whiteboard session. It's not the end of the world if you find out the decisions the next day. If you have some stellar feedback, you can bring it up then and I'm sure they'll consider it. Not who you are replying to but sure - I am actually in such a position where I get the summary of what I need to do second-hand; it is great - mainly because the person I get it from is another senior developer so he knows the pitfalls; that also means he is able to lay the roadmap of what I need to do which makes things so much more easier. Another time, it was a manager who was originally a developer and was quite hands-on - same experience. > And honestly, roping in everyone to attend every single impromptu meeting just so you're up to speed on everything would be a huge time sink in terms of interruptions and I assure you you would complain about that too. 100% agree. > Seems like you can never please developers: If you don't invite them to attend all the meetings, then they're offended because they feel left out from important decisions. If you invite them to all the meetings then they're angry because you're interrupting their productivity with useless meetings. You can never win. > Developers should cut out the Mary Sue, and come down to earth for a bit, we're just cogs in a machine doing work for a paycheck, that's it, and even without you, your company and projects will still go on. You're most likely not the be-all end-all of your company as you imagine. When you have decision makers that neither have the technical chops nor consult those that have them, things usually get complicated. Because then they miss the technical perspective, don't know what is feasible and what is not, commit things that are technically not prudent, forget to take into account the potential pitfalls etc etc - all of those things have a significant impact on the hands-on person down the line i.e. the developer. All decision makers are obviously not like that - those with the awareness and humility about not having the technical insights, include developers in the meetings to cover such aspects and that solves many issues upfront for both the project and the developers. Speaking for myself, I don't love being in those meetings but sure appreciate that being present provides the opportunity of handling things at design stage so that they don't come back and bite me closer to delivery. Are there power-hungry limelight-seeking developers who do it for visibility/building image? Sure, but I haven't seen as many of them as I have seen managers with such tendencies. And if we say that there is nothing wrong with vying for visibility and image building etc and all those things are just signs of healthy competition/ambition - well, then that applies as much to developers as it does to managers.
TexanFeller 3y ago
This happens worse for me in the remote world. In the office I can see when Alice and Bob are talking about something important to my work and roll my chair over. I can't tell when my remote coworkers are meeting about things I should be included in but was forgotten, and they do this All The Time.
- asoneth 3y ago
  Agreed. I've worked remotely and in-person. Both are nice once you develop the right processes. But having half the team in one office and the other half remote seemed to be the worst of both. When I was remote I felt relief when everyone else in the discussion turned out to be remote as well, and when I was in-person it was similarly nice when we realized that everyone in the meeting was physically present. So it's not surprising to me that companies would gravitate one way or the other.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Better hybrid processes have probably been normalized to some degree during the pandemic. But it's still probably true that if you're one of a couple people on an otherwise co-located team that are remote, that's probably not a great situation to be in long-term. You'll almost inevitably miss out on a lot and the co-located team members will always be making accommodations for you.
- gtirloni 3y ago
  It seems you've worked at companies that were remote just in the name and actually had awful practices.

InCityDreams 3y ago

> People at the office will have hours of discussions that are not recorded anywhere, might even make decisions without your input and you are always playing catch up. Er, they've been doing that even pre-pandemic, and even when I'm in the same room.

ChuckNorris89 3y ago

>People at the office will have hours of discussions that are not recorded anywhere, might even make decisions without your input and you are always playing catch up. That happened a lot even during the in-office days as well. People with more seniority and influence would whiteboard new ideas and then bring you up to speed on the next daily standup on what they decided. If you were indeed that vital to the engineering effort they would definitely rope you in for the whiteboard session. It's not the end of the world if you find out the decisions the next day. If you have some stellar feedback, you can bring it up then and I'm sure they'll consider it. And honestly, roping in everyone to attend every single impromptu meeting just so you're up to speed on everything would be a huge time sink in terms of interruptions and I assure you you would complain about that too. Seems like you can never please developers: If you don't invite them to attend all the meetings, then they're offended because they feel left out from important decisions. If you invite them to all the meetings then they're angry because you're interrupting their productivity with useless meetings. You can never win. Developers should cut out the Mary Sue, and come down to earth for a bit, we're just cogs in a machine doing work for a paycheck, that's it, and even without you, your company and projects will still go on. You're most likely not the be-all end-all of your company as you imagine.

noisy_boy 3y ago
> If you were indeed that vital to the engineering effort they would definitely rope you in for the whiteboard session. It's not the end of the world if you find out the decisions the next day. If you have some stellar feedback, you can bring it up then and I'm sure they'll consider it. Not who you are replying to but sure - I am actually in such a position where I get the summary of what I need to do second-hand; it is great - mainly because the person I get it from is another senior developer so he knows the pitfalls; that also means he is able to lay the roadmap of what I need to do which makes things so much more easier. Another time, it was a manager who was originally a developer and was quite hands-on - same experience. > And honestly, roping in everyone to attend every single impromptu meeting just so you're up to speed on everything would be a huge time sink in terms of interruptions and I assure you you would complain about that too. 100% agree. > Seems like you can never please developers: If you don't invite them to attend all the meetings, then they're offended because they feel left out from important decisions. If you invite them to all the meetings then they're angry because you're interrupting their productivity with useless meetings. You can never win. > Developers should cut out the Mary Sue, and come down to earth for a bit, we're just cogs in a machine doing work for a paycheck, that's it, and even without you, your company and projects will still go on. You're most likely not the be-all end-all of your company as you imagine. When you have decision makers that neither have the technical chops nor consult those that have them, things usually get complicated. Because then they miss the technical perspective, don't know what is feasible and what is not, commit things that are technically not prudent, forget to take into account the potential pitfalls etc etc - all of those things have a significant impact on the hands-on person down the line i.e. the developer. All decision makers are obviously not like that - those with the awareness and humility about not having the technical insights, include developers in the meetings to cover such aspects and that solves many issues upfront for both the project and the developers. Speaking for myself, I don't love being in those meetings but sure appreciate that being present provides the opportunity of handling things at design stage so that they don't come back and bite me closer to delivery. Are there power-hungry limelight-seeking developers who do it for visibility/building image? Sure, but I haven't seen as many of them as I have seen managers with such tendencies. And if we say that there is nothing wrong with vying for visibility and image building etc and all those things are just signs of healthy competition/ambition - well, then that applies as much to developers as it does to managers.

TexanFeller 3y ago

This happens worse for me in the remote world. In the office I can see when Alice and Bob are talking about something important to my work and roll my chair over. I can't tell when my remote coworkers are meeting about things I should be included in but was forgotten, and they do this All The Time.

asoneth 3y ago
Agreed. I've worked remotely and in-person. Both are nice once you develop the right processes. But having half the team in one office and the other half remote seemed to be the worst of both. When I was remote I felt relief when everyone else in the discussion turned out to be remote as well, and when I was in-person it was similarly nice when we realized that everyone in the meeting was physically present. So it's not surprising to me that companies would gravitate one way or the other.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Better hybrid processes have probably been normalized to some degree during the pandemic. But it's still probably true that if you're one of a couple people on an otherwise co-located team that are remote, that's probably not a great situation to be in long-term. You'll almost inevitably miss out on a lot and the co-located team members will always be making accommodations for you.
gtirloni 3y ago
It seems you've worked at companies that were remote just in the name and actually had awful practices.