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by spacelizard 3230 days ago
I disagree, a good office culture extends beyond meatspace. I've worked at plenty of companies where the general atmosphere was... not good. These are places where the "hallway conversation" was either nonexistent or didn't extend beyond small talk about TV or the weather. If your employees aren't comfortable sending instant messages to each other, they definitely aren't going to be comfortable being in the same room together.
2 comments
bearcobra 3230 days ago
One of the problems I have with instant messages is you can't tell if you are interrupting the other person. Some people may be able to ignore the message, but I think for many this kind of notifications create a sense of urgency and push them to reply still. Being conscious of this, I try to avoid sending IMs. In person, interactions give me way more signals about the other person's current state. Because of that I'm about 1000x more likely to say hi to a random co-worker walking down the hall than I am to send a random IM.
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dasmoth 3230 days ago
There's some truth in this.

The best solution to this is that if you've got something non-urgent that you'd like a colleague to think about at some point, use a truly asynchronous medium (e.g. e-mail, so long as you're not in an organisation which uses it as a de facto IM platform).

This is true whether or not the people you're trying to communicate with are in the same building.

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Karunamon 3230 days ago
IMO, that comes with the adjustment to using IM and is partly an office cultural thing. Most people I know toggle their status to "busy" or "DND" when otherwise engaged in a thing, and it's an understanding that being on open status means that people are okay to ping you or send memes.
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convolvatron 3230 days ago
so I completely agree that the culture is key. i also agree that given an healthy culture, remote doesn't matter that much

but in the absence of a working culture remote just can be a compounding factor for dysfunction. its also more difficult to enculturate someone remotely. i think thats why 'senior contributor moves to montana and continues to be really effective' is such an unsurprising atory.

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