charity.wtf
cofounder/CTO @honeycombio, co-author of Observability Engineering and Database Reliability Engineering. I test in production and so do you. 🐝🏳️🌈🦄
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"We know full well..." I think you are overstating the available data by a fair bit. 😉
I'm familiar with the famous studies you are alluding to.
But my understanding of the (messy! under-studied!) material is that doors/solo enhances productivity for certain modes of work, while hampering others.
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Your first sentence is....truthy. 🤔
May hit closer to the mark if you append (or just assume) that the office in question is quite a *large* company
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I think this is the default experience.
Possible to overcome, at least in part, but takes skill, investment, intention, and resources.
And this expertise can be tough to come by.
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I super recognize that the big tech, big city setup makes it very hard for many parents to commute and care for children.
Altho I do think you are generalizing a bit farther than the data supports. I know some new parents who are RTO *because* wfh is now unfeasible.
It's really complicated.
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I'm talking about the fundamentals of work -- collaboration, building, understanding the problems, sharing knowledge, iterating on solutions.
After all, the BEST way to build trust with your coworkers is to *do great work together*. Not forced corporate fun.
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Thank you, @phillipcarter.dev.. I couldn't have said it better.
(I am trying to respond to everyone, but this thread went bonkers)
I also said some stuff later in the thread about how/why remote is a lot less healthy for me.
But... Brent, I am not thinking about happy hours or bonding exercises.
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You know me, down to be an internet punching bag now and then. 😉
Good times! Reminds me of O.G. Twitter, may it RIP.
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Return to Office ☺️
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Huh whoever it is evidently blocked me too. Sensitive feels all around on this topic, it seems. My first two bsky blocks!.....that I know of. 😉
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makes sense
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same
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Yep, for sure.
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Yeah. I get a lot of joy and juice out of having ad hoc, unpredictable conversations about work and work-adjacent stuff **with my coworkers.**
I have no energy to spare for randos in my day, period.
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But it happens a lot. Yeah, I've seen it too.
And it's not always easy to predict where the potholes will be.
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I agree - and I’ve been working remotely for over a decade now. I’ve seen problems resolved in 10-15 minutes in person that we had spent months circling around. It was a real WTF moment - like why was this so hard remotely and so easy in person? And I’m not saying that’s always the case…
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I didn't say they were "unavoidable realities", I said they were defaults.
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Ehhh.. disagree on the merits (implicit is good enough in lots and lots of contexts) but I think I mostly get your point. Leadership skills are rare (and situational).
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Yep.
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Yes. Like I said, I think a core aspect of the problem is that you face these scenarios as a remote company when you are 5-10x smaller than a location-based company facing those scenarios.
The problems you're facing as a 100 person remote startup are similar to those a 500-1000p co grapples with.
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ah that guy must have blocked me
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i don't think anybody's saying they're insurmountable, so much as confessing they have failed to surmount them and things still aren't getting better.
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groan... be careful what you ask for 🫣
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OH SHIT, ACTUAL RESEARCH
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Whuf. Sorry.
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Yep, that sounds about right to me.
Some folks will straight up refuse to travel, but I'm about ready to say it's not optional. In-person connection is the yeast in the dough that makes the recipe rise.
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🎯🎯🎯
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It's a big, gnarly, messy problem, and my heart goes out to anyone who uprooted their life under false promises.
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💔
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Yes. See my comment about needing to "grow up" as a company, to have the infrastructural maturity of an in-office company with 5-10x your size.
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Not sure what you're asking, exactly?
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Is this what's happening? I have only heard the opposite -- that juniors can't get hired, people only want to give jobs to super experienced seniors. 🤔
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Yesssss. There is a ton of specialist domain expertise in building these organizations!
It's not rocket science, but I am also so irritated by all these folks who are hand waving away everything that goes into making shit work like it's just *obvious* what to do.
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That's quite the sweeping statement.
Seems pretty straightforward and understandable to me. You've got a company not built for remote work, suddenly forced to go remote.
New hires didn't gel because *the company wasn't built for that.*
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Leadership is certainly an important variable.
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One of my favorite books is "Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy," by Barbara Ehrenreich.
I don't even know how many times I've read this book. (SO GOOD, go read it!)
We are social mammals; we evolved for embodied connection. It's like...relationship lubricant, of sorts.
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I feel like you are hand waving away some pretty big challenges.
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I mean....it certainly can be, sure.
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Pretty much.
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Is this something you've spoken to many company leaders about?
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Glad you've got it figured out. 🙃
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And there isn't nearly as much prior art (or books, mentors, talks, material etc) to learn from and adapt to fit your needs.
Nor as much consensus on what the hard problems actually *are*.
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I love how convinced everyone is, after hearing a two sentence, third hand description of the problem, that they can confidently diagnose and dispose of the situation some other company is desperately struggling with.
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I don't think it was a problem with hiring.
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Yep, attrition and morale are inversely correlated. This exactly.
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Finished the thread, if you care to read the rest of it.
The tldr is employee morale never improved, and new hires never felt as connected or dialed in, and it was leading to high turnover rates.