[Shatnerz]

I wouldn't be surprised if that was directly adapted from the anecdotes of Harry Nyquist at Bell Labs [1].

""" After crunching a lot of data, they found that the only thing the productive employees had in common (other than having made it through the Bell Labs hiring process) was that "Workers with the most patents often shared lunch or breakfast with a Bell Labs electrical engineer named Harry Nyquist. It wasn't the case that Nyquist gave them specific ideas. Rather, as one scientist recalled, 'he drew people out, got them thinking'" (p. 135). """

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Nyquist

[ryukoposting]

The cynic in me expects someone to read this and come to the conclusion that what they really need is more data to improve their review process. Clearly we need to know who's eating lunch together!

[blitzar]

The cynic in me expects poor performers / low contributers who read this come to the conclusion that they are the Harry Nyquist of their organisation.

[gffrd]

The cynic in me expects people to read this thread and pat themselves on the back for definitely _not_ a being Harry Nyquist OR a poor performer / low contributor!

[blub]

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 quote saying “the only thing productive employees had in common is that they were hanging out in a Microsuck Teams chat room”.

[Yizahi]

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]

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]

> 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]

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.

[sevensor]

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.)

[vdvsvwvwvwvwv]

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.

[_ea1k]

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]

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.

[Yizahi]

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.

[Corrado]

We actually have a "watercooler" channel that specifically doesn't include manager people. It's where all the non-work stuff gets posted and it seems to work out pretty well.

[_ea1k]

Do we work at the same company? Don't forget the constant stream of meetings where noone takes meaningful notes, and everything just gets stored in a context-free diagram, or someone's head.

It looks like literal sabotage in the long run. Of course, the ones that have the info in their head are more valuable in such a system.

[vdvsvwvwvwvwv]

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!

[Corrado]

In a past life the room all the programmers was in was quiet as a library. Anything above a whisper seemed like yelling. It was terrible for collaboration and communication. We ended up going for walks in order to talk about stuff, which actually helped in multiple ways. Walking seems to stimulate the brain in weird ways and talking freely was very productive.

That said, I would not trade WFH for anything. Those walking times with co-workers was great but it's not worth being forced to go into an office every day.

[lazide]

Except you don’t actually talk (as in have a real conversation) with anyone on Teams.

[danaris]

Maybe you don't.

I've never had any trouble having real conversations on online platforms, whether for work or otherwise.

[lazide]

Research shows, that is about as accurate as saying a Twinkie is real food.

Not completely wrong, but…

[danaris]

[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.

[AgentOrange1234]

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]

    > 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]

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]

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.

[AgentOrange1234]

Interesting. Yeah I quite like a walking meeting for the same side-by-side kind of thing. I imagine meetings over golf would have similar dynamics, but haven't ever tried that.

[gffrd]

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.

[thyrsus]

Anecdata: I work from home and spend about a quarter of my time helping colleagues.

[shadowtree]

Counterpoint: comp.os.minix

There are famous groups/chats that allowed the creation of stupendously important software.

[regularfry]

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.

[hinkley]

I have been accused by a number of people who like me of “asking good questions” and of asking difficult questions by people who don’t.

I sucked at school until someone opened up the idea for me around third grade that how the curriculum is taught is just the teacher’s opinion, not a law, or a religion. If you can reframe the material in a way that makes sense to you then do so. I ended up spot-tutoring a bunch of people over the years because I would hear them complain about how the material made no sense and I would swoop in and say, “yeah how they teach this is bullshit, have you tried thinking about it this way?” Which validates their frustration and then gives them a life raft.

That kind of reframing to keep up can become reframing to get ahead. I went from Problem Student to grade school “valedictorian”, to polymath. Years ago we were all fixated on the trap of Expert Beginner and I would half-joke that I was instead an Expert Journeyman - able to quickly get to adequate instead of mediocre in a new discipline. And these days I think that may be what “polymath” is most of the time. Just knowing what the next question is to ask to keep going. The big breakthroughs come from people who become experts in most fields, but these same sorts of people also get pretty good at music or painting or writing as a hobby. As good or better than mediocre professionals.

The first time this happened to me in a professional setting, a coworker was stuck on a SQL problem and insisted I pair with them to help debug it. I told her I’ve never touched SQL, just worked on some bespoke data processing. She didn’t care. Come here anyway. And I’ll be damned if I didn’t help her find her problem by just asking her what this part does and that part does. Why does this work that way? And I started writing SQL a couple weeks later, substantially off of just that interaction, bolstered by what first generation search engines could scrape together.

And the thing is when everyone asks you questions and you don’t break their trust, you quickly learn where all the bodies are buried in the project/org. Which is a valuable asset for someone wishing to become a lead or staff engineer. I became lead by popular vote most times, rather than an actual game plan to get promoted. I just did what thought needed to get done and was within my abilities, which looks a lot like leadership, especially if management doesn’t have that quality. Port in a storm, that’s me.

But I’ve never ever completed the most stories or features. I’ve occasionally fixed the most bugs, the most performance issues, or workflow problems. Is calculated I saved forty man hours a week for the team on code-build-test-push ergonomics and my shitheel boss was still made about my productivity those two quarters. I could not show up to work and still be contributing 8 hours a day, dummy.