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This by the way is an excellent argument against home office for professions where innovation plays an important role. I don’t think we’ll ever see a Wikipedia

• vdvsvwvwvwvwv 2y ago
  Not entirely convinced. The tradeoff is in-office you need to sit next to someone. Remote you can talk to anyone in the world. But it is the role of good WFH culture to avoid siloing of people.
  • lazide 2y ago
    Except you don’t actually talk (as in have a real conversation) with anyone on Teams.
    • danaris 2y ago
      Maybe you don't. I've never had any trouble having real conversations on online platforms, whether for work or otherwise.
      • lazide 2y ago
        Research shows, that is about as accurate as saying a Twinkie is real food. Not completely wrong, but…
        • deleted 2y ago
          [deleted]
        • danaris 2y ago
          [Citation needed]? I've not heard of any research that shows that it's impossible to have meaningful conversations on these platforms. And please note the distinction between "it is impossible to have such conversations" and "some people (especially less tech-savvy people) have a harder time having such conversations" on these platforms. Teams/Slack/Discord/etc is just another communication medium. Once our society has, collectively, had more of a chance to get used to them, and once we're no longer dealing with an entire generation who were bad managers before the personal computer even existed (</hyperbole>), I wager you'll see a lot less complaining about the medium itself.
          • lazide 2y ago
            [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9771703/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9771703/] [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35648039/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35648039/] And overview [https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-brain-body-connection/202205/your-brain-and-zoom-fatigue?amp https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-brain-body-con...]
            • danaris 2y ago
              OK: all three of those are specifically about "Zoom fatigue". None of them in any way address the issue at hand, which is the ability to engage in meaningful conversations over online platforms such as Teams and Slack.
              • lazide 2y ago
                You’re moving the goalposts quite a bit. I said they weren’t the same as in person. The reason for zoom fatigue, as the papers call out, is because zoom or similar is fundamentally different than actual in person conversations. They are missing something important. Several things which are important, actually. Just like twinkies vs ‘real food’.
                • danaris 2y ago
                  Your post that I originally responded to: > Except you don’t actually talk (as in have a real conversation) with anyone on Teams. That is the specific argument that I am refuting: that your experience of not being able to "have a real conversation" on Teams, etc, is universal, rather than just being your experience, which cannot be extrapolated from without gathering significant extra data. "People get Zoom fatigue from having too many video meetings (especially in the first 2 years of regularly using video meetings after never using them before)" is not the same thing, and does not prove that these technologies are impossible to use as a replacement for in-person meetings on a wide scale.
                  • 2y ago
  • _ea1k 2y ago
    TBH, I've been on teams where the chat was a constant stream of activity. It works really well and involves a lot of people that might not be involved in decisions otherwise. I've also seen the room be quiet way too much on some teams. This is always bad, but hard to fix.
    • starkparker 2y ago
      The worst is when the team chat rooms are quiet because each member is in several private rooms or group-chat conversations doing the actual work in there. Regardless of the reasoning, it's toxic to WFH/remote work, even in the short-term. And it's outright sabotage in the long run when it's time for someone who wasn't invited to the "correct" chats to onboard a new hire who ends up needing some context that exists only in someone else's private chat.
      • vdvsvwvwvwvwv 2y ago
        I try to move into team chats. If I have a private chat that ends up with useful info I will dump it on Confluence. Keep things searchable!
      • Yizahi 2y ago
        In my very limited experience this happens when managers (above team leads) insist on being present in chat rooms. No offense to any manager in this topic, I know that you mean no harm in 99.9% of cases and that you do want to make things better, but honestly your presence creates a chiller effect. Jokes are no go, because who knows, maybe this one will be interpreted badly. Local questions are no go, because you can't ask them during work time (he's slacking!), you can't ask anything which can even remotely be treated as improper. Can't show that you lack knowledge in things which should be obvious, can't banter about colleagues or about work in non-positive way. And the list goes on. We have a chat with 100 people which started as a meme and joke one, a lot of people were posting funny stuff there. Now the last meme picture posted there in mid october, and the second to last was in august. And the only people posting there at all, even sirius stuff, are the 3-4 teamleads very close to the management. Same shit in the chat of immigrants, we have a quite a few semi-permanent relocants on the projects, but manager is not one of them and is still present in that chat room. No one posts there, everyone talks either behind the scenes (because there are a lot of questions for people in new country) or in the independent big chats outside of the company. And again, it's not like our managers are bad, quite the contrary, they are very good professionally and personally. And we don't have layoffs. But people still won't talk in the presence of even mid level management, it's an instinct of sorts I guess :) . PS: this is only about informal optional chats. All work chats are never hidden or avoided. We divide them by program, Slack for work and Telegram for fluff.
• AgentOrange1234 2y ago
  Fair enough. As one potential mitigation, I’ve consistently had deep mentorship conversations over the phone. For me, I think voice-only is actually much better than in person.
  • throwaway2037 2y ago
    > For me, I think voice-only is actually much better than in person. This is interesting. Can you explain why? To be clear: I don't doubt you, but I have never seen a comment so specific about this matter. I would like to learn more. For one, I assume you said "voice-only" specifically to exclude video calls, which are a special kind of hell, when compared to in-person discussions. (Staring at yourself and only seeing the other person's head always struck me as a bit weird / artificial / Uncanny Valley-ish.)
    • AgentOrange1234 2y ago
      Interesting question. I agree that video calls are a special hell. I think I am reasonably high functioning in in-person settings, but I suspect I don’t read body language very well. I find eye contact difficult to maintain for reasons I do not know. On the phone, I feel like conversations can be slower and more deliberate. I feel a freedom in not having to control my expressions and show my interest. I can just focus entirely on their voice, and I feel I have become very adept at this. I love podcasts and audiobooks and such, maybe there is a connection. My wife describes very differently dynamics. She wants to meet with folks in person to “read” them better. She thinks my preference for phone only makes no sense.
      • throwaway2037 2y ago
        This is a great reply. You are someone who has thought deeply about this matter. Thank you to share! > I find eye contact difficult to maintain for reasons I do not know. Years ago, I asked my mother why she always sits next to my father when they go out to eat, instead of across (face-to-face). She told me: "It's less pressure vs face-to-face." To be clear, I would describe my mother as a social normie (not autistic), but it really struck me. Over the years, I have changed my seating style to sit next to people (even when only two of us). For me, it makes a difference. Side by side, you can kind of talk forward or slightly angled and the other person can hear you very well (assuming no hearing disability!), but you don't need to make constant eye contact. That said, from time to time, you really want to make a point, and you tug on their sleeve or turn your head... you make eye contact, but for a short time. (Also: Without dragging on too long about this topic: You can more easily make physical contact -- touch! -- which can really help to connect, even in non-romantic settings.) I'm not trying to run away from eye contact, but my mother's comment was insightful: In-person need not always be constant eye contact.
• regularfry 2y ago
  Not necessarily. There's no clear indication that you need full time (or even an amount of time measured in "X days per month") to get these benefits.
• Yizahi 2y ago
  Did you or anyone else has actually observe any such processes? I mean employees A and B meeting at any place which is not a workplace or any of them (because meeting at workplace means one of the pair has come specifically to another, and that is mostly equivalent to calling that person by phone, on full remote) and there spontaneously talked about work topics generating previously unheard idea useful for the company? If the and answer is yes, then what was the rate of such encounters per number of employees? And finally - honestly answer yourself - does this minuscule probability worth the ~30 full awake days in every years of life, of every employee? (2 hours commute per 250 days in a year, then divide by 16 awake hours per day) For me the answer is obvious - it is not even remotely equal in value to such a gigantic time waste. If that super brainstorming even real at all. Personally I've never observed this.
  • blub 2y ago
    I don’t think about this at all in terms of numbers. Home office nudges towards isolation and lack of physical activity, while the office nudges towards interaction, moving at least a little bit and face to face interactions. No matter the outliers, the latter are considered universally good. I’ve noticed that when I am in the office I usually have nice conversations with colleagues at lunch, that are good for my well-being. Sometimes we discuss interesting news from work, or their projects or other technical topics. We’re not Bell Labs of decades ago so the impact is obviously not large, but it exists. My commute is 15m by bike. Even so I don’t look forward to going to the office because of various factors, but I do usually enjoy it when I’m there.
    • PawgerZ 2y ago
      > Home office nudges towards isolation and lack of physical activity You say this as if it's a fact, but with an extra 1-3 hours of my day freed up, it's a lot easier to get into the gym or visit my friends and family. Personally, I was more active and less isolated when I worked from home.
    • Yizahi 2y ago
      I like talking to colleagues in person too, it just doesn't worth 1 month of my life per year. And 1 hour commute was really a median, we had people taking longer commute. Even for me if there was any rain/snow/accident on the route it would jump to 1.5h or more. And that is inside the city, I'm not even mentioning people who commute from the suburbs. 15 min is a really privileged option. Also even if someone wins in the commute lottery, it most likely doesn't transfer to the next job and commute would be much worse.
• thyrsus 2y ago
  Anecdata: I work from home and spend about a quarter of my time helping colleagues.
• sevensor 2y ago
  I think you’re wrong, but in an important way that deserves discussion, so please enjoy an upvote. First of all, innovation and productivity are not necessarily connected, and in many cases innovation is not at all what management wants or the business needs. (Using Jira is a sure sign that management does not want innovation, yet we see it in widespread practice.) Second, the quality of the colleagues males a huge difference. Not every workplace is golden age Bell Labs. Most people don’t have a Nyquist down the hall. I used to sit shoulder to shoulder with a guy who had YouTube videos on his second monitor all day long, to help him focus. Evidently it worked for him, he was a very solid contributor, but neither my productivity nor my ability to innovate were helped. (Like Jira, the open plan office is a sure sign that management values observable units of effort over either productivity or innovation.)
• shadowtree 2y ago
  Counterpoint: comp.os.minix There are famous groups/chats that allowed the creation of stupendously important software.
• gffrd 2y ago
  As much as I hate to admit, I agree. The effort, intent, and practice (for lack of a better term) required to get the same effect in a remote environment is high enough that it just doesn't—and won't—happen for all but an extreme few. And there's less of a "rising tide lifts all boats" effect on teams, where the growth of one member tends to level up the rest. It's just way easier and cheaper to get this effect in person than trying to do it remote.