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I've worked for two types of WFH company - the kind where everybody is kind of just left to their own devices and the highly collaborative kind. I think a lot

by pydry 3y ago

I've worked for two types of WFH company - the kind where everybody is kind of just left to their own devices and the highly collaborative kind. I think a lot of people really like the former but I don't think it works very well. There's a marked tendency of many people to drift apart and communication breaks down within and across teams and the fallout it quite ugly - a lot of people individually doing their jobs (and perhaps doing them well), but nothing really fits together very well. I personally found working in this environment to be torture because my work felt performative and meaningless. I find that the highly collaborative kind works about as well as working in person - possibly better. However, I think it's only really possible with a lot of camera-on video calls which many people find quite draining.

photonthug 3y ago
Things “fitting together” is generally on management though. Can’t speak for other industries but if you leave this up to engineers then they settle down into something like design by contract, or you write my tests I’ll write yours, etc. management often actively resists that with or without wfh because they don’t get to run fiefdoms on the strengths of their network and charisma, look important by forcing meetings, etc. So effectively you have middle management failing to be fulfilled at an emotional level as well as failing at a professional level to do management, and their plan to deal with this is to first blame others, then try to convince leadership to kill wfh for line workers before anyone notices the real problem. Nothing against any individuals out there, just seen these things play out a lot and have been having the wfh discussions since long before Covid. Technical alignment is easy in a sense because it’s clear when two ends of a bridge don’t meet in the middle. Product people or department heads have a harder time of things, but if I were a ceo, I don’t want to buy office space for 2500 when 25 will do. It’s kind of evil to advocate for back-to-office if you know it’s good for you, but bad for both the company and your coworkers, and I expect many of the most vocal advocates know these things in their secret hearts
anal_reactor 3y ago
> I find that the highly collaborative kind works about as well as working in person - possibly better. However, I think it's only really possible with a lot of camera-on video calls which many people find quite draining. I think it's something else. It's providing space for employees to interact spontaneously. In software there's a huge push to have everything public and recorded, which makes me very cautious about how I present myself. When I switch to private messages, I get much higher sense of connection with the other person, because I don't need to stay that formal.

by pydry 3y ago

photonthug 3y ago

Things “fitting together” is generally on management though. Can’t speak for other industries but if you leave this up to engineers then they settle down into something like design by contract, or you write my tests I’ll write yours, etc. management often actively resists that with or without wfh because they don’t get to run fiefdoms on the strengths of their network and charisma, look important by forcing meetings, etc. So effectively you have middle management failing to be fulfilled at an emotional level as well as failing at a professional level to do management, and their plan to deal with this is to first blame others, then try to convince leadership to kill wfh for line workers before anyone notices the real problem. Nothing against any individuals out there, just seen these things play out a lot and have been having the wfh discussions since long before Covid. Technical alignment is easy in a sense because it’s clear when two ends of a bridge don’t meet in the middle. Product people or department heads have a harder time of things, but if I were a ceo, I don’t want to buy office space for 2500 when 25 will do. It’s kind of evil to advocate for back-to-office if you know it’s good for you, but bad for both the company and your coworkers, and I expect many of the most vocal advocates know these things in their secret hearts

anal_reactor 3y ago

> I find that the highly collaborative kind works about as well as working in person - possibly better. However, I think it's only really possible with a lot of camera-on video calls which many people find quite draining. I think it's something else. It's providing space for employees to interact spontaneously. In software there's a huge push to have everything public and recorded, which makes me very cautious about how I present myself. When I switch to private messages, I get much higher sense of connection with the other person, because I don't need to stay that formal.