5 ms·

You describe what sounds like slow moving places. When rapid reactions are required then even just being able to hear commotion a few rows of seats away can be

You describe what sounds like slow moving places. When rapid reactions are required then even just being able to hear commotion a few rows of seats away can be quite valuable. Doesn't mean people cannot write questions well, but sometimes forcing attention now matters.

runako 3y ago
I'm not saying people shouldn't go to the office. I'm just saying there are a number of downsides to encouraging walking over to someone's desk to ask a question as a primary mode of knowledge exchange. These downsides have been enumerated at length in The Discourse. On the other side of the ledge is mostly "qualitative" arguments lacking in specifics. The main thing is there are real trade-offs for the staff and organization, and those tend to get overlooked in favor of lifestyle or sunk RE cost arguments.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  Do you think soldiers in battle should send well crafted emails instead of shouting or just acting on observations? Not sure things are just "qualitative"...
  - gedy 3y ago
    Let's get real, white collar tech work is nothing like battles. Even outages are not that dramatic.
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      Not like physical danger, but can lose a lot of money in minutes in some places.
  - runako 3y ago
    Absolutely wild to take a discussion about "Return to Office" and pivot to soldiers in battle. Solid B for trolling. Would be A-caliber except effective militaries write a lot and use written words as a key part of their command and control. (I will escalate your "soldiers in battle" and ask whether you think launch command on a nuclear submarine would launch nuclear missiles solely on the basis of a quick call?)
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      I know, actually, but any place relying very strongly on formalised communication over dynamic approaches tends to underperform anyway (and militaries relearn that every so often), so all this stuff will resolve itself over time anyway. The non-social crowd will lose out, just give it time. Btw., depending on country and situation, nuclear missile submarines can actually have wide latitude on decisions.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >there are real trade-offs for the staff and organization, and those tend to get overlooked in favor of lifestyle or sunk RE cost arguments. Employees are given some power and time back for the first time in decades after the opposite relationship ended up with being overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated as they are dropped at a moment's notice. So yea, I'm not surprised people aren't sympathizing for the companies who boasted about making record profits over the pandemic and suddenly they need to "downsize". burning decades of trust and goodwill has consequences. Also, extremes rarely help. I'm not a manager, so even in office there are only people on my immediate team or a specific person or 2 I am working directly with on another team that I would do that with. When it is expected and we have the same tasks in mind. Even then it's better to get stuff in writing where possible so I'd rather send a message, even if it's just so I can give them 10-15 minutes to think over before I walk to them.
gingerrr 3y ago
What urgent outages are you having that can't be circulated with a quick "hey is ___ down for you" in a shared org channel? Also, you still have to get up and walk over to the hubbub to find out what's happening, then walk back before digging into the issue - in that time you could have just read the slack message and been fixing. You're inventing solutions to a problem that actually worsen the issue. edit: also, automated alerting solves literally all your problems here - and that should be an investment even if you're at a company with 100% RTO. Your first line of alert will still be digital in that case. If you're waiting to hear panicked seatmates to solve issues you're sure not worried about immediacy.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  It would be nice to know every failure mode or possible reason for intervention in advance, but not always the case. I find it interesting that there is this strong belief that how people organize and work together in certain businesses is generally done wrong. How would you know? A lot of critical interactions might not be tech-tech, but tech-business, for example.

runako 3y ago

I'm not saying people shouldn't go to the office. I'm just saying there are a number of downsides to encouraging walking over to someone's desk to ask a question as a primary mode of knowledge exchange. These downsides have been enumerated at length in The Discourse. On the other side of the ledge is mostly "qualitative" arguments lacking in specifics. The main thing is there are real trade-offs for the staff and organization, and those tend to get overlooked in favor of lifestyle or sunk RE cost arguments.

RandomLensman 3y ago
Do you think soldiers in battle should send well crafted emails instead of shouting or just acting on observations? Not sure things are just "qualitative"...
- gedy 3y ago
  Let's get real, white collar tech work is nothing like battles. Even outages are not that dramatic.
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    Not like physical danger, but can lose a lot of money in minutes in some places.
- runako 3y ago
  Absolutely wild to take a discussion about "Return to Office" and pivot to soldiers in battle. Solid B for trolling. Would be A-caliber except effective militaries write a lot and use written words as a key part of their command and control. (I will escalate your "soldiers in battle" and ask whether you think launch command on a nuclear submarine would launch nuclear missiles solely on the basis of a quick call?)
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    I know, actually, but any place relying very strongly on formalised communication over dynamic approaches tends to underperform anyway (and militaries relearn that every so often), so all this stuff will resolve itself over time anyway. The non-social crowd will lose out, just give it time. Btw., depending on country and situation, nuclear missile submarines can actually have wide latitude on decisions.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>there are real trade-offs for the staff and organization, and those tend to get overlooked in favor of lifestyle or sunk RE cost arguments. Employees are given some power and time back for the first time in decades after the opposite relationship ended up with being overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated as they are dropped at a moment's notice. So yea, I'm not surprised people aren't sympathizing for the companies who boasted about making record profits over the pandemic and suddenly they need to "downsize". burning decades of trust and goodwill has consequences. Also, extremes rarely help. I'm not a manager, so even in office there are only people on my immediate team or a specific person or 2 I am working directly with on another team that I would do that with. When it is expected and we have the same tasks in mind. Even then it's better to get stuff in writing where possible so I'd rather send a message, even if it's just so I can give them 10-15 minutes to think over before I walk to them.

gingerrr 3y ago

What urgent outages are you having that can't be circulated with a quick "hey is ___ down for you" in a shared org channel? Also, you still have to get up and walk over to the hubbub to find out what's happening, then walk back before digging into the issue - in that time you could have just read the slack message and been fixing. You're inventing solutions to a problem that actually worsen the issue. edit: also, automated alerting solves literally all your problems here - and that should be an investment even if you're at a company with 100% RTO. Your first line of alert will still be digital in that case. If you're waiting to hear panicked seatmates to solve issues you're sure not worried about immediacy.

RandomLensman 3y ago
It would be nice to know every failure mode or possible reason for intervention in advance, but not always the case. I find it interesting that there is this strong belief that how people organize and work together in certain businesses is generally done wrong. How would you know? A lot of critical interactions might not be tech-tech, but tech-business, for example.