[lemoncucumber]

I started a new job during the pandemic, and the experience has been much worse than I expected. There’s no opportunity to ask simple questions without always worrying that I’m interrupting. Whereas in an office it’s easy to see who’s on the phone or focusing on something and simply ask someone else (or wait).

There’s also no opportunity for the kind of work-related conversations that might happen over lunch where I’d learn more about the team, the org, the project, and the history of it all. In the past I’ve gotten a lot out of being present for casual conversations among more experienced teammates and asking the occasional question.

[leoedin]

I'm in the same boat, and it is definitely worse than starting a job in normal times.

I think it's an invisible problem because the decision makers and influential people in the organisation were mostly around before lockdown, so they already know everyone - they know who to ask when they have a problem, they have a feeling for who is friendly, who can be helpful etc. So to most of the staff that aspect just doesn't cross their radar.

It's very easy for remote work to feel much more contractual - you do the work needed for your team and deliver it. You lose the wider context - which I think makes it very hard for the wider team to change direction or have new ideas. The fallout of that inflexibility is intangible and immeasurable, but I bet it will come eventually.

An organisation has to both be productive on a daily basis and choose correctly what to work on. If you don't do both, you fail. Working remotely broadly improves the first, but I think without really good systems in place it completely throws off the second one.

[waheoo]

You have to create a culture of safety to enable people to ask questions. And if you get annoyed by the repeating questions you need to back that up with extremely accessible documentation around culture and expectations.

[wikibob]

Be the squeaky wheel. It is to your benefit.

Drop the questions in a public channel.

People who are confident about their skills are less worried about appearing to look dumb for not knowing something.

Because you know you’re competent at your skills, so if you can’t figure out something, obviously it’s poorly documented. Therefore just ask loudly.

[halfmatthalfcat]

Completely agree. People want you to ask questions because, in a remote world, your visibility is via the real-time channels (Slack, Teams, etc).

[rovr138]

>There’s no opportunity to ask simple questions without always worrying that I’m interrupting. Whereas in an office it’s easy to see who’s on the phone or focusing on something and simply ask someone else (or wait).

Just ask the question on a channel or send a message to the person. They'll reply when they get back or can.

And to the other side, if you get a message, you don't have to drop it all to respond immediately. We are all adults and professionals. I'm not going to be doing nothing waiting for the answer while you reply.

> There’s also no opportunity for the kind of work-related conversations that might happen over lunch where I’d learn more about the team, the org, the project, and the history of it all.

This is true. We've worked out some times in the past where we get to expense things and everyone just chills and talks. People can come in and out, turn cameras on or not. It's nice to just talk.

> I started a new job during the pandemic,

I will say, it depends on the team and company. I've been remote for years and it varies a lot. If the company/team wasn't remote before, they might not have the tools or knowledge to make it work. That's what I'm gathering from a lot of friends comparing our situations.

[mrzimmerman]

I know it can seem silly, but asking people to have lunch via video chat is a great way to get around some of that distance.

Honestly this is just leadership dropping the ball for you and the rest of the team (though it can be easy to miss since it’s sort of a hidden problem). They should put more remote team things together like group learning sessions or just having coffee for 30 minutes to chat. It’s not hard to get on a calendar and although work required socialization is usually eye-roll worthy it does help.

[jcun4128]

Does your chat service not have a status? It usually can indicate like "in a meeting, busy, etc..." I usually make sure at least that they're not presenting or have busy on.

There is one aspect that kind of sucks, how everything you post is public/persists, I'm the dunce boy oh well.

The positive though is future people that have the same problem can search in the app and see the solution.

[spideymans]

>Does your chat service not have a status? It usually can indicate like "in a meeting, busy, etc..." I usually make sure at least that they're not presenting or have busy on.

That depends on everyone being disciplined enough to keep their status up to date.

[jcun4128]

Yeah if it's Teams/integrated in Outlook calendar it's pretty good... sometimes people just set it to always busy ha.

[ArkanExplorer]

This is even more difficult if starting a new job and changing your job qualification - eg. moving from SWE to product manager. Making that kind of leap without being able to rely on a physical office environment is too difficult.

This Government response to COVID, and WFH, seems to have frozen people's career and social status as it was at the end of 2019.