Some do, not all do. I do much better in a room with ~6 people that are working on the same project. Much better than working at home. Much better than a private office (which I've had).
Having people around me working on the same project is invaluable for me for
* asking quick questions and getting an instant answer. vs chat where I may not get an answer for hours.
* running ideas by others. This doesn't happen on chat for me, and VC is too scheduled.
* brainstorming. Same as above
* getting a feeling for what everyone is up to
Sure I can go read their notes but it's not the same. One happens by osmosis so zero effort, it just happens. The other requires scheduling time
* feeling part of a team, working on the same thing.
I don't feel connected to me team at all working from home. I feel no more connection to them then when I call my bank and talk to a banker. Nor do I feel any connection to sit at a coffee shop and work around others who are not on the same team.
I get that others have different opinions and/or want to work from home. Me, I was lucky to work on things I wanted to work on with people who wanted to work on them (video games) for most of my career. It was super fun. It would not been even 5% as fun at home by myself.
All of that is fine, the problem is that most places with shared space will have people not working on the same project in that room. Instead everybody is working on different projects, and they may be in Teams meetings and talking and talking about things with zero interest for you, and that can't possibly be productive. Even worse if you're in an office with one guy constantly on the 'phone on customer support or whatnot..
How about when they put the software team right next to the sales team?
This is exactly the problem with open-plan offices: they always do really stupid stuff like this, putting mostly-quiet teams very close to very talkative and noisy teams, with no barrier between them. Then everyone wants to work from home where at least they won't be tormented by listening to the obnoxious sales guy yap on the phone all day and can have their pet keep them company.
Airbnb was open plan (it still is, I’m just not there anymore). They also have an amazing Food team who would occasionally, randomly, bake treats for us (this is relevant, I promise).
There was no sales bell, but there was an outage gong. Any time we had an outage affecting the “Book It” flow and revenue stopped flowing that gong rang out. Hearing the gong meant engineers would abruptly leave meetings or lunch to come help fix the issue.
As we scaled and hit the limits of various systems we had periods where the gong rang out semi-regularly (a few times per month). These were hard times for engineers.
Soon, engineering started to push back on Product requests, took the time to re-architect and build better systems, and calm was achieved. Months went by without hearing the gong ring out, then years passed. People joined the company and got promoted, never having heard it ring. Until one day in 2018.
I was working near a pod of project managers, and I hear the gong. Like Pavlov’s dog, it triggers an immediate wave of anxiety in me: something is very wrong. But my blissfully unaware PM colleagues have no idea, it’s the first time they’ve ever heard the gong.
One lady looks up from her laptop and asks: “oooh, did the Food team make cookies?”
> asking quick questions and getting an instant answer. vs chat where I may not get an answer for hours.
All your other points are fine. People are motivated by a mix of external and internal triggers, and you are clearly skewed to the external side.
The thing I quoted is however why anyone geared towards the internal side of things will HATE to have to go to the office while you are there.
Programming requires deliberate thought gathered slowly into a complex matrix in your head before it finds its way to the pc through your keyboard.
Even though I am an extrovert through and through and strongly identify with the motivational aspects of being in an office, me not giving you an answer until an hour has gone probably means more overall productivity for the project than your instant unblocking at the office.
> The thing I quoted is however why anyone geared towards the internal side of things will HATE to have to go to the office while you are there.
That’s really not that obvious. Things like this (being able to ask questions) and allowing other people to focus when they need are not incompatible.
It should be pretty easy to infer for most people whether it’s a good time to start a conversation with another person or maybe you should wait for a few minutes/hours/until the lunch break/whatever
You are saying that devs need to stay "in the flow". But when you are in the flow and suddenly you have something that blocks you because you have a simple question, the best way to stay in the flow is to ask the question and get the answer immediately. If I have to quit my flow, go on slack, ask on slack, wait 10 minutes, then re-explain because the other person did not get it, then re-wait, ... my flow is ruined.
What you are saying is, at the end of the day, when caricaturing a little bit, that you want your flow to be maintained, but you are happy to destroy the flow of others.
If the question is truly simple it can probably be answered by the codebase or the internet. Otherwise the flow is ruined anyway when you stop it to ask someone in person. One has to load the context that was subconscious into the foreground for explanation of why they're asking.
Instead you want to interrupt your own flow as well as that of others to get immediate feedback on simple issues?
Your last sentence is incredible. No, I don't want my own flow to be preserved at the expense of others'. That's why I ask async and do something else while I wait for them to be free. But neither should I be a necessary component of someone else's flow at the expense of my own.
If one requires interrupting 6 other people to maintain flow, it's probably a good idea to start phrasing (hyperbole intentional) it like:
'To keep my own flow, I need to destroy the flow of all my colleagues'
And not:
'My colleagues destroy my flow when they can't babysit me and respond to my questions asap, how dare they'
It's like driving and then going like: 'Gee, all these other drivers are sure in my way, I need them out of the road so I can get places'. Guess what buddy, they also gotta get places, so damn right follow the laws, wait for your turn patiently and you will get there when you get there. Your colleagues also have stuff to do, and the world doesn't revolve only around YOUR flow.
So write down your questions and observations in a coherent list, stop pinging people one question at a time, or search harder in the docs provided that they exist, sometimes that's even better as a learning experience.
> If one requires interrupting 6 other people to maintain flow
Where is this "6" coming from?
Again:
1) You may be incapable of doing work when someone walks next to you, but this is not the case of a lot of people. It's like driving and then going like: 'Gee, when these cars are putting their blinking lights on and it is distracting me, they should all quickly park before I arrive'.
2) My flow is fine, thank you very much: I don't get distracted by people passing by AND I also rarely ask quick simple questions (people needs to understand my work rather than me needing to understand theirs). It's telling that you cannot conceive that someone may disagree with you without themselves participating to a caricatural behavior that you have in mind.
3) THAT'S EXACTLY MY POINT: the world doesn't revolve only around anyone. If you are inconvenienced by something that is convenient by someone else, then, outside of your little person, THERE IS NO REASON TO CHANGE THAT. If situation A means that employee X gets 6/10 and employee Y gets 8/10, and if situation B means that employee X gets 8/10 and employee Y gets 6/10, then situations A and B are the same.
4) I know that your argument is that your inconvenience is huuuuuge and touch everyone in the office and that the benefice for the distractor is smaaaaal and that the distractor is a terrible human being that should be thrown in jail. That's what self-centered people tends to believe.
> 'Gee, when these cars are putting their blinking lights on and it is distracting me, they should all quickly park before I arrive'.
No! Because the accepted thing is to use your turn signal, as it's acceptable to do some research on yourself before asking somebody, or try to keep your voice down in shared rooms, or to not tap people on the shoulder when they have indicated deep work (headphones).
I am upset from people who DON't use their blinkers, who tap you on the shoulder while you have headphones, and who discuss Game of Thrones loudly next to you while you are trying to work, and I have every right to be. People like that make their lack or desire of understanding or following etiquette everybody else's problem. And that's not okay!
The etiquette of new workers is to try to follow the onboarding documents, and the guidance from their assigned "buddy", and if something is missing, distill the questions they have and go over them with the "buddy". If that's what OP's post saying, fine. But I got the impression they simply like to ask questions cause it's more convenient for them. Let the company, however, use that as a learning and drag itself kicking and screaming to update their onboarding.
> That's what self-centered people tends to believe.
The people who don't use blinkers ARE the self centered people, making their hurry everybody else's problem. A person who asks questions can be doing so for many reasons: not complete documentation, getting bad understanding of something, wanting to clarify some info or to be in the same page as the team, etc.
But if they do so incessantly, then there is a problem, and the problem shouldn't be simply solved by saying: "Yeah, just ask John, he's always available and ready to help". As senior devs and leads and VPs of Engineerings or CTOs, we should foster a place where most questions can be answered easily in a self service manner, and our meetings have clarity on at least the big picture stuff.
If all that is already there, asking many questions all the time can rightfully be labeled a "disruption". In that situation, the person asking questions always makes their problem (not wanting to do some work themselves) the problem of everyone else, and that's what self centered people do. In much the same manner, people not using blinkers (illegal, by the way) make their refusal to follow rules everybody else's problem.
> ... as it's acceptable to do some research on yourself before asking somebody, or try to keep your voice down in shared rooms, or to not tap people on the shoulder when they have indicated deep work (headphones).
Again, nobody is pretending that they want to do that.
> I am upset from people who ...
And I'm upset from them too. In fact, I'm upset from people who have childish behavior and ask other people to adapt to their needs. In this conversation, you call "toddler" someone who did not propose anything that corresponds to what upset you. You just work differently than this person, so you childishly reacted.
You are clearly not better than people who don't se their blinkers or discuss Game of Thrones loudly: you also don't have considerations for the needs of others around you.
As I've said in my first comment on this thread: what if someone is in their flow and just need a quick and simple answer to a quick and simple question. You call these people "toddler" even if they will never ask someone they know does not like to be disturbed.
> But if they do so incessantly
Who is proposing that they do it incessantly?
All I'm saying is that when A needs to ask a question and get an answer immediately and B needs to not be distracted, both to keep their flow, then, logically, there is no solution where someone doesn't lose their flow. And my point is that you act as if someone here has more right to their flow than the other, which is just self-centered childishness.
> and the problem shouldn't be simply solved by saying: "Yeah, just ask John, he's always available and ready to help".
Should it be solved by "if you have a simple and quick question and Jack told you several time that he loves answering these questions and that you should not hesitate, you NEED to book a meeting, otherwise, according to ath3nd, you are a toddler"?
> If all that is already there, asking many questions all the time can rightfully be labeled a "disruption".
WHO IS SAYING INCESSANT QUESTIONS IS NOT A DISRUPTION?
This is very simple:
yes, incessant not pragmatically useful questions is disrupting, and people who do that are self-centered.
yes, asking people to "book meetings" or "write a message and wait hours before getting the simple unblocking answer" is disrupting, and people who do that are self-centered.
Just be a grown-up and accept that, no, people have no reason to cater to your little comfort. Someone tap you on your shoulder when you hear your headphone? Though sh*t little baby! Are you really arguing that these people are the problem when you are the one not able to deal with that. There, a little trick to you: "hm, John, next time, maybe you can ...", and problem solved (and if John does it again, guess what: WE ALL HAVE THESE KIND OF PEOPLE IN OUR LIFE, you are not special enough that the human condition should not apply to you. And based on you calling "toddler" someone while not even saying anything bad, I'm pretty sure you are the "John" of someone else)
> WE ALL HAVE THESE KIND OF PEOPLE IN OUR LIFE, you are not special enough that the human condition should not apply to you.
And I (and most other people in this thread) am fed up with them and trying to actively remove them from my life. Hence, when people suggest I should deal with it, I tell them that I will most certainly not deal with it. That there are things that can be done to make their and mine life easier.
There are people who put their soda cans on the ground, there are people who talk loudly in the train, there are people who park their cars wrongly. Yes, it's a mild inconvenience. But I won't be dealing with it and accept it, I will actively shame them for the spoiled babies that they are, making a spectacle of their needs and accepting everybody to cater to them. Follow.Societal.Rules or get out of society!
> Just be a grown-up and accept that, no, people have no reason to cater to your little comfort
Me putting out all possible social clues that I don't want to be asked questions at the moment is not people catering for my comfort. It's people going through my boundaries so they can get their little comforts themselves.
> Are you really arguing that these people are the problem when you are the one not able to deal with that.
Yes, because they are breaking established social norms and work etiquette. I have clearly indicated by wearing headphones that it's not the time to be asked questions and I have indicated what's the best possible way for me to be asked questions: email, slack, a scheduled meeting, and many questions in bulk.
I most certainly will not cater to how somebody prefers to ask ME questions just because it's more convenient for them to do it ad-hoc. The same way developers of open source want you to use THEIR issue tracker, and fill THEIR code of conduct, and follow THEIR coding guidelines, and not you doing whatever the heck you want.
If you want something from somebody (like information), better follow their preferred approach of how to be asked, and not act like a spoiled little baby when you are told NO.
> And I (and most other people in this thread) am fed up with them and trying to actively remove them from my life.
And OP does that too, but suddenly, when OP does that, they are a toddler, but when you do it, it's fine.
> There are people who put their soda cans on the ground, there are people who ...
and there are people who will call "toddler" people who have just a different way of working and are not imposing nothing bad to anybody else.
> Me putting out all possible social clues that I don't want to be asked questions at the moment is not people catering for my comfort. It's people going through my boundaries so they can get their little comforts themselves.
Again, the person YOU called a "toddler" has done nothing wrong. YOU are the toxic person who jumped on the conclusion that just because they have a different way of working, they will "ask you incessant questions even after I've said it's not how I work".
It is very very difficult to believe that you are not a little baby just after you acted like a little baby when no one proposed anything that has any negative impact on you.
> because they are breaking established social norms and work etiquette.
Breaking established social norms and work etiquette is one thing. Throwing a tantrum because someone has broken established social norms and work etiquette is something else.
Personally, I would say that the socially handicap person that get upset because someone tap them on their shoulder is the one who is breaking the established social norms and work etiquette: socially, the etiquette at work is to try our best to get along, even when the person in front does not deserve it (I dislike this norm, but it exists).
> I most certainly will not cater to how somebody prefers to ask ME questions just because it's more convenient for them to do it ad-hoc.
Let me use an as stupid and as caricatural view as you here:
I most certainly will not cater to how ath3nd prefers to be communicated to just because they are incapable to provide proper onboarding and proper documentation. If someone tap you on your shoulder, it is because you are not able to do your job. Why someone will have to adapt to your failure?
End of the caricature view, now something more meaningful: you deserve to be communicated with in a way that is respectful of your needs and ways of working. BUT you need to respect others people needs and ways of working too and accept that sometimes they will not read your mind.
You keep coming back to the caricatural picture of someone asking incessant questions after you explain them your way of working. As I've said, these people are disturbing and we should not cater for their childish behavior. The problem is that you are treating EVERYONE that way (as proof is you treating OP as a "toddler" when OP did not show at all any behavior you complain about here), and it makes you a child also.
As already said, 2 things can be true at the same time: 1) people asking incessant questions are toddler, 2) ath3nd is a toddler.
> If you want something from somebody (like information), better follow their preferred approach of how to be asked, and not act like a spoiled little baby when you are told NO.
You are talking about people who will say "NO" because they have been tapped on the shoulder. Who is the baby here?
Again, we are talking about tapping someone on the shoulder _once_, and not doing it again if you explain you don't like it. You are just a grumpy baby, the existence of other babies will not change that.
> Again, we are talking about tapping someone on the shoulder _once_, and not doing it again if you explain you don't like it.
I don't think I should be touched in the first place. I have put a clear signal that I am deeply working: headphones. The accepted social norm is NOT to bother somebody when they have indicated they don't want to be bothered. I am, of course, going to answer the questions, but can't you simply wait until I indicate I am ready to accept your questions?
The benefit of remote here is palpable: you simply don't have the option to tap me on the shoulder, and you can only call me (in which case it's important enough to call), write me an email (which forces you to have a coherent point, and I can respond to it later) or slack me (which, again, I can postpone for later).
> You are just a grumpy baby, the existence of other babies will not change that.
I don't know about babies, but do you know who doesn't like being said "NO" to and who throws a fit ever time when somebody expresses a boundary? Bullies! People who gets upset when you express a boundary and expect that you should just submit to THEIR way of answering, those are the real babies!
Occasionally asking questions (for which it doesn't matter whether it's office or remote) is okay, especially when starting your job. On the other hand, expecting others to be readily available for your ad hoc queries repeatedly, day in and out, trying to actively persuade them that it's okay, and guilt trip them to continue doing so because it's "their work duty", and throwing a fit when people express a boundary to you, that's what real babies are made from!
Learn to ask questions like a decent worker, batch them, write them down, and with as little disruption as possible, and don't bother people who are deeply focused. Your question can wait, the world doesn't revolve around you, and value your coworkers time! I won't back down from this!
> Your question can wait, the world doesn't revolve around you, and value your coworkers time!
…right, but the world doesn't revolve around you either though. You should be willing to sacrifice your time to help your coworker and value their time as well.
Headphones, in my experience, tend to indicate a person is listening to audio, not that they don't want to be bothered by anyone. Maybe your expectations do not line up with societal norms? Just something to think about.
You could consider adding a visual indicator to your workspace that says "focused on something, please do not interrupt" or "available for questions". Our offices have little stoplight things by the door that can be used to tell someone whether or not it's a good time for an interruption. Having something easily visible like that can communicate more clearly to your coworkers that you're trying to focus without interrupting your focus.
OP said "asking quick questions and getting an instant answer. vs chat where I may not get an answer for hours"
It's ALL they have said.
They did NOT said they will "touch your shoulder", they did NOT said they will "interrupt you when you clearly don't want to be interrupted", they did NOT said they will "interrupt you after you made clear you don't like working like that", they did NOT said they will "ask incessant questions that are easily found in the doc", they did NOT said they will "ask you to answer day in day out", they did NOT said they will "guilt trip you to do something obviously unreasonable", ...
And, YOU, YOU called them "toddler". YOU DID THAT. If now you are changing the goal post to "people who guilt trip other people are not nice", yeah, everyone agrees with that, but WHY DID YOU CALL OP TODDLER?
WHY
DID
YOU
CALL
OP
TODDLER?
What is the thing that OP have said (really said, not something in your mind) that according to you is not compatible with a respectful and sane work relationship?
> who doesn't like being said "NO" to and who throws a fit ever time when somebody expresses a boundary?
Yep.
Me: your colleague needs to work, if they are blocked by something that can be easily solved with a simple quick question and that they are being reasonable with their requests, they should be authorized to just ask you. They should not have to walk on egg shells to cater for ath3nd social inabilities, it's not their work, it's not their mental charge on their shoulders, there are boundaries.
You: NO, they should just submit to MY way of being asked a question.
The situation is EXTREMELY SIMPLE: just don't be a prick. You and everyone else.
Don't ask incessant questions.
But also, don't ask people to care for your fragile person who is not able to get one or two questions a day that will help everyone progress.
Not liking question is fine. Just act like an adult about it: discuss and tell them. Don't jump on the first person who passes and says "I find quick question convenient" and yield "well then you are a toddler" without even knowing if this person is a prick or not.
ALL your explanations, ALL OF THEM, they are ALL about YOU, YOU, YOU. You only present situation when you are reasonable and when the interlocutor is a prick. Yes, we know, incessant questions are disruptive (daaaah, it's obvious). But there is more than one way to be a prick. One other way is to be a self-centered idiot who is incapable to help the team because they view everything into distorting glasses (like when you call OP "toddler" for behavior they never had) or because they view their work relationship in a competitive way instead of collaborative (like when you say that the person who ask the question "owns" something to the person who has the knowledge)
My solution is: Bob should try to ask with moderation, and Bob and Alice should work together in a situation where Bob does not need to distract Alice. If Bob needs to distract Alice, then Alice just needs to live with it. If Bob has questions but does not need to distract Alice, then Bob should not ask the question and just needs to live with it.
What confuse me is that some people here just answer: obviously Alice is right and Bob is wrong, all the time except exceptional cases.
I believe we should examine why Bob needs to distract Alice on a regular basis, and attack that problem with the might and fury of 1911 raging bulls and 420 mosquitoes.
> What confuse me is that some people here just answer: obviously Alice is right and Bob is wrong, all the time except exceptional cases.
Joking aside, I do agree with your point. It's not black and white and there shouldn't be fear/hostility connected with simply asking a question. However, 100% being open to questions all the time is simply disruptive for everybody.
If I was Alice's employer and valued her (and other employees) being able to do deep work, I'd have a policy whereby employees could schedule do-not-disturb time (large blocks of it, depending on their needs) where they could shut their doors and turn off IM. Have a red light on the outside of the door, like a film production booth. Book end the day. First 1-2 hours are disturb time. Middle of the day is DND time. Last part of the day is disturb time.
All scheduled meetings have to happen in disturb time.
Now, that doesn't really work for a customer-facing role, at least not without the cooperation of your customers, but having managed a customer-facing team before, I'll say I encouraged my people to schedule office-hour time with their customers to try to channel the interactions in a more predictable period of time.
In my experience, the typical picnic table sized open-plan/hotdesk furniture usually seats six (three per long side) so, in practice, six people seems like the most common group sizing.
there are 6 people in the room, but as I said, it does not mean that the 6 persons are all distracted. (by the way, the initial comment was implying that the question is coming from one of the 6 persons in the room, so at worst, it's 5 persons distracted)
the question can also be useful for one other person in the room, so instead of being distracted, the person has been helped.
I can only second this. I honestly had the best time of my (professional) life when I had a little room with the rest of my team.
Asking quick questions in such an environment is also not that much of a disturbance because most people are working on similar features at the moment and there's a high chance that they don't need to do the whole context switch to assist you. It's really highly productive.
For the times where you really needed some time for yourself, headphones work just fine. I wouldn't want to wear them all the time as even the best ones become uncomfortable after few hours, but that's also not really needed in a small shared room.
> Asking quick questions in such an environment is also not that much of a disturbance because most people are working on similar features at the moment and there's a high chance that they don't need to do the whole context switch to assist you.
This is untrue for even small teams in my experience.
> For the times where you really needed some time for yourself, headphones work just fine.
That's so different from my work. I work in a team of about 30 people on 1 feature of a very popular app. None of us are working on the same thing at any given time. Most projects have 1 person that works on it or knows how it works. It's sad and isolating. And the company forces this culture by virtue of how promo works.
I worked at a place with a great office layout. A group of a few people working on the same or related things could all have private offices with doors, but it was also easy for people to call out questions to others or gather together to discuss ideas and see what others are up to.
There would be a large room off of a hallway, divided into 8 offices, arranged like this:
Each office had floor to ceiling walls, with a door and a large window. Need to be left along to do some deep work or deep thinking? Close your door. Want to be more sociable? Open your door. Put nice chairs or small sofas in the common area in the middle so people can hang out there when not doing something that requires being at their computer (e.g., reading printed documentation).
The larger offices at the top can be used for more senior people, or the group manager, or for a lab, or a library, or a break room.
You could extend this to two teams working on different projects but under a common manager or senior engineer by putting them in separate clusters side by side, and merging the adjacent top offices so that the common manager or senior engineer's office is part of both clusters:
What we were doing was video games for early consoles, mostly Mattel Intellivision but later also for Atari VCS, and also later for the Commodore VIC-20 computer. That kind of work required a mix of brainstorming and collaboration with periods where you really need to concentrate without being disturbed to figure out how to actually make it work on the hardware (weird processor, weird graphics chip, under 200 bytes of RAM (although later cartridges could have RAM which allowed some games to have more), a couple K ROM, and all programmed in assembly language). That office layout supported that quite well.
I had the privilege of designing a small 4 office space exactly like this for our small bioinformatics developer core. It was beautiful and worked very well. Then the company's legal department decided Legal would benefit more from it and kicked us out. It goes back to how much a company values its developers.
This is the best. Offices with doors, as a semaphore for availability, and a close by common area for collaboration.
If collaboration occurs spontaneously and your door isn’t closed, it’s easy to join in. If it turns out that someone is essential, turn it into an actual design meeting.
The best teams I’ve worked on had this arrangement and developed their own cadence - morning walks for cofeee, water cooler tv show commonalities.
Having the refuge of a known private space made group participation easier - I would seek out and benefit from the social technical in person interactions, as opposed to an open office plan where I would start out with determination of defending my personal mental space at all costs.
I think the key part of that is working on the same thing.
I work in a large company, and team is spread out over multiple cities.
We actually will often to group video calls to have a similar thing to what you describe - being able to ask a quick question, run ideas by other, etc.
However, going to the office I'm just with people who are working on different things, often doing calls which I find distracting...
I'm glad you like it. Let's just all remember that other people feel differently and will be productive in very different circumstances. I don't need to feel very connected to the team, they are just business partners who are trading their time for money. If we can be friendly, that's awesome, but I'd much rather be connected to my family.
Personally, I've experienced open office, fully private office etc. Private office/remote are my favorites, followed by small room with a few people (I also had that in the gaming industry, it wasn't too bad) and, in a distant and humiliating last place, open office.
I always find it surprising that so many people struggle to make effective human connections over chat. I think it must be generational, as I believe these are the connections I and other young people prefer.
Once you have a solid foundation, text chat is almost as easy at maintaining that connection as in person conversation.
Making that solid foundation requires a lot of work though and not everyone has the communication (or empathy) skills to make it work.
Has worked for me, but I'm an outlier in that I grew up on IRC chatrooms before more rich-text and composite media communication methods were available.
Most people on this site in particular are likely to be outliers too: as the way we are communicating right now is as stripped down as possible and people will self-select for this.
I've made numerous friends over IRCs, Warcraft 3 chat channels and whatnot and had preferred it over face-to-face (and I still prefer chat over zoom calls!) but as I've gotten older, I started appreciating talking in real life more and more, and now struggle to form connections over chat. I wonder if there are others who are in the same boat.
You cannot compare an open chat, with a strong interest in a particular topic vs you team's Slack channel.
Online games work well, because you have a visual and full engagement.
Compare that to work communications... You are totally async on slack, it's just a simpler version of email at this point. Just because people are online in Slack today, doesn't mean that they'll respond within minutes.
If someone is online playing a game, you know that they're there. Old IRC was pretty much the same.
I get what you are saying but I seem to find it hard to engage with anyone, even my old friends, over chat these days. We end up hopping into voice chat when we want to catch up.
I've also never had particular problems making connections over chat (I'm not old and not young); particularly in companies where I've had a chance to meet people in person even once or twice, I've found online communication no problem at all
You'll need a new theory. I've worked with two late millenial/gen-z developers who couldn't hold up a slack conversation to save their lives, so we went to zoom very quickly when they needed anything.
And I struggle to understand how can you make any real connections without seeing and hearing other person. There is so much communication hidden in body language and voice that for me any kind of text communication is just poor substitute. And I am not even extrovert that loves interaction with others (rather the opposite) and still know this intuitively to be true.
I agree. If I have a personal office I might as well sit at home.
I hate open office space as much as the next person, but small team rooms are great. Can have the walls plastered with post-its, screens, drawing boards etc. If I hear two coworkers discuss something, I can chip in if relevant. Information flow just happens by itself.
When I was junior I shared an office with a senior. I was constantly asking him questions. He pretty much knew everything, I'm not kidding, this guy was amazing. So this arrangement worked out really well for me, but not sure how much he liked having his work interrupted so much. Could be that between the two of us, the benefits averaged out to zero.
Demanding an instant answer is often a burden to teammates. If they have spare time to answer they will answer in chat. Be patience and be respectful to working routines of other people.
>Some do, not all do. I do much better in a room with ~6 people that are working on the same project. Much better than working at home. Much better than a private office (which I've had).
I wonder how many of these remaining 5 people have a take similar to me. WFH is where I'm most productive and most happy to work. Doing the kind of work you describe above "with 6 people on one project" is for 90% of the time an exercise in babying the least up to speed team member at the cost of distracting everyone.
I get it, some people just like being around people and doing stuff "together", and some types of work may even benefit from that when stars align(brainstorming etc). Most types of work I do in software don't. Especially now, post covid when WFH became normalised and people who were opposed to it on various grounds were forced to learn how to use it effectively.
>* asking quick questions and getting an instant answer. vs chat where I may not get an answer for hours.
That's what the phone is for, with additional benefit of status from everyone. If I see someone is busy I don't phone them I look for someone else, If I see they are "green" I do and I get my answer instantly without disturbing anyone.
>running ideas by others. This doesn't happen on chat for me, and VC is too scheduled
Again, same thing. Pick up a phone. If you just want to run something "by everyone". Wait for your daily/weekly team meeting and ask then. Yes, it forces you to write ideas down not to forget them (if they can wait), but it's massively more convenient to everyone else.
> * brainstorming. Same as above
I had many a good brainstorming session online (mostly with voice). What do you need to accomplish it is:
- good audio equipment, Internet access and a quiet location for everyone. No calling into a meeting "from my car, while going to the doctor", or "from the office while people are talking in the background", no "crappy headphones etc". All this ruins productivity for everyone. If people are using cameras(which is nice) everyone has to have the bandwidth for it. Also if you have more than 5 people in your meeting, make use of the "raise hand" feature. Then brainstorming can happen very well. Especially while looking at a document/whiteboard together with systems that show you in real time what everyone does.
In fact above a certain number of people (8 maybe) brainstorming sessions seem a lot more effective to me online than in person. Why? Because you have few communication channels. You have the shared whiteboard/document, voice, and chat so while someone is talking you can post a question to the chat without interrupting.
>getting a feeling for what everyone is up to
That's what regular planning meeting is for.
>feeling part of a team, working on the same thing
I suppose that's a personal thing, but I always felt that including during my 7 years of WFH 100%.
Edit: there is only one real disadvantage to WFH, and it's for junior people wanting to learn. It's much harder to gather knowledge by osmosis, just by being in the office if most senior people are WFH. But then as a leader one has to decide what is more important.
Phone? I'd always leave my status as do not disturb then. I don't know when I'm about to enter a state of productivity. Only once in a blue moon do I spin around in my chair quietly asking someone to come bug me because I'm bored/don't have anything fun to work on.
I'm not at work to make friends, but also being connected to the people around you who you are spending 8+ hours a day with is important, I believe. What happens when you need something? Relationships ease communication, and reduce the chances of miscommunication.
Do you just want to sit in silence all day making money for the company? Do you never need to blow off steam? Do you never need help?
> i dont want to hear your quick questions
I'm not trying to be hateful with this next sentence, but I struggle to even understand who would act like this, and for what reason that isn't a diagnosis.
I never understand this. Why being so focused on work, to the detriment of building some relationships with the people you work with? Is this a HN/spectrum thing? Or capitalism-simping where people aspire to be robot-workers with no humanity? Why not enjoy your time at work? After all, you're spending 8 hours there a day, and see those people almost as much as your spouse, and probably more than your friends.
The second reason. Companies that are worse at getting people to self-exploit tend to do worse financially, and thus tend to disappear. Of course, if too many people quit or burn out, then the company will go bust, too. The optimum will be just one step short of that. And whenever someone starts a new company, they will look at the existing successful companies for how things are done.
There is no evil master plan. The processes that lead to self-exploitation will sound reasonable and well-intended. (If this wasn't the case, people would refuse to adapt it. Most people don't like exploitation when they see it.)
For example, in most of Europe there is a law that requires employees to record their working hours. This law was created to prevent (unpaid) overtime, and it does that. Now company X implements this by making you write down how many hours each day you worked towards which task. Doing this every day makes you think where you put this one-hour chat you had with a co-worker. It was nice, but which task did it contribute to? (It didn't...?) If you bother to ask, everybody will actually encourage you to have those talks, that it is even in the interest of healthy company culture, and remind you that maybe it's part of the paid break (you didn't forget you have that, did you? it was never anyone's intention that you skip your break). Nobody will be responsible for nudging people towards efficiency. It's all the fault of the individual who feels pressured into efficiency. It was never anyone's intention to prevent you from having those occasional nice chats, and nobody will stop you if you keep doing it.
Still, every day you get to think about how long it took and which task it belongs to, and it feels a bit like lying to just add the time to a random task. This kind of habit can shape your thinking.
Having people around me working on the same project is invaluable for me for
* asking quick questions and getting an instant answer. vs chat where I may not get an answer for hours.
* running ideas by others. This doesn't happen on chat for me, and VC is too scheduled.
* brainstorming. Same as above
* getting a feeling for what everyone is up to
* feeling part of a team, working on the same thing. I get that others have different opinions and/or want to work from home. Me, I was lucky to work on things I wanted to work on with people who wanted to work on them (video games) for most of my career. It was super fun. It would not been even 5% as fun at home by myself.