Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

What stopped your team lead from regularly reaching out via teams/slack/zoom and from letting the juniors know they were available and open to communicate?


Absolutely nothing. I'm the team lead and I bug people all the time for their questions and ideas. Quite explicitly so, like "why aren't you reaching out to me with questions?" But it's like trying to squeeze water out of a rock when they're online. But when I call them into the office to chat in person, then they have tons to talk about.

With few exceptions, juniors are in the default mindset that they're bothering people when they have problems. My job is to socialize them out of that. I accomplish that by bringing them into the office, because the alternatives very rarely work.


How is that any less disruptive? When I was a junior, as someone who was very hesitant to disturb a senior, it helped that I could actually just walk past their desks while getting water or a coffee, and could tell whether they were deeply engrossed or more relaxed just by looking at them at their desks. Sometimes I could even time my coffee break based on when I saw them getting theirs so I could ask them a question without disturbing them.

Now, I’ll submit there are people who are not considerate at all. And to be honest, a lot of people have become way worse since the pandemic. It’s almost like they’ve forgotten basic human decency. And those people can be far more disruptive in person than they can be remote. But there are ways to resolve those issues (basically by telling them that you’re busy and not indulging them when they’re disturbing you, and very quickly they’ll get the hint).




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: