4 ms·

Does your team use Slack (or something similar). Don't you get random pings, mentions or calls for help/input. Is there an expectation around for you to respond

by donbox 3y ago

Does your team use Slack (or something similar). Don't you get random pings, mentions or calls for help/input. Is there an expectation around for you to respond within a short period. I have been 100% WFH since last 5 years and I am only productive after 5 pm.

wood_spirit 3y ago
Yes a big downside from wfh is that you don’t need to book a meeting room :( This means people can book meetings when people are free instead of being limited by the availability and preplanning of big enough rooms!
codingdave 3y ago
You can ignore those random pings of all kinds until you at a good place to stop what you are doing and help out. If you are responding to all of those the second they come in, you are encouraging the problem by building a culture of over-responsiveness. I've been on teams where we explicitly defined expected response times. 2 hours was the typical answer on teams where I've worked. I've also been on teams that didn't define the expectation, but nobody I work with expects Slack to be real-time. The only time we respond quickly is when we have first asked, "Hey, let me know when you have a couple minutes to chat." And then I either stick around until they have time and quickly have the chat/huddle... or if they don't respond and I need to step away, I delete my message. It sounds counter-intuitive but you can often build a better remote culture by being a little less responsive.
Jcampuzano2 3y ago
My team does use Slack, but I just have it muted for most channels and check it in predefined intervals. I don't have DM's muted but we also don't have a culture of DM'ing people, calls for help are posted in designated channels. In my opinion and experience there are very few issues that require you to actually respond immediately, I just find many teams don't understand this. Everyone thinks their specific issue is the highest priority thing going on, and I'd say product teams are especially bad about this. Asking for status updates all too often and interrupting developers days just for small things that could've been done at a scheduled time or just been an email. Obviously this can somewhat depend on your role since your role may be something that tends to require immediate intervention. But I check Slack once every 30 min to an 1 hour or so and have no issues with my response times.

by donbox 3y ago

wood_spirit 3y ago

Yes a big downside from wfh is that you don’t need to book a meeting room :( This means people can book meetings when people are free instead of being limited by the availability and preplanning of big enough rooms!

codingdave 3y ago

You can ignore those random pings of all kinds until you at a good place to stop what you are doing and help out. If you are responding to all of those the second they come in, you are encouraging the problem by building a culture of over-responsiveness. I've been on teams where we explicitly defined expected response times. 2 hours was the typical answer on teams where I've worked. I've also been on teams that didn't define the expectation, but nobody I work with expects Slack to be real-time. The only time we respond quickly is when we have first asked, "Hey, let me know when you have a couple minutes to chat." And then I either stick around until they have time and quickly have the chat/huddle... or if they don't respond and I need to step away, I delete my message. It sounds counter-intuitive but you can often build a better remote culture by being a little less responsive.

Jcampuzano2 3y ago

My team does use Slack, but I just have it muted for most channels and check it in predefined intervals. I don't have DM's muted but we also don't have a culture of DM'ing people, calls for help are posted in designated channels. In my opinion and experience there are very few issues that require you to actually respond immediately, I just find many teams don't understand this. Everyone thinks their specific issue is the highest priority thing going on, and I'd say product teams are especially bad about this. Asking for status updates all too often and interrupting developers days just for small things that could've been done at a scheduled time or just been an email. Obviously this can somewhat depend on your role since your role may be something that tends to require immediate intervention. But I check Slack once every 30 min to an 1 hour or so and have no issues with my response times.