> I’ve been a remote engineer for over a decade, but only recently switched to a hybrid schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays. IMO, these two days are effectively useless for any kind of productive technical work. There are simply too many visual distractions, interruptions, and a complete lack of comfort in an office.
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> …But I do enjoy these in-office days for what they make up for in remote work: Face to face chats; Real time human bonding; A sense of place. The office is just a socially accepted excuse to get everyone out of their homes and together for a few hours.
This is why we've switched to a full week every month, which amounts to 1 - 1.2 days per week of presence. This week is used for planning, discussions, more complex knowledge sharing. We've just found it more effective to plan some things with post-its and a whiteboard. Sure, things like Miro exist, but if you combine the friction from the wonderful video call solution teams, miro, microphones, internet uplinks and such, it becomes a real distraction.
But yeah, during these weeks, we don't do much technical work beyond keeping the lights on and pushing the simple service requests through the queue.
This is why we've switched to a full week every month, which amounts to 1 - 1.2 days per week of presence. This week is used for planning, discussions, more complex knowledge sharing. We've just found it more effective to plan some things with post-its and a whiteboard. Sure, things like Miro exist, but if you combine the friction from the wonderful video call solution teams, miro, microphones, internet uplinks and such, it becomes a real distraction.
But yeah, during these weeks, we don't do much technical work beyond keeping the lights on and pushing the simple service requests through the queue.