19 ms·

Remote work requires communicating more, but less frequently

336 points by chmaynard 3y ago

vietthangif 3y ago
[dead]
mydriasis 3y ago
> Remote work requires communicating more, less frequently, because asynchronous communication involves less frequent, but richer communication, meaning there is less time talking about the work and more time doing it, allowing the system to optimize for throughput and flow. This whole thing seems to be what people struggle with about remote work. Communication is way, way more important, and being an effective communicator doubly so. There's nobody's desk to go stop by, so noting things down and making sure we understand each-other is vital to accomplishing anything.
- pasc1878 3y ago
  Communication is important and does require more communication - but more frequently I don"t think so. You don't pop into somon elses space and interrupt them unless you have a reason and don't do that often. IRC or other chats happened a lot more often as the receiver can just ignore it.
- Swizec 3y ago
  Funnily, studies have shown that people spend more time on chat and less time in face-to-face communication when working from an openspace office than when they work from home. Hopping on a quick 5min zoom is frictionless at home. Walking aaaaalll the way over to someone’s desk and disrupting the entire office with your conversation, or god forbid finding a free conference room, is way harder. So you smear the meeting on slack across a 1 hour back-and-forth pingpong instead of doing a quick 5min sync. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180718-open-offices-make-people-talk-less-and-email-more https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180718-open-offices-m... Private offices solve this problem of course. Wfh is the easiest way to get that.
  - rcarmo 3y ago
    I've never been more productive than when I have an office with a door -- home or otherwise. That also makes it much easier to have quick chats without disturbing the rest of the floor.
- rcarmo 3y ago
  There's a bit of a challenge today with chat, though. I work 4 timezones away from most of my team and we all prefer to swap e-mails, but chat seems to have stripped away some folks' ability to methodically go through topics, explain options and summarise next steps, leading to the usual "let's set up a call [to actually discuss everything in the e-mail thread]". Reading through old mailing-lists (and even older e-mails from the same company, but from seven years ago) shows a markedly different communication style - you could pretty much take the last two e-mails in a thread and paste them into a memo that would neatly encompass all of the scope. Not so today--there's a constant chattering of people who just can't prioritise or discuss more than a couple of topics in tow.
  - DharmaPolice 3y ago
    Email is the victim of its own success. Because it had/has such dominance in the business world everyone had to live in their inbox, marketers appreciated that and lots of people grew to hate that. There have always been bad practices surrounding emails but I think it reached a point a long time ago where email itself was considered bad. Thus "email free Fridays" and internal comms plans which say email should be a last resort. People felt empowered to refuse to read many emails, especially if they were over 3-4 paragraphs. I too have colleagues who reflexively ask for a meeting in response to any email longer than a few lines, even though the issue is clearly communicated and obviously requires someone to read it and build a proper response. The ease with which we can all "jump on a call" has contributed to this. Yes, of course we've all seen email chains which go back and forth without progress but that's not a reason to assume every message will end up there.
    - rcarmo 3y ago
      We could jump on calls well over seven years ago (I actually worked in ISDN video calling in the 1990s, and spent a decade or so working in a multinational telco, with plenty of conference calling involved). The loss of focus definitely accelerated with the rise of chat.
    - abalashov 3y ago
      > I too have colleagues who reflexively ask for a meeting in response to any email longer than a few lines, even though the issue is clearly communicated and obviously requires someone to read it and build a proper response. Oh, yes. So much this. Except, I think it's fair to say it's managers and bosses who have this tendency, not so much colleagues.
- prpl 3y ago
  I don’t think there is a good solution here. I realized that I must have a 90th-95th percentile memory when compared to my coworkers, but it frankly doesn’t matter if I write things in chat or a long form document, it’s often lost to much of my team. I have come to realize the best path forward is likely pair programming/working meetings (remotely) because writing things down and repeatedly referencing them doesn’t stick
  - cosmodisk 3y ago
    I had this issue when I had a larger team to manage. I'm also one of those who remembers an email that was sent 3 years ago by some random guy listing all these useful things. However,it doesn't work for most people. The communication needs some guidance too 1) anything quick and simple- chat 2) something more complex - email 3) something complex and likely to stay relevant long in the future - knowledge base, documentation, etc 4) major announcement- medium matters less but they need to be stored somewhere for people to refer to later. Communication requires enforcement too: I had people in my team that kept saying that they weren't told about x,y,and z. If those are repeated behaviours( they usually are), they need to be managed accordingly so people would start take it seriously.
  - yonaguska 3y ago
    It's not a memory issue- it's an attention issue. I'm on the other spectrum from you- I have clinically diagnosed terrible memory. I write and read a lot to compensate. If you are writing something down- things are getting lost to your team because they are not taking the time to read and process what you wrote. I'm also finding that the best path forward is to pair frequently- because a lot of people just don't read. Also, it's important to note that with writing things down for people, referencing is just as important as the content. If something is written in a slack conversation- they are unlikely to go searching back months for it- when they could just ask you again! When something is documented in a structured and easily memorable manner however...
  - wonderwonder 3y ago
    I have a decent memory but my attention span has been decimated. I find myself tuning out on calls and looking at anything else. Then I come back to reality and realize I have missed something important. Recently I have started closing my eyes while on zoom (camera off). It has really helped me focus and pay attention. this breaks down of course when someone is sharing their screen. I find that a solution to this is to turn my camera on as it forces me to pay attention or people will see me with my head turned to the side. Incidentally it also forces me to shower and shave most days, something that has really fallen off since going remote and covid. I almost never leave the house so my presentation suffered. Only time I cleaned up is if I was going to the gym. So I was somehow in the best shape of my life while also looking like a homeless person when forced on camera. Both have helped, still not perfect but its better.
- unshavedyak 3y ago
  How do you communicate the "right things" tho? That's the part i find difficult. I feel like most consumers just want cliff-notes. Which are difficult to write for a wide variety of audiences.
  - mydriasis 3y ago
    This is tough, yes. I'm a programmer -- so for me, knowing what's _vital_ to a task is what I'm always searching for. Nailing down requirements is challenging...!
- mcguire 3y ago
  Few people mention the difficulties of the other paradigm, though. I've had lot of hallway conversations where, if I don't write down some notes, it's gone. Plus, if you don't have any control over it, having someone stop by your desk is a significant interruption. Ever been in a situation where you asked someone for something you need done, they said yes verbally, it didn't get done, and now everyone is looking at you for the reason why it isn't done?
  - brailsafe 3y ago
    Ya I'd probably consider switching careers before returning to the tyranny of my manager just being able to pop up behind me. Fuck that.
- Hermitian909 3y ago
  Even well done, this kind of communication doesn't substitute for more free-form 1:1s that in-person allows. The latter are key to building trust. I'm finding this to be one of the key drawbacks of remote work - some decisions require cross team trust and I've yet to see anything besides more frequent ad-hoc conversations that builds it. The problem is that the most trust building conversations tend to be "off-topic" conversations that just don't happen organically in a remote environment. I as an individual can try and make these happen but I can't force the org to do so. If anyone feels like they have a solution I'd love to hear it (we're already doing quarterly off-sites, it's not enough)
  - ethanwillis 3y ago
    Maybe part of the problem is a lot of orgs are watching(and logging) your remote conversations with an all seeing eye. But they're not necessarily bugging your in person office?
  - okaram 3y ago
    Not sure if this would work for you, but I tend to have ad-hoc, 1on1 video calls with people. If you are not doing deep work, it's no biggie. I also would schedule 1on1 meetings to 'catch-up' (not too many of them, but ...) Don't get me wrong, meeting some of these people in person is great, but I have several great relationships at work where we've never met in person
  - spandrew 3y ago
    Not discounting this, but i Free-form 1:1's always have an aura of being more "improvisational" and in the moment. Good 1:1's are supposed to be semi-structured (ie not 'free form'). A shared journal, a retro exercise, etc. I have not had the experience that these build trust. Good team work, and delivering high quality work towards a common goal do that. You popping by for a 3 minute conversation in ear shot of 5 other people trying to do their work doesn't. It may FEEL like it because those people chatting get energy from it. But it doesn't. If you need energy from people like this it's 100% a good idea. Go nuts. Personally I think people over index on this because they have no idea how to structure async team comms. – Videos – Longform content – Team agreements to respond to things async without x-hours – Team collaboration spaces – Good sprint ceremonies like refinement – Team QA-type exercises Ad hoc conversations also contribute immensely to what I call "comms debt". The jolt of energy you get from water cooler talk last 3 minutes, and excluded anyone not in direct proximity. If the best idea was in the head of somebody 3 rooms away you have no way of knowing it. Add dozens of these micro-interactions throughout the day and it's a recipe for comms breakdown and kliqish behaviour. I see this a lot in User Research. Let's "get out of the building" and talk to people. A good idea in practice, but without actual goals or hypothesis product leaders mistake the first 5 opinions they collected as fact — often cherry picking sound bytes that fit right in with their own biases (and I've seen this A LOT in older leaders). This is mistaken as research. But they love it because it has that face to face energy. The feeling makes it right, regardless of the evidence. Trust in a team is based on good communication — and an agreement on what you expect from it. If someone posts a video to Slack do people respond? Do you have ceremonies to build togetherness and understanding? All of these things are somewhat easier when you just have to deal with Zoom logistics. Anyone who has to clean up and index the deluge of Design Sprint whiteboard stickies knows what I'm talking about. Put that shit in Miro, thanks.
- mpeg 3y ago
  I think the most frustrating part of remote work are people who expect synchronous communication. Conversations that go like “good morning, how are you?” and then wait until you reply to say “so I was wondering about x” It’s annoying, wastes a lot of time and people keep doing it because they’re still stuck in office mode when they should be following IRC rules (don’t ask to ask)
  - uxcolumbo 3y ago
    Yes exactly. I worked with folks located in India and I had to tell them it’s OK to get straight to the point without having to wait for me to say hello back etc. I had to explain it’s not rude if they leave out the hellos and how are yous. Probably a cultural thing.
    - known 3y ago
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nine_zeros 3y ago
Management communication style is "Communicating less, but more frequently", the opposite of OP. This explains why management likes to see more people in offices.
- gottorf 3y ago
  pg has written about this dichotomy years ago: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
- dilawar 3y ago
  Keep the managers working from home and get all devs to the office?
  - ghaff 3y ago
    There can actually be logic to that. Many managers spend most of their time in meetings—with people scattered around the world larger organizations. And they spend a lot of time with customers too. What’s the point of having Ann office aside from occasional in person team events?
FartyMcFarter 3y ago
This sounds great for experienced engineers, but in my experience junior workers often require bite-sized guidance in order to avoid going down rabbit holes. A 10 second conversation could easily save hours of head-banging-into-wall type work for a junior SWE (not even exaggerating). Accordingly, during the pandemic I think it was mostly the less experienced engineers suffering from low productivity and lack of confidence (which feed into each other).
- fsociety 3y ago
  I think the experience of banging your head against the wall (for a bit) can be valuable. As long as the culture of the team encourages this and offers an escape hatch after a few hours (or whatever timeframe is appropriate for the problem).
  - pydry 3y ago
    I dont. Ive gone down many rabbit holes thanks to, for instance, subtly incorrect or outdated docs in working cultures that valued not being interrupted and it's a recipe for anxiety and a huge waste of time.
    - andsoitis 3y ago
      Hopefully you updated the docs as you encountered them and figured out the most up to date context.
      - CoastalCoder 3y ago
        > Hopefully you updated the docs as you encountered them and figured out the most up to date context. I've been in an environment like this, and it really burned me out. People broke docs faster than I could fix them, and it was an accepted part of the development process. My conclusion was that fixing the docs was simply a waste of time. My resulting despair for the software and the company surely destroyed my productivity. (I'm not saying this is a valid excuse; just an explanation.)
sussexby 3y ago
Currently in crisis because I simply can't handle communication in remote work. For something I do for the majority of my working day, I feel devoid of human interaction to such an extent that it's massively affecting my mental health. I regularly find myself clock-watching until the next time I can talk to someone because everyone is always busy - there are no water coolers or coffee breaks to stitch in between. Even if you create the virtual coffee break and have a chat with people, often we're pushed to abandon it - presumably because it's flipped from an opportunistic (oh, we're all of the phone, let's go grab a coffee) to a scheduled event which a) gets dropped and b) doesn't naturally recur.
- rcarmo 3y ago
  Do more 1:1s. You'll have to chase some things piecemeal across two to three people, but you'll soon figure out who actually owns a topic and be able to have more in-depth conversations.
- freeone3000 3y ago
  Take your own breaks. Hang out with friends. Take a lunch. Your officemates do not have to be your end-all of social interaction :)
- dpz 3y ago
  find the social outside of work? Work has always been work for me and nothing more, not really looking for socialising. In fairness I've been fully remote for 10 years but I see friends during the day for coffees, lunch, exercise. And then multiple sports clubs in the evenings
  - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
    I have a great social life outside of work and still felt the same as GP during the remote work day. And I'm pretty reserved at work, not known for bothering people incessantly.
  - whateverman23 3y ago
    > Work has always been work for me and nothing more, not really looking for socialising. But work is 40-50 hours of my week. That's a HUGE portion of my life. Almost half my waking hours are at work. (7x16=112 waking hours a week. 35-45% of it at work). Not taking time to socialize during that period is draining as hell for me. I guess what I'm trying to say is you're way overestimating the percentage of people who can go to work and just... work. Most people need the socialization.
bonestamp2 3y ago
I've worked remotely for about 15 years now, and I think it's the same amount of communicating, it's just broken up differently than in-person. Instead of booking a 30 minute meeting, that only has maybe 10-15 minutes of work talk and 5-10 of personal talk, we might instant message for 15-20 mins spread across a whole day. Or if things get complicated in the first few minutes we'll just have an adhoc call for 5 mins, then IM whatever details we thought of after hanging up. That 5 minute call is similar to swinging by someone's desk. Some people still insist on booking the 30 minute meeting, and that can make sense when you have several people or some "meetings are my job" people are involved (upper management, marketing, sales, etc). It seems like about the same amount of work talk either way, but usually less personal talk. Introverts love that, extroverts are missing out. It also varies by person. Some people are too vague in their typed messages so it's better to talk on the phone. Other people have really thick accents and English may be a second language, so a detailed IM conversation can actually be more efficient than talking on the phone for both parties.
sublinear 3y ago
> It shifts communication from a one-to-one relationship, to a one-to-many. Next time you’re about to “send a quick DM” or “schedule a quick chat”, consider what steps you could take to optimize for the long tail of information retrieval and discovery. This is the only real difference: that any individual can wield the power of one-to-many communication. We all have a voice now. Calls and DMs exist solely to ensure what's in writing is understood. Same as it was in the physical office for meetings.
foxbarrington 3y ago
Remote work and async comms means that latency tends to be high. Latency issues can be overcome by not stopping to wait at each decision point. For example, low latency this is ok: “do you want to go to dinner or a movie?” Movie. ”Do you want to see Barbie or Oppenheimer?” Oppenheimer. “Do you want to go at 6:00, 7:00, or 8:00?” 8:00. Instead for high latency, this will cut down on a lot of dead time in back and forth: “Do you want to dinner or see a movie? If you want dinner do you prefer to go to Il Capricio (Italian) or Sushi Go 55? I can make reservations at 6, 6:30, or 7. If you’d rather see a movie, do you want to see Barbie or Oppenheimer? Barbie is at 6:15, 7:20, and 8:15. Oppenheimer is at 6:00, 7:00, and 8:00.” Let’s do Oppenheimer at 8 It’s more work up front and any unchosen paths are “wasted effort”, but for work there’s usually value in fully exploring the alternate paths anyway.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  I feel socially uncomfortable asking a bunch of questions which have lots of dependencies, somehow it feels presumptuous and overwhelming. I’m not saying it actually is presumptuous, there’s every possibility that there’s a defect in my social skills. Somehow I’ve become more comfortable just proposing a complete plan, but also explicitly calling out the fact that it is actually totally up for discussion. So instead I’ll say something like: Want to see Oppenheimer at 5:30 on Sunday (n.b. I pulled that time completely out of my ass just to get the ball rolling, any time this weekend is fine on my end, and Barbie also looks good). Somehow it just feels more natural to me, I don’t know why. I like that it presents the person with a default-path, but also leaves everything up for discussion if necessary.
Aurornis 3y ago
The headline says “remote work” but then the article immediately talks about “asynchrony work”. These are two different topics. Async work can, and often should, happen in the office is well. Synchronous work is often required in remote work. A big stumbling block for remote work is the belief that remote means you shouldn’t have to interact with other people much. Some people like that idea, while for others it’s a big problem. Juniors especially struggle when their contact with other team members is forcibly reduced to narrow windows or very delayed responses to everything. Juniors shouldn’t be reaching for help at the first signs of struggle, of course, but some of the async work zealots push the concept so far that juniors are expected to be almost solo developers. As someone who has successfully worked remote for years, I worry about all of these ideologic prescriptions for how remote work must look. Most of the remote work failures and return to office mandates I’ve heard about in local companies have their roots in unrealistic ideas about remote work, both from the company side and the employee side. Having done this for years I think it’s important that people are still available for ad-hoc collaboration and conversation in company chat, within reason. Remote fails quickly when people take it as an invitation to isolate themselves and check e-mail or Slack once or twice per day. The only exceptions might be work that is highly repetitive and truly isolated, like an employee who can take an endless queue of similar tickets from Jira and do isolated work on the same tasks over and over again. Most engineering R&D work doesn’t look this isolated, though, so the model fails when forced on more traditional software development. I’ve also experienced the opposite extreme, where managers go remote and feel obligated to schedule meetings all day long. I had a short-lived remote job where my calendar was over 50% recurring meetings before even scheduling time to discuss work with peers that week. Predictably, nothing got done at that company and they are reluctant to let anyone work remote now.
- briandswartz 3y ago
  Well said. Curious: what does your current team / company do to enable the real-time ad-hoc conversations that need to happen? Are there conventions or tools that have helped? (full disclosure, we're building a platform that integrates with Calendar, Zoom, and Slack to try to solve this problem and let people turn to one another in real-time, without interrupting heads-down time. Would love to interview you for user research if you're up for it)
no_wizard 3y ago
What I have found is this inherently means re-wiring an organizations culture around async communications and trust. The biggest hurdle that I think many aren't able to get through is that remote work doesn't have the same "allowance" for ad hoc calls / face to face meetings like offices did. Not that those were great, by they are incredibly prevalent in an office setting and there was never enough industry wide pushback to these interruptions to really put a dent in them. Remote work has allowed workers to put some boundaries up around this and made their "tax" much easier to feel and quantify by workers in general. This is where I have found in a nut shell is why communication breaks down without re-wiring it from the ground up and ingraining the new remote work into the culture of the company. You can't just lift and shift the methods from one modality to the other
demondemidi 3y ago
these "hot takes" pick one job role and base their thesis on it. I work 100% remote, and I'm in meetings 25 hours a week. my job relies on other people doing theirs. but what can you expect from a 200 word "article" (with a TL;DR no less!) except click-baiting HN to reply with "Well at my job...". like i did.
ricardo81 3y ago
It's weird seeing all this content the past 3+ years about remote working as I've worked remotely for 20+ years. I'm not an authority on the matter (why would I be), just weird to see so much 'authority content' on it lately. Maybe there are more granular and data-driven conclusions, I'm just someone who sees the benefit of communicating information over vast distances aka the web and appreciate that it's something we can do nowadays. A message, SMS, phone call, a group call, a skype call or whatever can clear things up right quick. Plenty times I'll send someone an email because I don't want to engage with someone and the time frame of their reply can be minutes or days. That's fine. WFH/remote is all about trust from an employer and motivation by an employee. You're entirely free to communicate as much as you need to whether you're physically present or not. The work gets done or it does not. I don't really understand the confusion about this.
- senttoschool 3y ago
  There’s a difference between the population that worked remotely before and after Covid. The population before Covid were often highly experienced, disciplined, and proven workers. The population after Covid, was well, everyone who worked with a laptop. Not everyone is cut for working remotely. In addition, there’s a difference between 1 out 20 people working remotely full time and 20 out of 20.
  - malfist 3y ago
    I've worked remotely for about 9 years now. At the start of the pandemic I'd argue there's a wide gulf between those who knew how to work remotely because they've done it for years, and those forced into it and still figuring it out. We spent 3 years in pandemic mode working from home for everyone. We've all figured it out by now. Go into the office if you'd like, but don't force everyone back to it.
    - repeekad 3y ago
      And between those who don’t want remote work. Who enjoy building real relationships with people and brain storming ideas on a whiteboard. Remote work feels like contracting, and when everyone is a contractor is it really a cohesive company?
leidenfrost 3y ago
Another (unrelated) problem with Remote work is how harder is to lose weight when you stop moving throughout the day. Before the pandemic, I usually got up to make coffee, to ask for help or to make consensus with my fellow coworkers (other devs or even UX people, a few stairs away). I usually walked from work from time to time to clear up my mind. Now I barely move. I live in a small apartment. The fridge is 3 meters away from me. Back then, I could somehow manage my weight by applying some casual restrictions, like eating fewer carbs and eat mostly lean cuts of meat. Now I need to apply some zen monk level of self control if I want to not gain more weight. And losing it is terribly hard.
- WirelessGigabit 3y ago
  For me it's the other way. I used to drive to work. Now I walk before and after work.
- malfist 3y ago
  Maybe for you. Working from home means I make healthy lunches for me. It's a lot easier to eat right when you have a full kitchen and pantry at your disposal.
  - leidenfrost 3y ago
    I made my lunch the day before and carried it on a small tupperware (how are these called?) Wasn't as great as fresh food but at least I made sure it was healthy.
- katbyte 3y ago
  Opposite for me, wfh means healthier lunches, more time and flexibility to be active . The short walk to transit (of not driving) doesn’t come close
  - repeekad 3y ago
    It’s not for everyone, but people who don’t already have an entire life outside of work struggle to start one when the majority of your day is spent alone staring at a screen. The idea that socializing at work is a bad thing I think isolated a huge number of people who used to thrive on work relations and didn’t need a huge number of close friends outside of work to be happy.
boredumb 3y ago
Remote work requires asynchronously communicating more.
lettergram 3y ago
I think gaming is very similar to remote working. You log in when you sit down, put in your headset and typically are available. Work isn’t much different. My team leaves zoom standup open all day, we break into conversations all the time. It both (a) keeps everyone engaged and (b) removes blockers fast. That said, we setup side “rooms” we can move in and out of. There is also the option not to be accessible, but it’s typical to be available
- briandswartz 3y ago
  How long have you been doing this? Curious, bc many teams tried something like this but it fizzled after 3-4 months. (full disclosure, we're building a platform that integrates with Zoom to visualize all these rooms, and who is in them, so people can hop into the rooms where people currently are, and know when someone isn't available before joining, etc. would love to interview you for user research if you're up for it)
  - lettergram 3y ago
    Lol given that it fizzled out… seems weird to me what you’re building? To answer your question — many years
djha-skin 3y ago
> allowing the system to optimize for throughput and flow. Sometimes you need lots of small synchronous communications and sometimes you need and fewer large asynchronous communications. Large asynchronous communications work when everyone already knows what they're doing. They work at a company which has already figured out its business model, built out its necessary expertise, and saturated its market, where everyone's a senior engineer. Like, I don't know, GitHub, where the OP works as a Director of Engineering. Frequent synchronous communications allow for tight coordination in the face of business risk. This is the startup world, the "we're-still-figuring-out-what-we're-doing", "maybe-this-will-work-maybe-not" area of the company stability spectrum. Also this is the area where junior devs are with their careers, so this model is best for them, too. This reminds me of parameters that can be used to tune garbage collection. Collectors can either be tuned for throughput, or availability, but not both. Throughput optimization translates to long stop-the-world GC pauses, where availability translates to more frequent, but smaller pauses so the application is available to take traffic. It also reminds me of a soccer player trying to control a soccer ball. Getting the ball down the field (throughput) is often via a single really hard kick. It's fine if control is reduced, it's throughput that is needed when the ball is too far away from the goal. Conversely, controlling the ball downfield requires lots and lots of tiny touches of the foot. One final comment: asynchronous works great for open source, so why not business? In short: business has a deadline, (hobbyist-run) open source often does not. This being the case, it's fine if the communication takes a little longer. But in a time-critical project, synchronous communication is still our friend.
- esafak 3y ago
  > asynchronous works great for open source, so why not business? Hold your horses. Your constant synchronous communication reduces the aggregate throughput by increasing context switching, which incurs dead time for the interrupted parties as they refocus on their task. A better way is to reserve synchronous communication for urgent requests, and time block (batch) or async the rest.
tra3 3y ago
Any tips for working with a remote micromanager? Constant “can you talk now?”, even though we have a daily 1:1 scheduled in an hour. Written daily updates in slack followed by 45 minute stand up. I already try to overcommunicate, but it does not stem the interruptions and it’s certainly not asynchronous. Frequent “how’s it going” an hour after stand up, and before and after the 1:1. How do I push back?
- tomtheelder 3y ago
  IMO you try these in order: - Direct feedback to the manager about your needing space to work and their disruptive behavior. - Same feedback to their manager. - Look for new jobs. There’s no way to solve this that avoids direct feedback and the possibility of confrontation.
  - tra3 3y ago
    Confrontation seems like the nuclear option so I’d like to avoid that. In the spirit of incremental improvement, what’s the smallest action that you’d recommend that I can take?
    - bluefishinit 3y ago
      Reach out and have a chat with a recruiter. Tell them about your situation (it's very unhealthy) and skill set and see what they have to say. You're currently employed, which is a great place to be while you look for new work. Have them bring you opportunities that are not just better than your current situation, but align with your ideal situation.
    - marcod 3y ago
      I don't think things will improve if you don't say it's an issue (to either your mgr or theirs). If you say "hey, I'm the middle of working on X. Can't this wait until we have our 1:1?" do you think that wouldn't be well received? Also, maybe give them some information on how expensive context switching is.
    - jdance 3y ago
throwawayfear 3y ago
Remote work requires more direct and straightforward communication. Ideally in writing only because then there's no bullshit happening off-the-record in calls where people are clearly just wasting time or trying to annoy other people with bullshit. You can notice this the most when someone who is not good at their job or not technical or not interested in the product is always resorting to calls and constant communication. That's micromanagement culture. I do not think this means more communication. It means less time spent communicating and more time spent working on your area. What on earth are you all working on that requires constant communication?
Aaronstotle 3y ago
I don't enjoy fully remote work, it is too isolating for me. I enjoy being able to talk with my co-workers in person if I there's an issue, I think Hybrid is a good middle ground.
azza2110 3y ago
I've found it's best to use a combination of written and spoken word, when trying to communicate more, but less frequently. i.e. - Write a set of concise, clear, well-structured discussion notes ahead of a meeting - Give all attendees time to pre-read the notes and flag the specific points requiring deeper discussion - Once face-to-face, discuss ONLY those flagged topics. Don't waste the opportunity for high-bandwidth communication on the notes/topics that aren't contentious.
wduquette 3y ago
This is how I've been working for years, since before COVID. (Except for videos; I don't do videos.) As another commenter noted, this might not work as well for junior engineers. If I were mentoring/guiding/working with a junior engineer I would plan on being available for one-on-one interactions.
fnord77 3y ago
An article just in time for the end of (most) remote work
qxxx 3y ago
in my current role at my current company, the opposite is the case. Daily sometimes hour long meetings talking about features and some crap and less time for the actual work. I hate it. Because I love to code, but I am constantly distracted. Everyone wants something from me... some people ask if I have time, some simply call, even if I am in another meeting already.
- briandswartz 3y ago
  Curious: do you use DND in Slack or block your calendar in an effort to protect your focus time? (full disclosure, we're building a platform that integrates with Calendar / Zoom / Slack to visualize who is available, who's in a mtg, and who is in Focus Mode - the idea being to help people turn to one another in real-time, but without distracting people who need to focus. Would love to interview you for user research if you're up for it)
tonystubblebine 3y ago
We're struggling with this (80 people) and basically decided we have to get the entire company together twice a year. I'm not saying this is any perfect best practice, just that there is something that always gets lost in translation when we are remote. That gets cleared up instantly when we are together.
- briandswartz 3y ago
  But what do you do for the weeks and months in between? Like, how do people turn to one another in real time? (full disclosure, we're building a platform that integrates with Calendar, Zoom, and Slack to try to solve this problem and let people turn to one another in real-time, without interrupting heads-down time. Would love to interview you for user research if you're up for it)
civilized 3y ago
I think the most efficient way of communicating is about the same whether you're in an office or remote: - If you have a deep technical problem that you already understand a lot of the context for, and you can explain it like an expert Stack Overflow user, then use writing to ask someone who might be able to help you. - If you're a newbie to this context, don't know what you're dealing with, and there's no documentation that you can understand, write a much shorter message focusing on the immediate issue and ask if it might be most efficient jump on a call, ideally with screen share. - If you're somewhere in between, do your best to set up the problem in writing, but don't overthink it or assume too much about what your helper needs to know. Again ask if a call with screen share might be more efficient. Basically, always use writing to start, but adjust the length of the message based on your ability to set up the problem for your helper. And if it's urgent, hopefully there's some way you can ping or notify the person. More generally, the more you can predict about how the conversation should go, what details are needed by the other person, the better it is to use writing. The less you can predict, the better it is to use a synchronous medium, such as in-person conversation or a call with screen share. And if you find yourself always needing synchronous media, I would suggest that you try to do more to retain and document knowledge in writing, so that you're not always going back to square one every time you need to solve a problem. After a few months working in some area, it should be increasingly possible to ask expert questions in writing.
SSchick 3y ago
Maybe tangential but: Recently joined a new company that is remote first with a fair amount of juniors in it. It's rather difficult since they often lack guidance and start rabbit-holing in the wrong direction before eventually failing or producing a very non-ideal solution. For us a pure asynchronous comms workflow simply doesn't work well yet, this may change w/ more seniority. I found that having weekly (or even bi-weekly) 1:1's with my colleagues and pair/cowork dramatically lowers communication barriers and boosts productivity through the roof (albeit at the expense of 2 people working on the same project). Major issues can surface when colleagues don't communicate at all other than just pull requests / issues / standups / design docs (whatever you call them). It can cause people to perceive others are 'faceless entities'. This can range from building completely misaligned solutions to even sparking interpersonal conflict.
- willio58 3y ago
  One thing my team does is we have a daily quick standup meeting where at the end we all have the option to stay on. The room is set up to always be accessible by anyone who wants to join and many of us sit in the room camera/mic on or off all day just in case someone wants to ask a quick question. If the conversation gets to be really long between two people in the room we will split off into a breakout room. I love this method, and it's all optional so the days where I want to focus on work I can just leave after standup. Most days I stay in to either help people out or ask questions myself.
  - briandswartz 3y ago
    How long have you been doing this? Curious, bc many teams tried something like this but it fizzled after 3-4 months. (full disclosure, we're building a platform that integrates with Zoom to visualize all these rooms, and who is in them, so people can hop into the rooms where people currently are, and know when someone isn't available before joining, etc. would love to interview you for user research if you're up for it)
    - willio58 3y ago
      So far 14 months and counting. It's great for giving a hybrid work feel, especially for people who like that sort of thing, without the actual requirement to live near the office or commute daily.
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KronisLV 3y ago
> Instead of relying on constant, synchronous, and often interrupt-driven interactions, remote workers embrace asynchronous, and often higher-fidelity, forms of communication, such as long-form writing or thoughtful videos. This has actually been difficult for some people to get used to, since they much preferred synchronous communication (calls) or drip feeding information (what they need, spread over multiple messages, starting out with a simple "hey"). I actually made a site a while back to elaborate on how to make others do context switching a bit less often, maybe it's helpful to some here: https://quick-answers.kronis.dev/ https://quick-answers.kronis.dev/ (the other guides that I found online about this had a bit of a mocking tone) Of course, there are also times when you do need a bit of synchronous communication too, which is also fine.
platz 3y ago
The precise concept of "more" in this article is dubious.
jensensbutton 3y ago
> asynchronous communication involves less frequent, but richer communication Problem is that most people aren't good at written communication. They're passable, but not good. This means the communication isn't actually "richer" it's just longer. The rise of remote has led to so many wasted hours (for the author and readers) due to RFCs and proposals that just never had the chance of going anywhere, because the people that could help don't have time to figure out what the author is actually asking for or trying to get done. Then people whine about how no one is listening to their great ideas.
5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
f--k the "office" and f--k the soulless two-faced corpo-goblins who thrive within it. never going back. in 20-30 years i'll be worm food. not going to waste anymore time rotting in an office. f---k no.
- gumballindie 3y ago
  Amen brother. People fail to understand that rotting in an office is not the type of memory you want when life flashes in front of your eyes on your death bed. Imagine sitting there, and all you see is a bunch of scrum meetings and planning sessions followed by scuttlebutt with someone your dread gossiping about someone you don't even know, thinking they are your friends.
- mvdtnz 3y ago
  This kind of contribution is completely unhelpful but yeah great for harvesting upvotes I guess.
sharts 3y ago
It SHOULD require richer less frequent communication (in fact, ALL work communication should probably be done that way). In practice, it is the complete opposite with context switching on steroids brought to you by Slack channels.
Brystephor 3y ago
I graduated from school in Spring 2020 and started working in Aug 2020. In that timeframe, I had not been inside an employers office more than 3 times. Since Mar 2023, we've had a "mandatory" 4 days in office every week. Here's what I've experienced since going the office: * Occasionally I'll get a good conversation with a teammate or manager about something technical, but the frequency has not gone up. The technical conversations are still scheduled on a calendar and happen at the same frequency. I really haven't experienced many people stopping at my desk and I think I've only stopped at the junior engineers desk to check in. * Socializing at work has not been my strong suit. I am pretty introverted when it comes to strangers (e.g. anyone who has not been introduced to me). I find the socializing to be more energy draining. * I walk to work. I like that typically. The walk can be... disturbing to say the least since I walk through downtown Seattle. * A lot of people in the office prefer to speak to each other in languages other than english. Everyone on my team (my manager + all my coworkers on my team) prefer speaking something other than english and do so unless I'm involved in the conversation. This surprised me and at times I find it frustrating because I wish I could know what they're chatting about when it's technical (certain keywords I can pickup on since they're the name of internal things). * working in office 4 days a week has given me something to really look forward to each week, and that's the WFH day. * I don't think my productivity has gone up. Some days it's definitely worse. Now there's an obligation to go sit and eat with others for 30min-1hr a day. Previously, I'd just bring my lunch to my desk and continue to work. I don't think my experience is the norm. But I certainly miss the pure WFH days.
- phowat 3y ago
  I feel as if people have changed. I'm back in the office twice a week now and the good conversations and socializing parts just don't seem be happening like they were previously to the pandemic. I'm not sure what to think of it and maybe in some time, things will be more like it used to.
  - spookthesunset 3y ago
    Partly because a lot of these companies “return to office” took away all the cool stuff like sitting next to your team, having an actual desk of your own, etc. I just want one single place that is actual 2019 normal. None of this BS hotdesk crap.
mvdtnz 3y ago
Is this some kind of ChatGPT output? While I agree with the message, the writing feels forced, intentional and fake because every other sentence uses exactly three verbs or adjectives in order to engage, provoke and clarify. Sometimes twice in one sentence! "relying on constant, synchronous, and often interrupt-driven interactions" "Async work allows for more reflection, research, and synthesis" "Those working async can and should take the time to think, learn, and synthesize before sharing their ideas, opinions, or solutions" "form of communication for the purpose, audience, and context" "use writing for documenting, explaining, or persuading; use video for demonstrating, teaching, or storytelling; use chat for coordinating, clarifying, or socializing" "Write clearly, concisely, and comprehensively" "using simple language, short sentences, and clear structure" "provide enough detail, context, and evidence to support their points, answer potential questions, and avoid ambiguity." "Record videos with empathy, enthusiasm, and engagement" "using eye contact, facial expressions, and voice modulation" "keep their videos short, focused, and interactive, using visuals, examples, and questions" "Communicate proactively, regularly, and asynchronously" "communicate their goals, plans, and updates without waiting for prompts, requests, or deadlines" "communicate their availability, boundaries, and preferences" "using synchronous communication only for urgent, complex, or sensitive matters"
anoojb 3y ago
I was recently told by my manager (large FAANG) that I should never expect my skip manager or above to respond to my messages/emails. I should always book time on their calendar. After 2 years, this was when I knew that this particular manager was struggling with the same problems in the local working unit and that leadership at the VP-level (externally hired) was totally inaccessible to help make critical decisions. It's a tough job market, but I'm looking more ferociously than ever as of this week.
tdiff 3y ago
Am I the only one who finds that author gives very little details about what "working asynchronously" is and how it actually functions, focusing mostly on some benefits it ought to provide or some other behaviours benefital in traditional office life as well?
deleted 3y ago
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AntiRemote 3y ago
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nsonha 3y ago
Why is everyone pretending that remote work is some drastic change? I remember back when I worked in an office, we communicated in the same channels, same frequencies (github, slack). The only new channel now is video calling, which simply replaces meeting rooms, same frequency too.

336 points by chmaynard 3y ago

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> Remote work requires communicating more, less frequently, because asynchronous communication involves less frequent, but richer communication, meaning there is less time talking about the work and more time doing it, allowing the system to optimize for throughput and flow. This whole thing seems to be what people struggle with about remote work. Communication is way, way more important, and being an effective communicator doubly so. There's nobody's desk to go stop by, so noting things down and making sure we understand each-other is vital to accomplishing anything.

pasc1878 3y ago
Communication is important and does require more communication - but more frequently I don"t think so. You don't pop into somon elses space and interrupt them unless you have a reason and don't do that often. IRC or other chats happened a lot more often as the receiver can just ignore it.
Swizec 3y ago
Funnily, studies have shown that people spend more time on chat and less time in face-to-face communication when working from an openspace office than when they work from home. Hopping on a quick 5min zoom is frictionless at home. Walking aaaaalll the way over to someone’s desk and disrupting the entire office with your conversation, or god forbid finding a free conference room, is way harder. So you smear the meeting on slack across a 1 hour back-and-forth pingpong instead of doing a quick 5min sync. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180718-open-offices-make-people-talk-less-and-email-more https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180718-open-offices-m... Private offices solve this problem of course. Wfh is the easiest way to get that.
- rcarmo 3y ago
  I've never been more productive than when I have an office with a door -- home or otherwise. That also makes it much easier to have quick chats without disturbing the rest of the floor.
rcarmo 3y ago
There's a bit of a challenge today with chat, though. I work 4 timezones away from most of my team and we all prefer to swap e-mails, but chat seems to have stripped away some folks' ability to methodically go through topics, explain options and summarise next steps, leading to the usual "let's set up a call [to actually discuss everything in the e-mail thread]". Reading through old mailing-lists (and even older e-mails from the same company, but from seven years ago) shows a markedly different communication style - you could pretty much take the last two e-mails in a thread and paste them into a memo that would neatly encompass all of the scope. Not so today--there's a constant chattering of people who just can't prioritise or discuss more than a couple of topics in tow.
- DharmaPolice 3y ago
  Email is the victim of its own success. Because it had/has such dominance in the business world everyone had to live in their inbox, marketers appreciated that and lots of people grew to hate that. There have always been bad practices surrounding emails but I think it reached a point a long time ago where email itself was considered bad. Thus "email free Fridays" and internal comms plans which say email should be a last resort. People felt empowered to refuse to read many emails, especially if they were over 3-4 paragraphs. I too have colleagues who reflexively ask for a meeting in response to any email longer than a few lines, even though the issue is clearly communicated and obviously requires someone to read it and build a proper response. The ease with which we can all "jump on a call" has contributed to this. Yes, of course we've all seen email chains which go back and forth without progress but that's not a reason to assume every message will end up there.
  - rcarmo 3y ago
    We could jump on calls well over seven years ago (I actually worked in ISDN video calling in the 1990s, and spent a decade or so working in a multinational telco, with plenty of conference calling involved). The loss of focus definitely accelerated with the rise of chat.
  - abalashov 3y ago
    > I too have colleagues who reflexively ask for a meeting in response to any email longer than a few lines, even though the issue is clearly communicated and obviously requires someone to read it and build a proper response. Oh, yes. So much this. Except, I think it's fair to say it's managers and bosses who have this tendency, not so much colleagues.
prpl 3y ago
I don’t think there is a good solution here. I realized that I must have a 90th-95th percentile memory when compared to my coworkers, but it frankly doesn’t matter if I write things in chat or a long form document, it’s often lost to much of my team. I have come to realize the best path forward is likely pair programming/working meetings (remotely) because writing things down and repeatedly referencing them doesn’t stick
- cosmodisk 3y ago
  I had this issue when I had a larger team to manage. I'm also one of those who remembers an email that was sent 3 years ago by some random guy listing all these useful things. However,it doesn't work for most people. The communication needs some guidance too 1) anything quick and simple- chat 2) something more complex - email 3) something complex and likely to stay relevant long in the future - knowledge base, documentation, etc 4) major announcement- medium matters less but they need to be stored somewhere for people to refer to later. Communication requires enforcement too: I had people in my team that kept saying that they weren't told about x,y,and z. If those are repeated behaviours( they usually are), they need to be managed accordingly so people would start take it seriously.
- yonaguska 3y ago
  It's not a memory issue- it's an attention issue. I'm on the other spectrum from you- I have clinically diagnosed terrible memory. I write and read a lot to compensate. If you are writing something down- things are getting lost to your team because they are not taking the time to read and process what you wrote. I'm also finding that the best path forward is to pair frequently- because a lot of people just don't read. Also, it's important to note that with writing things down for people, referencing is just as important as the content. If something is written in a slack conversation- they are unlikely to go searching back months for it- when they could just ask you again! When something is documented in a structured and easily memorable manner however...
- wonderwonder 3y ago
  I have a decent memory but my attention span has been decimated. I find myself tuning out on calls and looking at anything else. Then I come back to reality and realize I have missed something important. Recently I have started closing my eyes while on zoom (camera off). It has really helped me focus and pay attention. this breaks down of course when someone is sharing their screen. I find that a solution to this is to turn my camera on as it forces me to pay attention or people will see me with my head turned to the side. Incidentally it also forces me to shower and shave most days, something that has really fallen off since going remote and covid. I almost never leave the house so my presentation suffered. Only time I cleaned up is if I was going to the gym. So I was somehow in the best shape of my life while also looking like a homeless person when forced on camera. Both have helped, still not perfect but its better.
unshavedyak 3y ago
How do you communicate the "right things" tho? That's the part i find difficult. I feel like most consumers just want cliff-notes. Which are difficult to write for a wide variety of audiences.
- mydriasis 3y ago
  This is tough, yes. I'm a programmer -- so for me, knowing what's _vital_ to a task is what I'm always searching for. Nailing down requirements is challenging...!
mcguire 3y ago
Few people mention the difficulties of the other paradigm, though. I've had lot of hallway conversations where, if I don't write down some notes, it's gone. Plus, if you don't have any control over it, having someone stop by your desk is a significant interruption. Ever been in a situation where you asked someone for something you need done, they said yes verbally, it didn't get done, and now everyone is looking at you for the reason why it isn't done?
- brailsafe 3y ago
  Ya I'd probably consider switching careers before returning to the tyranny of my manager just being able to pop up behind me. Fuck that.
Hermitian909 3y ago
Even well done, this kind of communication doesn't substitute for more free-form 1:1s that in-person allows. The latter are key to building trust. I'm finding this to be one of the key drawbacks of remote work - some decisions require cross team trust and I've yet to see anything besides more frequent ad-hoc conversations that builds it. The problem is that the most trust building conversations tend to be "off-topic" conversations that just don't happen organically in a remote environment. I as an individual can try and make these happen but I can't force the org to do so. If anyone feels like they have a solution I'd love to hear it (we're already doing quarterly off-sites, it's not enough)
- ethanwillis 3y ago
  Maybe part of the problem is a lot of orgs are watching(and logging) your remote conversations with an all seeing eye. But they're not necessarily bugging your in person office?
- okaram 3y ago
  Not sure if this would work for you, but I tend to have ad-hoc, 1on1 video calls with people. If you are not doing deep work, it's no biggie. I also would schedule 1on1 meetings to 'catch-up' (not too many of them, but ...) Don't get me wrong, meeting some of these people in person is great, but I have several great relationships at work where we've never met in person
- spandrew 3y ago
  Not discounting this, but i Free-form 1:1's always have an aura of being more "improvisational" and in the moment. Good 1:1's are supposed to be semi-structured (ie not 'free form'). A shared journal, a retro exercise, etc. I have not had the experience that these build trust. Good team work, and delivering high quality work towards a common goal do that. You popping by for a 3 minute conversation in ear shot of 5 other people trying to do their work doesn't. It may FEEL like it because those people chatting get energy from it. But it doesn't. If you need energy from people like this it's 100% a good idea. Go nuts. Personally I think people over index on this because they have no idea how to structure async team comms. – Videos – Longform content – Team agreements to respond to things async without x-hours – Team collaboration spaces – Good sprint ceremonies like refinement – Team QA-type exercises Ad hoc conversations also contribute immensely to what I call "comms debt". The jolt of energy you get from water cooler talk last 3 minutes, and excluded anyone not in direct proximity. If the best idea was in the head of somebody 3 rooms away you have no way of knowing it. Add dozens of these micro-interactions throughout the day and it's a recipe for comms breakdown and kliqish behaviour. I see this a lot in User Research. Let's "get out of the building" and talk to people. A good idea in practice, but without actual goals or hypothesis product leaders mistake the first 5 opinions they collected as fact — often cherry picking sound bytes that fit right in with their own biases (and I've seen this A LOT in older leaders). This is mistaken as research. But they love it because it has that face to face energy. The feeling makes it right, regardless of the evidence. Trust in a team is based on good communication — and an agreement on what you expect from it. If someone posts a video to Slack do people respond? Do you have ceremonies to build togetherness and understanding? All of these things are somewhat easier when you just have to deal with Zoom logistics. Anyone who has to clean up and index the deluge of Design Sprint whiteboard stickies knows what I'm talking about. Put that shit in Miro, thanks.
mpeg 3y ago
I think the most frustrating part of remote work are people who expect synchronous communication. Conversations that go like “good morning, how are you?” and then wait until you reply to say “so I was wondering about x” It’s annoying, wastes a lot of time and people keep doing it because they’re still stuck in office mode when they should be following IRC rules (don’t ask to ask)
- uxcolumbo 3y ago
  Yes exactly. I worked with folks located in India and I had to tell them it’s OK to get straight to the point without having to wait for me to say hello back etc. I had to explain it’s not rude if they leave out the hellos and how are yous. Probably a cultural thing.
  - known 3y ago
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nine_zeros 3y ago

Management communication style is "Communicating less, but more frequently", the opposite of OP. This explains why management likes to see more people in offices.

gottorf 3y ago
pg has written about this dichotomy years ago: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
dilawar 3y ago
Keep the managers working from home and get all devs to the office?
- ghaff 3y ago
  There can actually be logic to that. Many managers spend most of their time in meetings—with people scattered around the world larger organizations. And they spend a lot of time with customers too. What’s the point of having Ann office aside from occasional in person team events?

FartyMcFarter 3y ago

This sounds great for experienced engineers, but in my experience junior workers often require bite-sized guidance in order to avoid going down rabbit holes. A 10 second conversation could easily save hours of head-banging-into-wall type work for a junior SWE (not even exaggerating). Accordingly, during the pandemic I think it was mostly the less experienced engineers suffering from low productivity and lack of confidence (which feed into each other).

fsociety 3y ago
I think the experience of banging your head against the wall (for a bit) can be valuable. As long as the culture of the team encourages this and offers an escape hatch after a few hours (or whatever timeframe is appropriate for the problem).
- pydry 3y ago
  I dont. Ive gone down many rabbit holes thanks to, for instance, subtly incorrect or outdated docs in working cultures that valued not being interrupted and it's a recipe for anxiety and a huge waste of time.
  - andsoitis 3y ago
    Hopefully you updated the docs as you encountered them and figured out the most up to date context.
    - CoastalCoder 3y ago
      > Hopefully you updated the docs as you encountered them and figured out the most up to date context. I've been in an environment like this, and it really burned me out. People broke docs faster than I could fix them, and it was an accepted part of the development process. My conclusion was that fixing the docs was simply a waste of time. My resulting despair for the software and the company surely destroyed my productivity. (I'm not saying this is a valid excuse; just an explanation.)

sussexby 3y ago

Currently in crisis because I simply can't handle communication in remote work. For something I do for the majority of my working day, I feel devoid of human interaction to such an extent that it's massively affecting my mental health. I regularly find myself clock-watching until the next time I can talk to someone because everyone is always busy - there are no water coolers or coffee breaks to stitch in between. Even if you create the virtual coffee break and have a chat with people, often we're pushed to abandon it - presumably because it's flipped from an opportunistic (oh, we're all of the phone, let's go grab a coffee) to a scheduled event which a) gets dropped and b) doesn't naturally recur.

rcarmo 3y ago
Do more 1:1s. You'll have to chase some things piecemeal across two to three people, but you'll soon figure out who actually owns a topic and be able to have more in-depth conversations.
freeone3000 3y ago
Take your own breaks. Hang out with friends. Take a lunch. Your officemates do not have to be your end-all of social interaction :)
dpz 3y ago
find the social outside of work? Work has always been work for me and nothing more, not really looking for socialising. In fairness I've been fully remote for 10 years but I see friends during the day for coffees, lunch, exercise. And then multiple sports clubs in the evenings
- DiggyJohnson 3y ago
  I have a great social life outside of work and still felt the same as GP during the remote work day. And I'm pretty reserved at work, not known for bothering people incessantly.
- whateverman23 3y ago
  > Work has always been work for me and nothing more, not really looking for socialising. But work is 40-50 hours of my week. That's a HUGE portion of my life. Almost half my waking hours are at work. (7x16=112 waking hours a week. 35-45% of it at work). Not taking time to socialize during that period is draining as hell for me. I guess what I'm trying to say is you're way overestimating the percentage of people who can go to work and just... work. Most people need the socialization.

bonestamp2 3y ago

I've worked remotely for about 15 years now, and I think it's the same amount of communicating, it's just broken up differently than in-person. Instead of booking a 30 minute meeting, that only has maybe 10-15 minutes of work talk and 5-10 of personal talk, we might instant message for 15-20 mins spread across a whole day. Or if things get complicated in the first few minutes we'll just have an adhoc call for 5 mins, then IM whatever details we thought of after hanging up. That 5 minute call is similar to swinging by someone's desk. Some people still insist on booking the 30 minute meeting, and that can make sense when you have several people or some "meetings are my job" people are involved (upper management, marketing, sales, etc). It seems like about the same amount of work talk either way, but usually less personal talk. Introverts love that, extroverts are missing out. It also varies by person. Some people are too vague in their typed messages so it's better to talk on the phone. Other people have really thick accents and English may be a second language, so a detailed IM conversation can actually be more efficient than talking on the phone for both parties.

sublinear 3y ago

> It shifts communication from a one-to-one relationship, to a one-to-many. Next time you’re about to “send a quick DM” or “schedule a quick chat”, consider what steps you could take to optimize for the long tail of information retrieval and discovery. This is the only real difference: that any individual can wield the power of one-to-many communication. We all have a voice now. Calls and DMs exist solely to ensure what's in writing is understood. Same as it was in the physical office for meetings.

foxbarrington 3y ago

Remote work and async comms means that latency tends to be high. Latency issues can be overcome by not stopping to wait at each decision point. For example, low latency this is ok: “do you want to go to dinner or a movie?” Movie. ”Do you want to see Barbie or Oppenheimer?” Oppenheimer. “Do you want to go at 6:00, 7:00, or 8:00?” 8:00. Instead for high latency, this will cut down on a lot of dead time in back and forth: “Do you want to dinner or see a movie? If you want dinner do you prefer to go to Il Capricio (Italian) or Sushi Go 55? I can make reservations at 6, 6:30, or 7. If you’d rather see a movie, do you want to see Barbie or Oppenheimer? Barbie is at 6:15, 7:20, and 8:15. Oppenheimer is at 6:00, 7:00, and 8:00.” Let’s do Oppenheimer at 8 It’s more work up front and any unchosen paths are “wasted effort”, but for work there’s usually value in fully exploring the alternate paths anyway.

bee_rider 3y ago
I feel socially uncomfortable asking a bunch of questions which have lots of dependencies, somehow it feels presumptuous and overwhelming. I’m not saying it actually is presumptuous, there’s every possibility that there’s a defect in my social skills. Somehow I’ve become more comfortable just proposing a complete plan, but also explicitly calling out the fact that it is actually totally up for discussion. So instead I’ll say something like: Want to see Oppenheimer at 5:30 on Sunday (n.b. I pulled that time completely out of my ass just to get the ball rolling, any time this weekend is fine on my end, and Barbie also looks good). Somehow it just feels more natural to me, I don’t know why. I like that it presents the person with a default-path, but also leaves everything up for discussion if necessary.

Aurornis 3y ago

The headline says “remote work” but then the article immediately talks about “asynchrony work”. These are two different topics. Async work can, and often should, happen in the office is well. Synchronous work is often required in remote work. A big stumbling block for remote work is the belief that remote means you shouldn’t have to interact with other people much. Some people like that idea, while for others it’s a big problem. Juniors especially struggle when their contact with other team members is forcibly reduced to narrow windows or very delayed responses to everything. Juniors shouldn’t be reaching for help at the first signs of struggle, of course, but some of the async work zealots push the concept so far that juniors are expected to be almost solo developers. As someone who has successfully worked remote for years, I worry about all of these ideologic prescriptions for how remote work must look. Most of the remote work failures and return to office mandates I’ve heard about in local companies have their roots in unrealistic ideas about remote work, both from the company side and the employee side. Having done this for years I think it’s important that people are still available for ad-hoc collaboration and conversation in company chat, within reason. Remote fails quickly when people take it as an invitation to isolate themselves and check e-mail or Slack once or twice per day. The only exceptions might be work that is highly repetitive and truly isolated, like an employee who can take an endless queue of similar tickets from Jira and do isolated work on the same tasks over and over again. Most engineering R&D work doesn’t look this isolated, though, so the model fails when forced on more traditional software development. I’ve also experienced the opposite extreme, where managers go remote and feel obligated to schedule meetings all day long. I had a short-lived remote job where my calendar was over 50% recurring meetings before even scheduling time to discuss work with peers that week. Predictably, nothing got done at that company and they are reluctant to let anyone work remote now.

briandswartz 3y ago
Well said. Curious: what does your current team / company do to enable the real-time ad-hoc conversations that need to happen? Are there conventions or tools that have helped? (full disclosure, we're building a platform that integrates with Calendar, Zoom, and Slack to try to solve this problem and let people turn to one another in real-time, without interrupting heads-down time. Would love to interview you for user research if you're up for it)

no_wizard 3y ago

What I have found is this inherently means re-wiring an organizations culture around async communications and trust. The biggest hurdle that I think many aren't able to get through is that remote work doesn't have the same "allowance" for ad hoc calls / face to face meetings like offices did. Not that those were great, by they are incredibly prevalent in an office setting and there was never enough industry wide pushback to these interruptions to really put a dent in them. Remote work has allowed workers to put some boundaries up around this and made their "tax" much easier to feel and quantify by workers in general. This is where I have found in a nut shell is why communication breaks down without re-wiring it from the ground up and ingraining the new remote work into the culture of the company. You can't just lift and shift the methods from one modality to the other

demondemidi 3y ago

these "hot takes" pick one job role and base their thesis on it. I work 100% remote, and I'm in meetings 25 hours a week. my job relies on other people doing theirs. but what can you expect from a 200 word "article" (with a TL;DR no less!) except click-baiting HN to reply with "Well at my job...". like i did.

ricardo81 3y ago

It's weird seeing all this content the past 3+ years about remote working as I've worked remotely for 20+ years. I'm not an authority on the matter (why would I be), just weird to see so much 'authority content' on it lately. Maybe there are more granular and data-driven conclusions, I'm just someone who sees the benefit of communicating information over vast distances aka the web and appreciate that it's something we can do nowadays. A message, SMS, phone call, a group call, a skype call or whatever can clear things up right quick. Plenty times I'll send someone an email because I don't want to engage with someone and the time frame of their reply can be minutes or days. That's fine. WFH/remote is all about trust from an employer and motivation by an employee. You're entirely free to communicate as much as you need to whether you're physically present or not. The work gets done or it does not. I don't really understand the confusion about this.

senttoschool 3y ago
There’s a difference between the population that worked remotely before and after Covid. The population before Covid were often highly experienced, disciplined, and proven workers. The population after Covid, was well, everyone who worked with a laptop. Not everyone is cut for working remotely. In addition, there’s a difference between 1 out 20 people working remotely full time and 20 out of 20.
- malfist 3y ago
  I've worked remotely for about 9 years now. At the start of the pandemic I'd argue there's a wide gulf between those who knew how to work remotely because they've done it for years, and those forced into it and still figuring it out. We spent 3 years in pandemic mode working from home for everyone. We've all figured it out by now. Go into the office if you'd like, but don't force everyone back to it.
  - repeekad 3y ago
    And between those who don’t want remote work. Who enjoy building real relationships with people and brain storming ideas on a whiteboard. Remote work feels like contracting, and when everyone is a contractor is it really a cohesive company?

leidenfrost 3y ago

Another (unrelated) problem with Remote work is how harder is to lose weight when you stop moving throughout the day. Before the pandemic, I usually got up to make coffee, to ask for help or to make consensus with my fellow coworkers (other devs or even UX people, a few stairs away). I usually walked from work from time to time to clear up my mind. Now I barely move. I live in a small apartment. The fridge is 3 meters away from me. Back then, I could somehow manage my weight by applying some casual restrictions, like eating fewer carbs and eat mostly lean cuts of meat. Now I need to apply some zen monk level of self control if I want to not gain more weight. And losing it is terribly hard.

WirelessGigabit 3y ago
For me it's the other way. I used to drive to work. Now I walk before and after work.
malfist 3y ago
Maybe for you. Working from home means I make healthy lunches for me. It's a lot easier to eat right when you have a full kitchen and pantry at your disposal.
- leidenfrost 3y ago
  I made my lunch the day before and carried it on a small tupperware (how are these called?) Wasn't as great as fresh food but at least I made sure it was healthy.
katbyte 3y ago
Opposite for me, wfh means healthier lunches, more time and flexibility to be active . The short walk to transit (of not driving) doesn’t come close
- repeekad 3y ago
  It’s not for everyone, but people who don’t already have an entire life outside of work struggle to start one when the majority of your day is spent alone staring at a screen. The idea that socializing at work is a bad thing I think isolated a huge number of people who used to thrive on work relations and didn’t need a huge number of close friends outside of work to be happy.

boredumb 3y ago

Remote work requires asynchronously communicating more.

lettergram 3y ago

I think gaming is very similar to remote working. You log in when you sit down, put in your headset and typically are available. Work isn’t much different. My team leaves zoom standup open all day, we break into conversations all the time. It both (a) keeps everyone engaged and (b) removes blockers fast. That said, we setup side “rooms” we can move in and out of. There is also the option not to be accessible, but it’s typical to be available

briandswartz 3y ago
How long have you been doing this? Curious, bc many teams tried something like this but it fizzled after 3-4 months. (full disclosure, we're building a platform that integrates with Zoom to visualize all these rooms, and who is in them, so people can hop into the rooms where people currently are, and know when someone isn't available before joining, etc. would love to interview you for user research if you're up for it)
- lettergram 3y ago
  Lol given that it fizzled out… seems weird to me what you’re building? To answer your question — many years

djha-skin 3y ago

> allowing the system to optimize for throughput and flow. Sometimes you need lots of small synchronous communications and sometimes you need and fewer large asynchronous communications. Large asynchronous communications work when everyone already knows what they're doing. They work at a company which has already figured out its business model, built out its necessary expertise, and saturated its market, where everyone's a senior engineer. Like, I don't know, GitHub, where the OP works as a Director of Engineering. Frequent synchronous communications allow for tight coordination in the face of business risk. This is the startup world, the "we're-still-figuring-out-what-we're-doing", "maybe-this-will-work-maybe-not" area of the company stability spectrum. Also this is the area where junior devs are with their careers, so this model is best for them, too. This reminds me of parameters that can be used to tune garbage collection. Collectors can either be tuned for throughput, or availability, but not both. Throughput optimization translates to long stop-the-world GC pauses, where availability translates to more frequent, but smaller pauses so the application is available to take traffic. It also reminds me of a soccer player trying to control a soccer ball. Getting the ball down the field (throughput) is often via a single really hard kick. It's fine if control is reduced, it's throughput that is needed when the ball is too far away from the goal. Conversely, controlling the ball downfield requires lots and lots of tiny touches of the foot. One final comment: asynchronous works great for open source, so why not business? In short: business has a deadline, (hobbyist-run) open source often does not. This being the case, it's fine if the communication takes a little longer. But in a time-critical project, synchronous communication is still our friend.

esafak 3y ago
> asynchronous works great for open source, so why not business? Hold your horses. Your constant synchronous communication reduces the aggregate throughput by increasing context switching, which incurs dead time for the interrupted parties as they refocus on their task. A better way is to reserve synchronous communication for urgent requests, and time block (batch) or async the rest.

tra3 3y ago

Any tips for working with a remote micromanager? Constant “can you talk now?”, even though we have a daily 1:1 scheduled in an hour. Written daily updates in slack followed by 45 minute stand up. I already try to overcommunicate, but it does not stem the interruptions and it’s certainly not asynchronous. Frequent “how’s it going” an hour after stand up, and before and after the 1:1. How do I push back?

tomtheelder 3y ago
IMO you try these in order: - Direct feedback to the manager about your needing space to work and their disruptive behavior. - Same feedback to their manager. - Look for new jobs. There’s no way to solve this that avoids direct feedback and the possibility of confrontation.
- tra3 3y ago
  Confrontation seems like the nuclear option so I’d like to avoid that. In the spirit of incremental improvement, what’s the smallest action that you’d recommend that I can take?
  - bluefishinit 3y ago
    Reach out and have a chat with a recruiter. Tell them about your situation (it's very unhealthy) and skill set and see what they have to say. You're currently employed, which is a great place to be while you look for new work. Have them bring you opportunities that are not just better than your current situation, but align with your ideal situation.
  - marcod 3y ago
    I don't think things will improve if you don't say it's an issue (to either your mgr or theirs). If you say "hey, I'm the middle of working on X. Can't this wait until we have our 1:1?" do you think that wouldn't be well received? Also, maybe give them some information on how expensive context switching is.
  - jdance 3y ago

throwawayfear 3y ago

Remote work requires more direct and straightforward communication. Ideally in writing only because then there's no bullshit happening off-the-record in calls where people are clearly just wasting time or trying to annoy other people with bullshit. You can notice this the most when someone who is not good at their job or not technical or not interested in the product is always resorting to calls and constant communication. That's micromanagement culture. I do not think this means more communication. It means less time spent communicating and more time spent working on your area. What on earth are you all working on that requires constant communication?

Aaronstotle 3y ago

I don't enjoy fully remote work, it is too isolating for me. I enjoy being able to talk with my co-workers in person if I there's an issue, I think Hybrid is a good middle ground.

azza2110 3y ago

I've found it's best to use a combination of written and spoken word, when trying to communicate more, but less frequently. i.e. - Write a set of concise, clear, well-structured discussion notes ahead of a meeting - Give all attendees time to pre-read the notes and flag the specific points requiring deeper discussion - Once face-to-face, discuss ONLY those flagged topics. Don't waste the opportunity for high-bandwidth communication on the notes/topics that aren't contentious.

wduquette 3y ago

This is how I've been working for years, since before COVID. (Except for videos; I don't do videos.) As another commenter noted, this might not work as well for junior engineers. If I were mentoring/guiding/working with a junior engineer I would plan on being available for one-on-one interactions.

fnord77 3y ago

An article just in time for the end of (most) remote work

qxxx 3y ago

in my current role at my current company, the opposite is the case. Daily sometimes hour long meetings talking about features and some crap and less time for the actual work. I hate it. Because I love to code, but I am constantly distracted. Everyone wants something from me... some people ask if I have time, some simply call, even if I am in another meeting already.

briandswartz 3y ago
Curious: do you use DND in Slack or block your calendar in an effort to protect your focus time? (full disclosure, we're building a platform that integrates with Calendar / Zoom / Slack to visualize who is available, who's in a mtg, and who is in Focus Mode - the idea being to help people turn to one another in real-time, but without distracting people who need to focus. Would love to interview you for user research if you're up for it)

tonystubblebine 3y ago

We're struggling with this (80 people) and basically decided we have to get the entire company together twice a year. I'm not saying this is any perfect best practice, just that there is something that always gets lost in translation when we are remote. That gets cleared up instantly when we are together.

briandswartz 3y ago
But what do you do for the weeks and months in between? Like, how do people turn to one another in real time? (full disclosure, we're building a platform that integrates with Calendar, Zoom, and Slack to try to solve this problem and let people turn to one another in real-time, without interrupting heads-down time. Would love to interview you for user research if you're up for it)

civilized 3y ago

I think the most efficient way of communicating is about the same whether you're in an office or remote: - If you have a deep technical problem that you already understand a lot of the context for, and you can explain it like an expert Stack Overflow user, then use writing to ask someone who might be able to help you. - If you're a newbie to this context, don't know what you're dealing with, and there's no documentation that you can understand, write a much shorter message focusing on the immediate issue and ask if it might be most efficient jump on a call, ideally with screen share. - If you're somewhere in between, do your best to set up the problem in writing, but don't overthink it or assume too much about what your helper needs to know. Again ask if a call with screen share might be more efficient. Basically, always use writing to start, but adjust the length of the message based on your ability to set up the problem for your helper. And if it's urgent, hopefully there's some way you can ping or notify the person. More generally, the more you can predict about how the conversation should go, what details are needed by the other person, the better it is to use writing. The less you can predict, the better it is to use a synchronous medium, such as in-person conversation or a call with screen share. And if you find yourself always needing synchronous media, I would suggest that you try to do more to retain and document knowledge in writing, so that you're not always going back to square one every time you need to solve a problem. After a few months working in some area, it should be increasingly possible to ask expert questions in writing.

SSchick 3y ago

Maybe tangential but: Recently joined a new company that is remote first with a fair amount of juniors in it. It's rather difficult since they often lack guidance and start rabbit-holing in the wrong direction before eventually failing or producing a very non-ideal solution. For us a pure asynchronous comms workflow simply doesn't work well yet, this may change w/ more seniority. I found that having weekly (or even bi-weekly) 1:1's with my colleagues and pair/cowork dramatically lowers communication barriers and boosts productivity through the roof (albeit at the expense of 2 people working on the same project). Major issues can surface when colleagues don't communicate at all other than just pull requests / issues / standups / design docs (whatever you call them). It can cause people to perceive others are 'faceless entities'. This can range from building completely misaligned solutions to even sparking interpersonal conflict.

willio58 3y ago
One thing my team does is we have a daily quick standup meeting where at the end we all have the option to stay on. The room is set up to always be accessible by anyone who wants to join and many of us sit in the room camera/mic on or off all day just in case someone wants to ask a quick question. If the conversation gets to be really long between two people in the room we will split off into a breakout room. I love this method, and it's all optional so the days where I want to focus on work I can just leave after standup. Most days I stay in to either help people out or ask questions myself.
- briandswartz 3y ago
  How long have you been doing this? Curious, bc many teams tried something like this but it fizzled after 3-4 months. (full disclosure, we're building a platform that integrates with Zoom to visualize all these rooms, and who is in them, so people can hop into the rooms where people currently are, and know when someone isn't available before joining, etc. would love to interview you for user research if you're up for it)
  - willio58 3y ago
    So far 14 months and counting. It's great for giving a hybrid work feel, especially for people who like that sort of thing, without the actual requirement to live near the office or commute daily.

deleted 3y ago

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KronisLV 3y ago

> Instead of relying on constant, synchronous, and often interrupt-driven interactions, remote workers embrace asynchronous, and often higher-fidelity, forms of communication, such as long-form writing or thoughtful videos. This has actually been difficult for some people to get used to, since they much preferred synchronous communication (calls) or drip feeding information (what they need, spread over multiple messages, starting out with a simple "hey"). I actually made a site a while back to elaborate on how to make others do context switching a bit less often, maybe it's helpful to some here: https://quick-answers.kronis.dev/ https://quick-answers.kronis.dev/ (the other guides that I found online about this had a bit of a mocking tone) Of course, there are also times when you do need a bit of synchronous communication too, which is also fine.

platz 3y ago

The precise concept of "more" in this article is dubious.

jensensbutton 3y ago

> asynchronous communication involves less frequent, but richer communication Problem is that most people aren't good at written communication. They're passable, but not good. This means the communication isn't actually "richer" it's just longer. The rise of remote has led to so many wasted hours (for the author and readers) due to RFCs and proposals that just never had the chance of going anywhere, because the people that could help don't have time to figure out what the author is actually asking for or trying to get done. Then people whine about how no one is listening to their great ideas.

5350-uiop-1130 3y ago

f--k the "office" and f--k the soulless two-faced corpo-goblins who thrive within it. never going back. in 20-30 years i'll be worm food. not going to waste anymore time rotting in an office. f---k no.

gumballindie 3y ago
Amen brother. People fail to understand that rotting in an office is not the type of memory you want when life flashes in front of your eyes on your death bed. Imagine sitting there, and all you see is a bunch of scrum meetings and planning sessions followed by scuttlebutt with someone your dread gossiping about someone you don't even know, thinking they are your friends.
mvdtnz 3y ago
This kind of contribution is completely unhelpful but yeah great for harvesting upvotes I guess.

sharts 3y ago

It SHOULD require richer less frequent communication (in fact, ALL work communication should probably be done that way). In practice, it is the complete opposite with context switching on steroids brought to you by Slack channels.

Brystephor 3y ago

I graduated from school in Spring 2020 and started working in Aug 2020. In that timeframe, I had not been inside an employers office more than 3 times. Since Mar 2023, we've had a "mandatory" 4 days in office every week. Here's what I've experienced since going the office: * Occasionally I'll get a good conversation with a teammate or manager about something technical, but the frequency has not gone up. The technical conversations are still scheduled on a calendar and happen at the same frequency. I really haven't experienced many people stopping at my desk and I think I've only stopped at the junior engineers desk to check in. * Socializing at work has not been my strong suit. I am pretty introverted when it comes to strangers (e.g. anyone who has not been introduced to me). I find the socializing to be more energy draining. * I walk to work. I like that typically. The walk can be... disturbing to say the least since I walk through downtown Seattle. * A lot of people in the office prefer to speak to each other in languages other than english. Everyone on my team (my manager + all my coworkers on my team) prefer speaking something other than english and do so unless I'm involved in the conversation. This surprised me and at times I find it frustrating because I wish I could know what they're chatting about when it's technical (certain keywords I can pickup on since they're the name of internal things). * working in office 4 days a week has given me something to really look forward to each week, and that's the WFH day. * I don't think my productivity has gone up. Some days it's definitely worse. Now there's an obligation to go sit and eat with others for 30min-1hr a day. Previously, I'd just bring my lunch to my desk and continue to work. I don't think my experience is the norm. But I certainly miss the pure WFH days.

phowat 3y ago
I feel as if people have changed. I'm back in the office twice a week now and the good conversations and socializing parts just don't seem be happening like they were previously to the pandemic. I'm not sure what to think of it and maybe in some time, things will be more like it used to.
- spookthesunset 3y ago
  Partly because a lot of these companies “return to office” took away all the cool stuff like sitting next to your team, having an actual desk of your own, etc. I just want one single place that is actual 2019 normal. None of this BS hotdesk crap.

mvdtnz 3y ago

Is this some kind of ChatGPT output? While I agree with the message, the writing feels forced, intentional and fake because every other sentence uses exactly three verbs or adjectives in order to engage, provoke and clarify. Sometimes twice in one sentence! "relying on constant, synchronous, and often interrupt-driven interactions" "Async work allows for more reflection, research, and synthesis" "Those working async can and should take the time to think, learn, and synthesize before sharing their ideas, opinions, or solutions" "form of communication for the purpose, audience, and context" "use writing for documenting, explaining, or persuading; use video for demonstrating, teaching, or storytelling; use chat for coordinating, clarifying, or socializing" "Write clearly, concisely, and comprehensively" "using simple language, short sentences, and clear structure" "provide enough detail, context, and evidence to support their points, answer potential questions, and avoid ambiguity." "Record videos with empathy, enthusiasm, and engagement" "using eye contact, facial expressions, and voice modulation" "keep their videos short, focused, and interactive, using visuals, examples, and questions" "Communicate proactively, regularly, and asynchronously" "communicate their goals, plans, and updates without waiting for prompts, requests, or deadlines" "communicate their availability, boundaries, and preferences" "using synchronous communication only for urgent, complex, or sensitive matters"

anoojb 3y ago

I was recently told by my manager (large FAANG) that I should never expect my skip manager or above to respond to my messages/emails. I should always book time on their calendar. After 2 years, this was when I knew that this particular manager was struggling with the same problems in the local working unit and that leadership at the VP-level (externally hired) was totally inaccessible to help make critical decisions. It's a tough job market, but I'm looking more ferociously than ever as of this week.

tdiff 3y ago

Am I the only one who finds that author gives very little details about what "working asynchronously" is and how it actually functions, focusing mostly on some benefits it ought to provide or some other behaviours benefital in traditional office life as well?

deleted 3y ago

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AntiRemote 3y ago

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nsonha 3y ago

Why is everyone pretending that remote work is some drastic change? I remember back when I worked in an office, we communicated in the same channels, same frequencies (github, slack). The only new channel now is video calling, which simply replaces meeting rooms, same frequency too.