We’re a globally distributed work from anywhere company that spans multiple timezones. Because of this, it can be challenging to balance work life balance, productivity, and the needs of our teammates to be able to communicate with one another. Below I’ve listed a couple of communication norms. The main guiding principle is: Don’t be the person that causes escalations over your lack of reachability.

<aside> 🧑‍🚒 If you’re the current on-call you’re expected to be reachable 24/7 during your shift. Please ensure that @egt-oncall reaches you and that you’re able to respond in a timely manner.

</aside>

1. Turn on notifications from Slack. You can tune these as appropriate, but in general, you should be seeing and responding to direct messages and @ mentions in a timely manner (for this definition of timely let’s go with a p80 response time of 45 minutes during your working hours unless you’re in a meeting).
   1. Note: “Response” doesn’t mean “Solution” if something is going to take time to solve, require further investigation, or generally can’t be resolved- just respond and say something like, “I’m looking in to it, I expect to be able to answer this at <expectation>” and then be sure to follow up.
   2. It is also acceptable for longer term solutions to say, “I can’t get to this right now <I’ve created ticket X | please reach out to Y | we’ve added it to the agenda of meeting Z>”. The key here is that radio silence makes people feel ignored. Be a good partner, don’t make people feel like you’re ignoring them.
2. Working hours - because we’re remote we don’t have a strict policy on working hours, we generally expect partners to be available between 10am and 2pm EST (this is when the majority of our meetings are scheduled). You should communicate what your normal working hours are to your manager for instance if you’re in CET and you work from 10a-6p or if you’re in PST and you work from 8a-5p.
3. Mobile - Slack has a mobile app, and almost all of us have Slack on our mobile devices. You can set “do not disturb” hours outside of your working hours. In general, just be mindful that if you’re a senior member of the team people may be waiting on you, so it helps to advance the partnership if you can be as responsive as possible.

Pro Tips for Efficient Communication

Don’t start conversations the same way you would in person

For more info about this check out nohello.net.

Don’t Ask to Ask, Just Ask

Every now and then, in online chat rooms I hang around in, someone pops in and says something in the lines of,

Foobar123:

Any Java experts around?

This is bad form, for several reasons. What the person is actually asking here is,

Foobar123:

Any Java experts around who are willing to commit into looking into my problem, whatever that may turn out to be, even if it's not actually related to Java or if someone who doesn't know anything about Java could actually answer my question?

There are plenty of reasons why people who DO have the knowledge would not admit to it. By asking, you're asking for more than what you think you're asking.

You're asking people to take responsibility. You're questioning people's confidence in their abilities. You're also unnecessarily walling other people out. I often answer questions related to languages or libraries I have never used, because the answers are (in a programmer kind of way) common sense.

Alternatively, it can be seen as..

Foobar123:

I have a question about Java but I'm too lazy to actually formalize it in words unless there's someone on the channel who might be able to answer it

..which is just lazy. If you're not willing to do the work to solve your problem, why should we?

The solution is not to ask to ask, but just to ask. Someone who is idling on the channel and only every now and then glances what's going on is unlikely to answer to your "asking to ask" question, but your actual problem description may pique their interest and get them to answer.

So, to summarize, don't ask "Any Java experts around?", but rather ask "How do I do [problem] with Java and [other relevant info]?"

Other similar problems: The XY Problem, No Hello. Further reading: How do I ask a good question?, or if you have more time: How To Ask Questions The Smart Way.

Further Reading

1. https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/blog/collaboration/etiquette-tips-in-slack