For work, I communicate mainly through...
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Although ... (Score:5, Funny)
... I spend so much time looking at /. I hardly communicate at all with co-workers
Re:Although ... (Score:2)
Aren't they not on /.? :P
Re:Although ... (Score:2)
No, they probably aren't not.
Communication Depends Upon Their Weakness (Score:5, Funny)
I will vary my medium depending upon the Achilles Heel of the co-worker I need to intimidate, ermmm, communicate with. Afterall, the Office is a Battlefield, and communication is ammunition. You wouldn't go after a vampire with kryptonite or take on General Zod with with a clove of garlic, so don't make a similar mistake in real life. The choice is among three weapons, really: E-Mail, Phone, Face-to-Face.
Never let a Sales Guy get you on the phone: it's like bringing a sword to an Indiana Jones fight. You keep everything in e-mail for the Sales Guy; don't listen to the Sirens' Call!
There are always the "creative" types, or young punks who were raised online... these hipsters will weave e-mail rings around you. Nip their emoticon-laden shenanigans in the bud by marching down to their office or cube and having a face-to-face with them while standing a good six inches into their personal space. Grip their shoulder periodically. New Media-savvy hipsters hate having their shoulders gripped.
And be sure to phone the face-to-face time-wasters. These are often women, who will use (either intentionally or subconsciously) the insufficient volume of fabric in their skirts or blouses to achieve distraction and misdirection. Counter that cleavage with some Clausewitz, who said that "the third rule is never to waste time." So Scarlet Pimpernel her ass by avoiding any face-to-face while dive-bombing her voicemail box constantly and off-hours.
happy to help...
Re:Communication Depends Upon Their Weakness (Score:2)
Email: Even though it's admissible in court. (Score:2, Interesting)
Penn State reference worth mod points?
Re:Email: Even though it's admissible in court. (Score:5, Insightful)
FTFY
Re:Email: Even though it's admissible in court. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Email: Even though it's admissible in court. (Score:2)
Sounds like you work for one of my ex-employers.
No e-mail, no voicemail, no memos. Nothing that leaves a record. Only face to face communications and then that was done in a round-about matter so as to provide deniability should I have been wearing a wire.
Written records were prepared should someone come snooping. But we were not to take direction from those.
Re:Email: Even though it's admissible in court. (Score:2)
Re:Email: Even though it's admissible in court. (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm a consultant. What I do is ALWAYS do meeting summaries. This has saved my bacon so often, I call the template "bacon brine" (it's so good at preserving bacon). By default it always says:
"If any of the below is incorrect or if something is missing, please let me know and I will update the meeting summary"
1) it says a meeting happened
2) It lets me control the narrative
the 2nd reason is actually the most important. by default everything I say is 100% correct. It's like a casino, the odds are always slightly in my favour. People have to work to get their points in.
If I leave things out by accident (it's never an accident), then things get forgotten.
If I need things remembered, it's right there in writing.
You didn't respond/read the email? Your fault.
If things (I) needed to magically reappear, poof it's there.
That's the power of narrative, it's not just the conquers that write the history books you know.
If you think I'm being dishonest, you should have stopped reading the moment I said "I'm a consultant".
Re:Email: Even though it's admissible in court. (Score:3)
If you think I'm being dishonest, you should have stopped reading the moment I said "I'm a consultant".
Actually, that puts the strength of a contract on your side. As an employee, we could never get away with anything like this.
Memos have to be signed by a manager or they are meaningless. And if you push the issue and keep writing them, you'll get shown the door. They won't open it for you. They'll just throw you through it.
Re:Email: Even though it's admissible in court. (Score:3)
You can "get away" with this anywhere you work. The trick is not using it to "get away" with anything persay. That is, the OP is using it to wield power, but his methods are still useful. Where I work there is a strict hierachy of authority. Regardless of that, if I'm in a meeting, or get off the phone, and I want to make sure [with no ill intent or alterior motive] that everyone is on the same page, I will write up a summary and send it via email asking them if I missed / misunderstood anything. Frankly it is a very useful way to make sure everyone walked away with the same understanding and as something to refer to later if you are working multiple projects and need a refresher.
Now, if I want to take it a step futher, and perform a little CYA or office politics, I'll be sure the other person's boss is in the cc: block as well as mine. This is especially useful if the other person doesn't like to meet deadlines. EVen if you work in a place where only memos hold authority, this still acts as the start of the process to get that memo started. Remember the point of this isn't starting blind, this is the result of a meeting or telecom where someone has presumably signed themselves up to do something. If they didn't have the authority to do that, then your email serves as a way to get their boss to sign them up for it (if worded correctly) or tell them to stop writing checks their paycheck can't afford.
In either case it does provide a written record of what occured, even if it isn't "signed by a manager" because it still puts the burden on the recipient to deny the email, deny the contents, and explain why they didn't correct it before the shit hit the fan.
Re:Email: Even though it's admissible in court. (Score:2)
Nothing better to fry a consultant than video of him saying the thing he is claiming he did not agree to. It's why I record all meetings by requiring someone to be in on the video conference and all meetings will be video conferenced...
The border controller record function is my friend :-)
Re:Email: Even though it's admissible in court. (Score:2)
Is that you, Mr. White?
Re:Email: Even though it's admissible in court. (Score:2)
Well at least I am not alone. I know of several people that seem to avoid any written proof of anything they do. I email, they call me.
Then later when SHTF, and I am looking through emails to see who said what, there are just big holes from people.
It makes it pretty hard to work with some people. Also I know some avoid anything contentious over email, only phone or in person, (not even voice mail) likely for FOI reasons.
Re:Email: Even though it's admissible in court. (Score:2)
As is the audio from the security camera with the suspiciously powerful microphone placed outside your door to keep 'thieves' from stealing your sticky pads. A lapse of judgement may prevent you from mentioning it until the lawsuit is filed, but with it's 30 day storage of audio / video, it will be apparent that it does not violate wiretapping laws.
Re:Email: Even though it's admissible in court. (Score:3)
My firm is still heavily e-mail, but that's changing with Lync and, to a much lesser extent, Yammer. Looking forward to a time when these alternate options improve the SNR on email so it's only the important stuff that makes it to the in box.
A lot of short conversations happen over Lync, and the screen sharing/audio features are great when the team is spread all over the country/globe. The audio capabilities leave a lot to be desired, however. IM ports were blocked as recently as a few years ago so this is a big advance.
Yammer has a lot of potential, but you need to filter out the "It's my first day" and "I like ice cream" comments. It works best to build communities of interest, and lets junior folks get involved in the information flow. Plus, it has the potential to really shorten feedback loops and keep FYI stuff off email. Here's hoping that M$ does a good job of integrating the functionality of Yammer into Outlook and SharePoint.
For the legacy options, I get about three phone calls a year on my office phone that aren't spam or a group broadcast. I'd really prefer if they just routed the land line right to email. We also have a fax machine somewhere for those odd times you need to file an affidavit or buy a house.
The only snail mail I ever get is trade pubs and brochures, and that makes me a heavy user. I dropped a pile of Christmas cards in the office mail for my junior staff and I was still getting the odd thank you email reply in June.
Morse Code (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Morse Code (Score:2)
I was going to do a short reply in morse code, but the damn Slashdot filter wouldn't let me. Thanks a lot, Slashcode.
interpretive dance (Score:3)
Old school (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Old school (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Old school (Score:3)
Re:Old school (Score:2)
I'd LIKE it to be all email. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd LIKE it to be all email, but unfortunately, my co-workers prefer to drop in, or worse - call me on the phone.
Re:I'd LIKE it to be all email. (Score:5, Funny)
However it may also make your supervisor want to find a legal reason to fire you.
Re:I'd LIKE it to be all email. (Score:2)
"However it may also make your supervisor want to find a legal reason to fire you."
IANAL and there may be new laws I am unaware of but, as I learned from watching way to much Judge Judy, that would be a legal reason to fire someone. As long as the termination does not breach contractual obligations or break anti-discrimination laws (gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity) you can decide you no longer require the services of an employee for any reason, including foul bodily odours.
Re:I'd LIKE it to be all email. (Score:2)
Re:I'd LIKE it to be all email. (Score:2)
I have co-workers who hate e-mails and prefer messaging. I hate messaging because we use MS Communicator. I hate its client. I tried to get Pidgin to work, but I cannot figure out its server address to connect. :(
Re:I'd LIKE it to be all email. (Score:2)
You can not fire up the other client and see where it connects ?
netstat -na
might even be enough.
Re:I'd LIKE it to be all email. (Score:2)
Hmm, good idea.
Sighs matter (Score:2)
Depends (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Depends (Score:4, Interesting)
E-mail is useful for large-scale announcements (its X's birthday! Remember, staff meeting Tuesday) but I much rather have face to face conversation when it comes to figuring out problems.
I disagree Especially for troubleshooting, it's important to get things in writing, so people know who does what exactly, don't chase red herrings, and have an audit trail of what's been done and thought of, as well as the resolution. This will come in handy years down the road.
Face to face leads to misunderstandings, and it's impossible to talk people through technical tasks like a quick patch script. Never mind that humans in general don't have eidetic memory, and you end up with dropped work because things were forgotten, as well as animosity when one person remembers differently from another.
Use a ticketing system that allows capturing e-mail, and otherwise use e-mail. Face-to-face is for management who wants a "feeling" of how things are going, not the low level details that actually solve the problems. Telephone is for customers, and professional phone talkers.
Even IM is better than facetime and phone calls, but it's still inadequate - you are limited in verbosity as well as just what survives a paste, and even with logging turned on, it's a bitch to have any kind of useful history or audit trail when more than two people are involved in different IMs.
Also, some people get overly informal in IMs, making their contributions (and I use this term loosely) unsuitable for copy/paste into tickets.
So my choice is e-mail. Preferably unmangled by Exchange.
Re:Depends (Score:3)
The large scale announcements are what make e-mail so ineffective. At my work the e-mail system is so overloaded with junk like that, most of which doesn't even apply to me, that it eats up most of my time wading through the spam.
Re:Depends (Score:2)
Re:Depends (Score:4, Funny)
He sounds intelligent. How in hell did he wind up in charge?
The Phone (Score:5, Funny)
FUCKING
HATE
IT
Seriously, worst invention ever. Of all time.
Re:The Phone (Score:4, Funny)
Don't you just love it when some doofus a couple of cubicles away has to use their phone to call you rather than get off their lazy backside and walk over to talk to you face-to-face? Especially when you're in the middle of another face-to-face conversation so it's a way to interupt you and whoever you're talking to because they think they're way more important than whatever else you're doing.
Cheers,
Dave
Re:The Phone (Score:2)
Re:The Phone (Score:2)
Seriously, worst invention ever. Of all time.
The Smellophone [gizmag.com] says hi.
Cowboy Neal is my office messenger (Score:2)
You should see the look on his face when i tell him he's getting faxed.
Re:Cowboy Neal is my office messenger (Score:2)
I have to ask, how does he fit through the machine?
Re:Cowboy Neal is my office messenger (Score:2)
In small pieces and great effort. Every office needs a woodchipper.
Re:Cowboy Neal is my office messenger (Score:2)
Video Chat (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not often I represent one of the tiny minorities on these polls, but video chat is really the only option for long-distance engineering.
HQ is across the Atlantic, and discussing technical details over the phone is hard enough without having to explain verbally what part of the drawing I'm pointing at. Email works, but it's slow. So we hooked up the document camera to a video chat and couldn't be happier. Except for time zones, screw them.
Re:Video Chat (Score:2)
It's not often I represent one of the tiny minorities on these polls, but video chat is really the only option for long-distance engineering.
HQ is across the Atlantic, and discussing technical details over the phone is hard enough without having to explain verbally what part of the drawing I'm pointing at. Email works, but it's slow. So we hooked up the document camera to a video chat and couldn't be happier. Except for time zones, screw them.
How can e-mail be slower than transmitting hundreds of times the data to get moving pictures? If anything, e-mail is slowed because of video conferencing eating all the bandwidth. Stop using centralized e-mail services, and send mail directly, and it's quick and reliable. Seeing a blurry picture of a drawing, on the other hand, is imprecise and eats up bandwidth.
Re:Video Chat (Score:5, Insightful)
How can e-mail be slower than transmitting hundreds of times the data to get moving pictures? If anything, e-mail is slowed because of video conferencing eating all the bandwidth. Stop using centralized e-mail services, and send mail directly, and it's quick and reliable. Seeing a blurry picture of a drawing, on the other hand, is imprecise and eats up bandwidth.
And this is why IT people get a reputation for not understanding the business. Email is slower at communicating what needs to be communicated, we're talking people time not bandwidth. Yes, you can send a drawing via email but you can't easily coordinate what you're explaining with the drawing. It's a lot easier to say "if you look at this joint *here* and follow the flow down to *here*" and point on a live broadcast than to either explain it orally or circle it in Photoshop and send the drawing over and over again. The bandwidth you could save isn't worth wasting a person on minimum wage's time on, far less professional engineers.
Re:Video Chat (Score:2, Insightful)
And this is why IT people get a reputation for not understanding the business. Email is slower at communicating what needs to be communicated, we're talking people time not bandwidth. Yes, you can send a drawing via email but you can't easily coordinate what you're explaining with the drawing.
If what you send needs explaining, then something is wrong with the communication, not the communication form.
It's a lot easier to say "if you look at this joint *here* and follow the flow down to *here*" and point on a live broadcast than to either explain it orally or circle it in Photoshop and send the drawing over and over again.
As oppose to spending two minutes writing down what you mean in a way that can be understood, and isn't ambiguous?
If you absolutely have to send an image, only send what's relevant.
Again, if you get e-mails back asking for clarification, your e-mail wasn't clear. That's not a fault of the medium, but how you (ab)used it.
Re:Video Chat (Score:2)
If what you send needs explaining, then something is wrong with the communication, not the communication form.
Maybe in your world it's so simple that everything is a "lob over the wall" email, where there's never any need for a dialog, discussion, brainstorming, arguing the pros and cons of different designs and solutions or anything else that require people to actually have a rapid ping-pong of thoughts and ideas, something email quite frankly sucks at. Don't get me wrong, email is great for a lot of things and I use it plenty but it's not the be-all and end-all of communication. You're still trying to shoehorn every problem to fit the optimal IT solution rather than trying to optimally support the core business. Paraphrased I still hear you saying "you don't need that video chat, we provide email and that's what's best for you".
Re:Video Chat (Score:2)
Maybe in your world it's so simple that everything is a "lob over the wall" email, where there's never any need for a dialog, discussion, brainstorming, arguing the pros and cons of different designs and solutions or anything else that require people to actually have a rapid ping-pong of thoughts and ideas, something email quite frankly sucks at
No, e-mail doesn't suck at that. People who are opposed to e-mail suck at that.
E-mails work because you have a precise history about exactly what was said, by everyone. I've done many a rapid e-mail exchange that took far less time than meetings, and where no one forgot or misunderstood anything, because it was right there in front of them. And everybody is equal - there's no one interrupting or wasting a majority of everyone's time on trivial things because you can.
Meetings is a social function, and it undoubtedly has great value as just that. But it is not ideal for solving problems - you can bounce ideas off each other just as easily through other methods, and don't waste time on all the social lubrication and only one speaker at a time. When you make a drawing in a meeting it's to compensate for meetings inherently being inadequate to the task - you can't convey what you mean through talking, and compensate through drawings. Those drawings are almost always unnecessary if you had chosen a different and better suited venue to start with.
Re:Video Chat (Score:2)
E-mails work because you have a precise history about exactly what was said, by everyone. I've done many a rapid e-mail exchange that took far less time than meetings, and where no one forgot or misunderstood anything, because it was right there in front of them. And everybody is equal - there's no one interrupting or wasting a majority of everyone's time on trivial things because you can.
I'm as big a fan of email as you'll find anywhere, for all the reasons you listed above... and yet I still find that often a discussion that seems to be going around in circles over email (with people 'talking past' each other, making unhelpful snide remarks, seeing insults where none were intended, misunderstanding or refusing to fairly consider the other person's argument, etc) can often be cleared up quickly over the telephone. I think that is because over the phone you have a chance to react to the other person's misapprehensions quickly -- in particular, if the other person's chain of logic makes a wrong turn, you can interrupt and point that out immediately, *before* he's spent six paragraphs elaborating a position based on that false assumption, and *before* he's become convinced that you are wrong because his incorrect understanding of your position has solidified in his mind.
That said, I agree that in-person meetings don't scale well past two or three people -- it's the human equivalent of non-switched 10MB/sec Ethernet.
Re:Video Chat (Score:2)
When you make a drawing in a meeting it's to compensate for meetings inherently being inadequate to the task - you can't convey what you mean through talking, and compensate through drawings. Those drawings are almost always unnecessary if you had chosen a different and better suited venue to start with.
OP here. I don't think you understand what an engineering drawing is. It's not a back-of-the-napkin sketch. It's the actual blueprint for our product, with every technical detail, dimension, and interface. Calling it "unnecessary" is akin to telling a film director he doesn't need to bring his movie to a production meeting - he can just email a plot summary over.
Re:Video Chat (Score:2)
OP here. I don't think you understand what an engineering drawing is. It's not a back-of-the-napkin sketch. It's the actual blueprint for our product, with every technical detail, dimension, and interface
I'm an engineer.
Engineering drawings are incredibly useful - but not in meetings. The time to present the drawing is before the meeting, not during.
Participants either should have familiarized themselves with the drawing before the meeting, or if it's not that kind of meeting, what's in the drawing needs to be presented in a different manner that's suited for the audience. A drawing that the audience doesn't understand isn't going to be useful. Impressive, perhaps, but not useful.
Re:Video Chat (Score:2)
The time to present the drawing is before the meeting, not during.
Sure. Everyone comes prepared and knowing what they want to talk about. But when you're actually in the meeting, it's a lot easier to point and ask "and this weld, why is this so large?" than it is to ask in an email "and the weld at grid H9, between stiffener L37 and the starboard cofferdam, why is that so large?" As I said earlier, yes, you can do it that way, but it just takes more time. And with face-to-face communication, it's much easier to tell if someone's bullshitting you or dodging responsibilities.
Also, audience? I think we're discussing different types of meeting here. What I'm talking about has four to six people, eight at the very most if you need a consult from another department. There's no audience, and everyone has already familiarized themselves with the drawing, because they helped create it.
Having read your Apollo 13 post above, I can respect that you apparently had a bad experience with a project manager or someone who couldn't run a meeting for crap. But bad managers come in all sizes. If you have an email-centric focus and your manager doesn't respond for two weeks, your project is just as dead as if you have a meeting-centric focus and they start running 4-hour bureaucratic meetings of doom. The person failing to communicate is the problem, not the medium of communication.
Re:Video Chat (Score:4, Informative)
If Apollo 13 happened today, do you think NASA would conduct the brainstorming session in a big room or over email?
I honestly think that a big room would be filled with managers and sideways promoted has-beens, while the actual problems would be solved by people in back rooms in-between being interrupted by having to update their managers on the phone. That's pretty much what happened the last time, and is pretty much what would happen today too.
The only solutions I've seen come from meetings and brain-stormings have been half-baked, including mine. They are pulled out of people and glomped onto, despite not being anywhere near ready. If given a fraction of the time to actually think without interruptions, they would have been more solid, and provided in less time.
tl;dr: In times of crisis, the best thing management can do is to get together in a big room for a meeting. And stay there while others solve it.
Re:Video Chat (Score:3)
Re:Video Chat (Score:2)
That should really make things easier for everyone involved.
VoIP in the boonies (Score:4)
I work in a small satellite office in Vancouver (the one in Canada). Head office and all the people I work with are in Dallas. We use VoIP a lot. We haven't felt any need for video conferencing yet, but it will come, I'm sure.
...laura
Re:VoIP in the boonies (Score:2)
Sure, it sounds pretty awsome to be working in a satellite and all. But isn't it rather squeezy? Wouldn't it be more practical to work in a building?
But I guess, if it's a communication satellite then the VoIP must be pretty clear.
Re:VoIP in the boonies (Score:2)
I use an Ouija board ... (Score:4, Funny)
Because my job is dead and gone.
(Disclaimer: I used the "an equal mix of some or all" only because "none of the above" wasn't an available option.
Re:I use an Ouija board ... (Score:2)
Because my job is dead and gone.
(Disclaimer: I used the "an equal mix of some or all" only because "none of the above" wasn't an available option.
Well, technically an equal mix of nothing is still nothing.
Re:I use an Ouija board ... (Score:2)
I'm retired. My sister and I share what used to be our parent's condo and about the only "work" I do is helping her when she has computer problems. (She uses Ubuntu, and I use Fedora, so there's nowhere near as many problems as their would be if she used Windows.) I picked the same option because even with the two of us in the same home, email's sometimes the easiest way to communicate.
Between two Linux hosts on a LAN, consider good old "talk" and "write".
IRC, email (Score:3)
The hub of our communication at work is a really beefy machine running Debian GNU/Linux. Communication within the tech dept. is done mostly via IRC (our CEO is a really techy person), and email. Even some guys and gals from the Customer Relations/Editoral Staff, and the head of the Legal Department, are available via IRC at all times, which is neat. We also have a web-based issue tracker (that's controllable by email; developed in-house many years ago) that helps us keep track of things. It's pretty awesome - that kind of infrastructure is INCREDIBLY less frustrating than what we've had at companies I worked before (mainly Atlassian webapps that are all shiny and stuff, oh yay!!1!). Not as colourful and web-2.0-y perhaps, but it is fast and very much to the point. And very hackable, in the good, true meaning of the word. :)
Never use casual chats if detail is important (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a superior (exact chain of command never clear) a little while back that absolutely refused to write anything down. If there was a need for exact detailed instructions it was always "come over to my cube and we'll have a chat". If I asked specific questions in email, she would always reply back with "come over to my cube and we'll chat". Drove me ..bat.. ..shit.. CRAZY!
When speaking in generalities without a sharply defined agenda in person chats are fine. In fact, that's probably the best way to do it. But when detail is required, it is vitally important to get it in writing.
The company had other dysfunctions too. That's why I don't work there anymore.
Re:Never use casual chats if detail is important (Score:4, Interesting)
Best way to deal with this is take notes, go back to your desk, and before you start write an email stating exactly what you are going to do, what you are going to deliver, and how you will judge correctness/completeness of task.
Then email it to her.
Re:Never use casual chats if detail is important (Score:2)
Re:Never use casual chats if detail is important (Score:2)
Another odd thing was that the shift key on his computer seemed to be broken.
This make me think of all those cars with broken turn signals.
Missing option (Score:2)
-- --- .-. ... . [Oh come on, not even two words?]
-.-. --- -.. .
(Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Filter error: Please use fewer 'junk' characters.)
Re:Missing option (Score:2)
Only one option works for global operations (Score:5, Insightful)
Japan is +14 hours to us, Europe +5 to +8. That whole instantaneous communication thing is hard to do with someone who is sleeping and they are not in the next cube. If they are asleep in the next cube, then its fun.
Re:Only one option works for global operations (Score:2)
If only. Debugging problems in India or Korea or Taiwan through email takes too long. Either you suck it up and get on a conference call late at night / early in the morning, or you find yourself on a plane.
Re:Only one option works for global operations (Score:3, Funny)
If he had a date, he wouldn't have the time.
Combination of communication modes (Score:2)
I'm a web developer at a university. A good chunk of my job has involved converting older paper-driven processes to the web.
Occasionally projects will get started face to face (usually by a faculty member that stops me in the hall); but most often the earliest communications happens through email. I've found it beneficial, though, to have a significant amount of face-to-face conversation as early into a project as is possible. When it comes to project planning, most of my co-workers can easily see the overall goal but are not so good at thinking through or explaining the specifics. Since (obviously) in most processes dealing with the details and - especially - exceptions are what's going to take up 95% of my coding time, it's important that I understand how things actually work in practice (if they want to move the admissions process online, for example, I really need to know the specifics of how admissions happen!). Discussing something face to face (and taking notes), where I can immediately suss out anything that's not clear or where the other person hasn't really thought through the process in enough detail, is just so much more efficient than trying to do the same thing over email.
As an aside - I've consistently found that people who want a process moved onto the web will generally spend a lot of time thinking it through before contacting me; but they almost always spend that time thinking about exactly the wrong stuff. At our first meeting they'll usually start out with a very vague overarching description of what they want, then they'll launch into how maybe there should be a form with a button here and a text-box there... when what they really should've spent time delineating the process in as much detail as possible.
Re:Combination of communication modes (Score:2)
As an aside - I've consistently found that people who want a process moved onto the web will generally spend a lot of time thinking it through before contacting me; but they almost always spend that time thinking about exactly the wrong stuff. At our first meeting they'll usually start out with a very vague overarching description of what they want, then they'll launch into how maybe there should be a form with a button here and a text-box there... when what they really should've spent time delineating the process in as much detail as possible.
I agree with you on the last paragraph.
Half the time it's "I want this to do this and this" when it should have been "I have this problem (explanation) that needs a solution".
A lot of the time we find if one person needs something, that a lot of other people can use it, if we just make it robust and flexible enough.
Email. (Score:4, Interesting)
Great part is, that's totally accepted business policy here, since we need to be able to frequently shift work around and without thorough written documentation of the request, that's simply not feasible. I'm glad the management here stands behind that, too. Surprisingly little falls through the cracks, since everyone has an up-to-the-moment record of what everyone else should be working on.
Communicate with whom? (Score:2)
Missing option: thru Slashdot comments (Score:2)
We actually communicate thru posting Slashdot. comments. Our online nicks provide an extra layer of anonymity for those delicate CYA cases.
None of the above (Score:3)
At work i mainly communicate via 2-way radio. I drive ridiculously big dump trucks in an open cut mine.
Smoke Signals and interpretive dance (Score:2)
But down at the dirty hippie cooperative they frown on whatever it takes to make smoke unless it's weed so there's less of that now.
Email (Score:5, Insightful)
And I like it that way. Email can involve other people. Its offline communication and works in multiple timezones and odd hours. It can be referenced later. It is clear because it is written. I think email is the best thing ever invented. I've never worked without it, and I could not imagine work without it. You could throw away my phone, and I would hardly notice. Take email away, and I honestly could not function. I don't know how work worked before email. Could not imagine. The only thing negative about email is when you need constant back and forth, and then I switch to IM or phone, but email is and will always be #1 in my book.
Re:Email (Score:2)
And I like it that way. Email can involve other people. Its offline communication and works in multiple timezones and odd hours. It can be referenced later. It is clear because it is written. I think email is the best thing ever invented. I've never worked without it, and I could not imagine work without it. You could throw away my phone, and I would hardly notice. Take email away, and I honestly could not function. I don't know how work worked before email. Could not imagine. The only thing negative about email is when you need constant back and forth, and then I switch to IM or phone, but email is and will always be #1 in my book.
One drawback is that it's limited to the people on the Cc: list. Noone outside that group will learn from your discussion, or be able to pop in and comment (unless you're on a true archived mailing list, but companies don't seem to understand that concept).
Another drawback in my workplace is that we use MS Outlook. Quoting is broken and people don't know how to do it properly anyhow, so detailed discussions quickly become hard to follow. "See my comments inline below in bold red ..." and soon you've run out of colors.
Face to face (Score:3)
Many variations (Score:2)
It's not so useful to describe it in terms of technology. E.g. you can use mail in many widely different ways, and they don't have more in common than some of them have with other technologies.
I telecommute, and use lots of different tools (Score:2)
Have to answer with a mix.
I telecommute from home, and for such purposes I have a Cisco/Tandberg E20 videophone on my desk, and I use that to make both regular and video phone calls. I use e-mail a lot, including mailing lists. I use Lync, Jabber and Skype for instant messaging and desktop sharing. I use my cellphone when I'm not at my desk. And I visit office like once a week for face-to-face meetings (and customers whenever they need, of course, but the travel expenses are of course reimbursed).
The only problem with such multifaceted reachability is that it's hard to disconnect completely from work during vacation season. If someone at work insists on bothering me during holidays, even for 5 minutes, it still brings the work-related matters to the front and essentially bringing me back from vacation-mode.
Missing option: VHF radio (Score:2)
Last option... (Score:2)
...because it's the closest one to "hand signals".
Stalking animals successfully doesn't happen if you're in the middle of a teleconference.
Missing Option: Dog Treats! (Score:2)
Two secrets to my success:
1) 98% of what people know about dogs is nonsense.
2) If they bring up Cesar Milan, see 1).
Missing option: via Bug Report case reassignment (Score:2)
i.e. via endless games of "FogBugz hot potato".
Sign language (Score:2)
And come to think of it, I sing in small ensembles and sometimes conduct musical groups, which also requires silent communication.
Limited (Score:2)
Why is there no death ray option?
Email, but that is now totally ruined! (Score:4, Informative)
I used to like email best, but since everybody seems to be top-posting these days I find it rather useless. :-( I find it tedious to have to sift through literally hundres of lines of headers and footers and quotes to get the info I need; especially if I wasnt involved in the thread from the start. Not to mention when we get a mailthread as a problem report in our support system. Those cases instantly get an extra half hour worktime logged to them!
I don@t really see the need to quote the mail at all if youre going to top-post. I mean; who has a mail software that doesn@t support threads these days? I don@t need the whole conversation listed in every mail.
So from the bottom of my heart: F**K TOP-POSTING!
We use Microsoft Messenger in our company (Score:4, Funny)
Missing option: Ballistic flight path (Score:2)
EMAIL...its a CYA product.. (Score:2)
you forgot two-way radio! (Score:2)
Re:Ignored option: moaning (Score:2)
While I am fairly certain that the parent is referring to a porno, I have found that when I start sighing, moaning, or pleading openly with the Almighty, it's because someone is planning to steal some life away from me, usually for a task I will not be compensated for, and usually which has no reason / logic behind it.
Re:Ignored option: moaning (Score:2)
Last but not least, projects conceived in this manner, almost never go over the generally established deadline, for more than one or two weeks.