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Comment by afastow | Hacker News Reader

Basically there are lots of times where I want to have a very brief informal conversation but chat isn't high enough bandwidth(I have to spend 3 minutes writing a paragraph that won't communicate what I'm trying to say as clearly as I'd be able to in 10 seconds talking) and jumping on a video call feels too formal.

It's hard to give specific examples of this but it happens all the time.

Maybe I don't even know what I want to say or ask exactly but I just want to throw a stream of consciousness at them. Sometimes that goes somewhere and there is a longer conversation but sometimes you just say some stuff and realize it didn't go anywhere and you say "nevermind let me think about it more". In person that's easy and not awkward because we do it all the time. It feels weird though to ask someone to jump on a video call, start talking at them for 30 seconds and then go "nevermind" and end it.

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Honestly, you're going to have to get past feeling weird. Company culture needs to make all forms of communication expected and normal.

Other than my first job programming at a tiny company while still in college, I have never worked in the same location as my entire team. Daily stand ups are where we caught up each morning with follow up phone calls where needed. Now chat is so pervasive that I tend to use that where a phone call may have been done in the past because it is less intrusive to the other person, can be shared with a group, and is self documenting.

As far as reaching the 'never mind let me think about it more' moment, writing an email does the exact same thing, but often without interrupting the other person. This is why I prefer to send and receive emails when I have ideas or someone wants to share them (I also insist on written agendas for meetings). The act of writing tends to force a deeper level of thought up front.

The point I'm trying to get across is that I don't think you are wrong but I do think we are different.

I agree that chat and calls and email all are beneficial. I use them all every day and they work very well. I agree that writing can help focus thoughts and it also forms documentation that will persist long after a conversation is forgotten.

I can even see where all of those things are enough to make up for a lack of face-to-face conversations for many people.

But it isn't entirely enough for me and I prefer not to have it implied that that means there is something wrong with me. I don't think that is your intention but it can come off that way. (Actually sorry reading through replies it isn't you doing this primarily but others)

Some people work better remotely, some people work better primarily in person. Yes I can deal with having remote colleagues, but that isn't the way I work best. Just like you could work non-remotely and instead physically go to work every day, but that isn't the way you work best. I don't think either of us is wrong, just different.

I've been on the opposite side of this. My own experience was that the person suffered from a mix of being a slow typer, and also didn't assemble ideas well before communicating them.

For me at least, this was bad enough that I had to write as the person talked and rephrase their words back to them to make sure I had turned it into what they meant.

A DM in a chat is precisely the place for those kind of convos (especially the "Well what about X, Y Z.. wait, nevermind, I figured it out" kind of comments which I'm especially guilty of). Just spend some time getting your thoughts distilled down before you start typing.

I can assemble ideas and communicate them just fine, but yes I also often brainstorm half-formed ideas with teammates. This is intentional, not a accident or because I can't think for myself.

It's a process that I (and others) find leads to better ideas quicker. Why waste time fully fleshing out an idea alone and only afterwards present it to others who might instantly see some flaw you overlooked that they could have pointed out at the beginning? It's perfectly fine if I throw something at you and you have no idea what I mean, and even better if you rephrase it to clarify what I meant because you probably just clarified it for me as well.

I have a feeling your response might be that I'm wasting people's time like that but I disagree. In person I can see what another person is doing before I engage them, so I obviously am not going to bother them if they are busy or focused on something else. I can always bring it up later at lunch or just whenever I notice they have a second.

Maybe that makes it more clear why this does not translate well remotely. It's tough to translate half an idea into text, and while that forces me to make it into a full idea first it's also slower. Remotely it's also impossible for me to know what they are doing before I engage them, so I would start breaking their concentration and wasting their time.

For me that extremely lightweight and casual brainstorming is one of the most important parts of having a team to work with.

I work on a team of 11 engineers. Two of us are remote - myself included. We use Slack for IM, Hangouts for group meetings and face-to-face chats, and Screenhero for screen sharing and pairing. I highly recommend the latter for interactions conversations that are analogous to the "pair programming / informal show-and-tell" conversations. Thanks to those tools, I feel very connected to my team and am able to have high quality and high fidelity interactions with my colleagues.

IMO, what you describe is what I like in forcing remote communication: you are forced to take the time to lay down on paper^Wtext what your problem is; that forces you to decompose it methodically so that you will be understood. That process, by itself, often brings the light and makes the communication unnecessary: you solved the problem by concentrating properly on it in order to explain it.

Also (warning, this will sound snarky), what I liked in remote work is not being interrupted by people who do what you like to do: thinking out loud and using me either as an answering juke-box (I should stop what I am doing, switch to concentrate on your problem, while you obviously haven't given it as much time as you expect me to give it, since you are building it as you speak) or just as a mirror.

a paragraph that won't communicate what I'm trying to say as clearly as I'd be able to in 10 seconds talking

On the other hand, I personally appreciate when someone sends me some written conversation rather than verbal as it allows me to take time to digest and respond (theres only so many times I can ask someone to repeat what they said) and it provides a written record that I can come back to later. The latter point is important because my memory isnt that great and I find it difficult to take notes and pay attention at the same time. Text is also searchable and shareable, should I need either.

Fix: You need an already-open IRC session, and you need to learn faster typing.

Fix: You need to learn to speak to people face-to-face so you could understand there are sometimes advantages over IRC.

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