7. Will you take a fully in-person job? Let's talk about hybrid and remote work!

Watch it on Youtube. Or listen on your favortie podcast app.

Show note

Since 2020, many people at different tech companies have switched to a hybrid and remote work style, myself included and the same for many friends. Although this is already more or less true even before covid, now I feel like it's the default and I can't see a future where 100% in-person work makes sense for a lot of the software jobs out there.

In this episode, Henrique and I chatted about how we feel about this change, and how we are adapting to it. We also touched on some related topics like how to decide which meetings to attend, and how to do mentorship over zoom. We also talked about the speaker coach feature in MS Teams, which is a really cool feature that I didn't know about before.

• 0:00 Listener feedback from last episode on fatigue.
• 5:12 How does it feel to work in a distributed team?
• 9:01 How do you decide which meetings to attend?
• 24:41 Will you take a fully in-person job in the future?
• 32:47 Mentorship over zoom (and its challenges).
• 36:47 Speaker Coach feature in MS Teams.

Leave a comment in the youtube video or email me at ding@dingzeyu.li

Full transcript text

[00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.640] Since last time we recorded, now that the English podcast has been more accessible to people.
[00:00:06.640 --> 00:00:08.340] I'm glad.
[00:00:08.340 --> 00:00:12.840] Apparently people are listening to the episode, especially my friends and colleagues,
[00:00:12.840 --> 00:00:16.920] because it used to be only in Chinese and they know I'm a podcaster for the past three years,
[00:00:16.920 --> 00:00:19.600] but they couldn't really listen to most of them.
[00:00:19.600 --> 00:00:27.360] And now that they get a chance to listen to our episodes and also a few prior, they share some thoughts,
[00:00:27.360 --> 00:00:33.880] especially on the fatigue episodes. One of my co-worker, my manager, in one of our one-on-one
[00:00:33.880 --> 00:00:42.280] before the shutdown July holiday, we actually discussed about my episode, like how she perceived
[00:00:42.280 --> 00:00:49.720] like my fatigue and then she shared some of her tips on how to get more focused and don't feel
[00:00:49.720 --> 00:00:56.680] like it's distracted always. And one tip she shared is that to carve out time, like focus time,
[00:00:56.680 --> 00:01:03.400] where there's no meetings, it's just the focus work. Outlook has this very nifty feature where you can
[00:01:03.400 --> 00:01:10.680] set focus time, like desired like hours of the week to be focused. And then Outlook will
[00:01:10.680 --> 00:01:14.680] insert like block your calendar basically. So other people can't book it.
[00:01:14.680 --> 00:01:20.040] And I tried that for a while and the kind of that feature, and then I stopped using it.
[00:01:20.040 --> 00:01:24.360] Now that my manager brought it up again, I might try it again.
[00:01:24.360 --> 00:01:25.800] You're revisiting it?
[00:01:25.800 --> 00:01:27.080] Yeah.
[00:01:27.080 --> 00:01:31.880] We have a similar thing at Google. There's focus times and there's focus days where you're not
[00:01:31.880 --> 00:01:37.720] supposed to. And so your entire organization will automatically block out like half of your day and
[00:01:37.720 --> 00:01:42.040] say for this day of the week, everyone should sort of be focusing and not having meetings.
[00:01:42.040 --> 00:01:48.600] It's a great gesture and I think it works 80% of the time. It's still people will sort of throw
[00:01:48.600 --> 00:01:53.160] a meeting on your calendar anyways if there's something that they want to. And so sometimes
[00:01:53.160 --> 00:01:57.720] someone else's focus time is them trying to fix something means that they need to poke you and
[00:01:57.720 --> 00:02:04.520] get your attention, which is like a little bit tricky at times. But it's nice that this sort of
[00:02:04.520 --> 00:02:08.760] gesture and the feature exists across companies that people try to sort of respect it.
[00:02:08.760 --> 00:02:15.240] And I find that this kind of Outlook automatic suggestion is good because they don't block
[00:02:15.240 --> 00:02:21.400] whole day. They just block one or two hours. You can specify the constraints. It's a tiny
[00:02:21.400 --> 00:02:27.800] optimization algorithm going on, I suppose. And that way it's less intrusive to my day-to-day
[00:02:27.800 --> 00:02:33.720] work, but also give me two hours of just deep focus work. I don't have to take meetings.
[00:02:33.720 --> 00:02:43.400] And then the second feedback I heard from another coworker is that he usually takes meetings
[00:02:43.400 --> 00:02:51.160] not at his desk. So he recommended me install all this company software on my phone. And then I can
[00:02:51.160 --> 00:02:58.920] take meetings away from desk. Sometimes he's walking, sometimes he's commuting, doing chores.
[00:02:58.920 --> 00:03:05.880] And one of his recommendations, the highest recommendation is to just lie down either in
[00:03:05.880 --> 00:03:10.920] a very cozy chair or in bed. That's his recommendation. He said that helps him recharge.
[00:03:10.920 --> 00:03:17.480] And of course he's doing all those things like not turning on video. So not every meeting can be audio
[00:03:17.480 --> 00:03:23.320] only, but I'm pretty sure on your calendars, there are certain meetings that you can take with audio
[00:03:23.320 --> 00:03:30.680] only and ones that you have to show your face. I want to hear any thoughts on that.
[00:03:30.680 --> 00:03:35.480] I think that's a great idea. And I've noticed that people do that before. I've never thought
[00:03:35.480 --> 00:03:41.160] about consciously choosing to do that. So my manager has one-on-ones with his whole team.
[00:03:41.160 --> 00:03:47.320] And there's about nine of us that he oversees. And then he'll do all of those walking. So he'll
[00:03:47.320 --> 00:03:51.560] go up and be like, "Want to get a coffee?" And then he won't be getting coffee every time because
[00:03:51.560 --> 00:03:57.000] otherwise he's getting nine coffees or whatever. But he has these spread and sprinkle throughout
[00:03:57.000 --> 00:04:02.360] the week. And anytime he has a one-on-one, he's like, "Let's go on a walk around the building
[00:04:02.360 --> 00:04:07.880] and just take a lot or let's do something." And I couldn't tell if at first it's just like,
[00:04:07.880 --> 00:04:12.360] "Oh, they don't need a screen." And then someone made a comment that like, "Oh, you're having a
[00:04:12.360 --> 00:04:16.520] one-on-one? Are you guys going to get coffee?" Because that's just what he does every time.
[00:04:17.080 --> 00:04:21.080] And it's kind of nice to sort of step away from your desk. And I think it makes it way more
[00:04:21.080 --> 00:04:25.080] comfortable to talk about things that aren't work. Because when you're in front of your laptop,
[00:04:25.080 --> 00:04:30.520] you have to sort of, "Okay, bring up the results or show me the link or where's the ticket for this
[00:04:30.520 --> 00:04:34.920] or whatever." And so when you're just kind of casually talking about it, you can go a little
[00:04:34.920 --> 00:04:39.880] bit more relaxed and go, "This is what we're trying to do or this is what we had planned to do."
[00:04:39.880 --> 00:04:44.760] And then also I'm curious about career opportunities or growth and stuff like that.
[00:04:44.760 --> 00:04:48.600] And you feel more comfortable talking about that when you're just sitting down,
[00:04:48.600 --> 00:04:54.440] grabbing a coffee or taking a walk around the building. And so his whole week kind of gets
[00:04:54.440 --> 00:04:59.880] broken up by lots of these little short walks everywhere. And it's really nice. Now, when you're
[00:04:59.880 --> 00:05:07.640] doing it sort of remotely, it's hard. Now I have to do it over Zoom, but I guess I could hold it up
[00:05:07.640 --> 00:05:11.640] and do Google Meets on my phone, which I haven't really tried.
[00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:19.400] Yeah. You lead in nicely into our topic today, which is how does distributed team work?
[00:05:19.400 --> 00:05:27.720] So you mentioned you are not co-located with the manager. So sometimes when you travel,
[00:05:27.720 --> 00:05:32.600] you are co-located, but most of the time you're not. So you still take meetings like Google
[00:05:32.600 --> 00:05:39.000] chats or Zoom interface. Yeah. So all of mine are happening through Google video calls or
[00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:45.160] Google Meet. And my team is based mostly out of San Francisco. I'm in New York City. And so
[00:05:45.160 --> 00:05:50.520] there's a couple of things that you sort of have to work around when you're doing something like
[00:05:50.520 --> 00:05:54.440] this. So it's not just that we're not in the same office, we're in different time zones.
[00:05:54.440 --> 00:06:01.720] And so there's a lot of planning and that has its pros and cons. Essentially, I can get my mornings
[00:06:01.720 --> 00:06:06.440] as focused time. No one is bothering me because no one's awake yet or they're not in the office
[00:06:06.440 --> 00:06:11.080] yet. So I have it pretty much until lunch where I can sort of just get things done,
[00:06:11.080 --> 00:06:19.720] work on additional projects and really prepare. And then once after lunch or once the afternoon
[00:06:19.720 --> 00:06:23.720] hits, it's just like lots of meetings and syncing up people on what I've done so far.
[00:06:23.720 --> 00:06:32.760] And then doing sort of live chat with them as well without having too much time to myself where
[00:06:33.400 --> 00:06:39.720] I can work. But then once it's the end of my day, they'll sort of just put things on for me to do
[00:06:39.720 --> 00:06:46.760] for the next day. But the remote stuff is tricky in that it's all happening via video interface.
[00:06:46.760 --> 00:06:54.600] And we all learned during the pandemic, it's good, but it's not as good. You're missing young cues.
[00:06:54.600 --> 00:06:58.440] It's hard. Sometimes one person is talking and the other one wants to talk. And then you're kind of
[00:06:58.440 --> 00:07:04.280] doing this awkward dance. And it changes the communication style. When you're in person,
[00:07:04.280 --> 00:07:12.040] you can sort of nod, agree, and also interject a couple of phrases here and there just to show that
[00:07:12.040 --> 00:07:17.560] you understand what's going on. Over video, it really is just serialized. You get a chunk of
[00:07:17.560 --> 00:07:22.120] time to talk and then I'll stop talking and you'll get a chance to talk because otherwise the video
[00:07:22.120 --> 00:07:27.400] cuts out or it just doesn't work out as well. And that can be kind of awkward. Not to mention just
[00:07:27.400 --> 00:07:32.280] the like mishearing each other because of audio quality stuff. They're also very careful about
[00:07:32.280 --> 00:07:37.480] asking if things are pushing into like five, six, whatever they're like, feel free to move this
[00:07:37.480 --> 00:07:42.840] around or this may not be ideal for you. Let me know. We can try and find another time. Just
[00:07:42.840 --> 00:07:47.320] because they know that that's like getting later and that that's when they would be looking to
[00:07:47.320 --> 00:07:51.400] leave or they have to pick up their kids or whatever. They don't want to impose that on me.
[00:07:51.400 --> 00:07:58.280] Anything that's like larger and I'm not the lead, then it's just I get thrown to the side and it's
[00:07:58.280 --> 00:08:02.920] like, okay, there's a meeting at 8 p.m. There's 30 people in it. Join if you want. It's going to be
[00:08:02.920 --> 00:08:09.320] recorded. Don't worry about it. And then essentially they say to update the logs and the decks and
[00:08:09.320 --> 00:08:13.720] whatever to make sure that my stuff is in there and that someone will, if there's follow up
[00:08:13.720 --> 00:08:19.000] questions, they'll reach out to me after. But there's no expectation that I'm there for anything
[00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:24.360] that starts after six or seven. It's always nice. And anytime I've attended one of those things,
[00:08:24.360 --> 00:08:30.200] they they call out and they're like, thanks for making it. There's a couple of people from the
[00:08:30.200 --> 00:08:36.760] East Coast here. That's really great. But there's no expectation that I attend those, which is nice
[00:08:36.760 --> 00:08:40.600] because in the beginning, especially when you start a job, I was attending every single one
[00:08:40.600 --> 00:08:45.080] because I didn't know what they were about. I wanted to impress all these things. And then now
[00:08:45.080 --> 00:08:49.160] I know that a lot of them are just kind of like really optional. I don't really need to be there.
[00:08:49.160 --> 00:08:55.000] Or if I listed everything kind of clearly in the logs, there's no need for me to be there in person.
[00:08:55.000 --> 00:09:00.680] Maybe sort of just look at the bug and see it there. How can you tell if a meeting is something
[00:09:00.680 --> 00:09:07.240] that you have to be there or you don't have to be there? That is the million dollar question
[00:09:07.880 --> 00:09:15.480] when you're working in the street. I think you have to be very careful about what you want to
[00:09:15.480 --> 00:09:20.200] take out of the meeting and what other people might need from you. So if you know that people
[00:09:20.200 --> 00:09:25.480] are waiting on you, you should probably attend this meeting and make sure to to soothe and relax
[00:09:25.480 --> 00:09:31.240] any of the concerns that might be there. If you need to touch base with someone rather than doing
[00:09:31.240 --> 00:09:36.680] it one on one, if you can do it in the meeting, that's great. If there's nothing to add and you're
[00:09:36.680 --> 00:09:41.960] sort of just talking just because it's on the calendar, then people here at least are very
[00:09:41.960 --> 00:09:46.920] good about trying to get time back and saying, OK, let's just cut this short. Or is there any
[00:09:46.920 --> 00:09:51.720] updates? Yes, no. OK, good. Let me know if there are. And that's usually how it's done.
[00:09:51.720 --> 00:09:56.520] But I've been in a couple of meetings where everyone sort of goes around and just feels
[00:09:56.520 --> 00:10:01.400] the need that they have to say an update when there really is no update. And then
[00:10:01.400 --> 00:10:05.400] usually after one or two of those meetings, someone will sort of speak up and say, like,
[00:10:05.400 --> 00:10:10.280] hey, maybe we can cut this meeting in half and like we will move it from the calendar,
[00:10:10.280 --> 00:10:16.360] from being an hour to half an hour or 15 minutes, whatever it is, to try and keep that effort going.
[00:10:16.360 --> 00:10:21.160] Like, OK, we really don't need to update this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I have one more follow up
[00:10:21.160 --> 00:10:25.800] question on the topic of meeting and then we should move on to the other ones. So you mentioned
[00:10:25.800 --> 00:10:29.960] people just feel like they need to just talk about what they work on, although they don't
[00:10:29.960 --> 00:10:36.520] have a lot of updates. And that sounds somewhat similar to a kind of daily standup type of thing.
[00:10:36.520 --> 00:10:42.440] Do you have standup in your team or no? We'll have syncs. Yeah. So we'll do one on one syncs
[00:10:42.440 --> 00:10:49.720] with managers and then each team will do like a weekly sync and then like a level above that,
[00:10:49.720 --> 00:10:56.680] we'll do like a team wide org wide sync also weekly. Yeah, weekly standup, I think they're
[00:10:57.480 --> 00:11:05.320] more easier to justify because I think a week is a long time. And usually people have something to
[00:11:05.320 --> 00:11:11.240] update within that time. But like for daily standup, it's tricky because when I'm really
[00:11:11.240 --> 00:11:15.320] crunching out stuff, there are usually a lot of things to update. So daily standup makes sense.
[00:11:15.320 --> 00:11:20.520] But in some other part of the year, like maybe it seems slower, like you're maybe just waiting for
[00:11:20.520 --> 00:11:26.440] other teams to unblock you. So not a lot of updating. The reason why I ask about this daily
[00:11:26.440 --> 00:11:33.320] standup routine is I heard it from I heard this this metaphor from a senior engineer on a team.
[00:11:33.320 --> 00:11:39.480] I respect his his work philosophy a lot. And this is one of them. He basically like daily standup
[00:11:39.480 --> 00:11:46.600] is like working out, you don't see immediate benefits at all, maybe a little bit. But you only
[00:11:46.600 --> 00:11:53.480] see the effect when it's become part of your team or part of your routine. And if you don't do that
[00:11:53.480 --> 00:11:59.800] for for a long time, you start to the team started to become unhealthy and don't know people don't
[00:11:59.800 --> 00:12:06.360] know each other. So working on and so on and so forth. So that's one of the reasons he kind of
[00:12:06.360 --> 00:12:11.720] recommended the whole team we should do daily or kind of every other day stand up to make sure we
[00:12:11.720 --> 00:12:19.320] are on sync. And when I was a junior member at team, I did not fully understand that decision.
[00:12:19.320 --> 00:12:24.200] I said, Okay, maybe because it's like more like a top down imposing, like I see that thing on my
[00:12:24.200 --> 00:12:29.080] calendar and then other people is attending, so I should probably attend as well. Exactly. And
[00:12:29.080 --> 00:12:35.160] now that I'm in a more like senior role in this new team that we're setting up. And I feel like
[00:12:35.160 --> 00:12:40.600] I get to appreciate the philosophy much more. I kind of know it's really important to keep the
[00:12:40.600 --> 00:12:47.320] team cohesive, and everybody on the same page. And yeah, what do you think? I think what you
[00:12:47.320 --> 00:12:51.960] test on there is really important. It's essentially like a point of view. If you're a manager,
[00:12:51.960 --> 00:12:57.880] looking down on your team, you're not necessarily coding as much. And so you need to just keep
[00:12:57.880 --> 00:13:01.160] track that everything is moving forward and that it's all heading in the right direction.
[00:13:01.160 --> 00:13:06.840] And you want to know that everything fits in place. But when you're the individual contributor,
[00:13:06.840 --> 00:13:11.800] like beneath that manager, you're really focused on just your product and you don't really care if
[00:13:11.800 --> 00:13:16.760] it breaks next to you. You're just like, I need this to happen so that I can keep going forward.
[00:13:16.760 --> 00:13:22.280] So then you sort of see these updates as like a waste of time seems harsh, but it's just like,
[00:13:22.280 --> 00:13:26.840] I like once I've said my part, you're kind of like zone out a little bit when other people are
[00:13:26.840 --> 00:13:31.640] talking because you're like, OK, whatever, it doesn't really impact me. The manager knows that
[00:13:31.640 --> 00:13:36.440] it does impact you, like all these things are playing together and that not only that, you can
[00:13:36.440 --> 00:13:42.200] learn from other people's updates or what's going on there. And so it definitely keeps the team
[00:13:42.200 --> 00:13:47.320] healthier and the manager appreciates more. But the individual contributor beneath them,
[00:13:47.320 --> 00:13:52.200] and I think it's kind of just like, OK, cool, like the next 15 minutes here, I could be doing
[00:13:52.200 --> 00:13:59.480] something else. It's interesting. I've seen the mix and it's extremely common for people to go
[00:13:59.480 --> 00:14:04.440] to these sinks and bring their laptops and just like look up, say what they need to say, and then
[00:14:04.440 --> 00:14:08.920] go back down and just keep working. And they keep working as if they're back at their desk and they
[00:14:08.920 --> 00:14:12.680] completely ignore everything that's going on. You have to get their attention when you're trying to
[00:14:12.680 --> 00:14:18.520] talk to them. And that's fine. And no one seems to mind, which to me is interesting because I'm
[00:14:18.520 --> 00:14:23.400] like so used to like, maybe I need to hear something here and I don't know yet. And then
[00:14:23.400 --> 00:14:27.800] there's other people who kind of just go and then don't bring their laptop or like really focused
[00:14:27.800 --> 00:14:33.480] on the discussion that's going on there. I think it depends on the person, really, what their style
[00:14:33.480 --> 00:14:39.560] is. Because to me, I'm still in the junior age where I'm like, OK, some of these things like
[00:14:39.560 --> 00:14:44.440] we could just like over chat, asynchronously go, OK, is there something out there? Yes, no. All
[00:14:44.440 --> 00:14:48.280] right. We can cancel this meeting. Yeah. Yeah. The reason why this is kind of related to
[00:14:48.280 --> 00:14:53.160] distributed team is that when if every single team member is in the same location,
[00:14:53.160 --> 00:14:58.440] then there will be more like hallway conversation. There will be more lunch conversation. So a lot of
[00:14:58.440 --> 00:15:06.200] this get the pulse thing can be felt in those other places. But if team members are distributed
[00:15:06.200 --> 00:15:12.520] or remotes, then we have to kind of force this like rituals to make sure we have a place to
[00:15:12.520 --> 00:15:18.840] get the pulse. Yeah, it's a stand in for that pulse. It's essentially like if we all were in
[00:15:18.840 --> 00:15:22.360] the same room already, you would already know from this like turning around and being like, OK, that
[00:15:22.360 --> 00:15:27.960] person is working on it or whatever. But it's like you said, it's this pulse that you don't get if
[00:15:27.960 --> 00:15:35.240] people are distributed. And it sort of ties into another topic, which is the fact that no one can
[00:15:35.240 --> 00:15:40.600] see you working when you're working distributed or remotely, which plays a couple of different
[00:15:40.600 --> 00:15:47.640] factors where you feel like you're not when you are working, you feel like no one notices
[00:15:47.640 --> 00:15:51.800] because you're not being appreciated or they're not commenting except for the syncs when you
[00:15:51.800 --> 00:15:56.520] bring it up and they're like, OK, cool. I had no idea you did that. And then when you're like stuck
[00:15:56.520 --> 00:16:02.200] or when you're not working, people also don't notice. Or if if you get stuck and you've been
[00:16:02.200 --> 00:16:05.800] working the entire time, like you work two days back to back trying to get something to work,
[00:16:05.800 --> 00:16:10.760] but you didn't get anywhere, then you when people only sync with you and they see that you're still
[00:16:10.760 --> 00:16:15.240] in the same spot, they get the impression that you weren't working, that you took that day off,
[00:16:15.240 --> 00:16:19.720] even though you really were working really hard. And so that's kind of like the tricky part about
[00:16:19.720 --> 00:16:25.960] these syncs is you feel like you always need to have something to show just to prove that you
[00:16:25.960 --> 00:16:31.240] showed up to your desk and that you were working, because otherwise they couldn't tell. Whereas if
[00:16:31.240 --> 00:16:35.480] you're in person, you have that sort of sense in that post because you see the person pulling their
[00:16:35.480 --> 00:16:40.760] hair out and working at the desk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's definitely a challenge.
[00:16:40.760 --> 00:16:48.520] OK, enough of meetings. We talk a lot. Next topic on this is like work from home.
[00:16:48.520 --> 00:16:53.720] Distributed team, chances are your team is like some of them choose work from home a few days a
[00:16:53.720 --> 00:17:01.240] week and sometimes they go into offices. So what's what's your ratio? Yeah. So we officially have this
[00:17:01.240 --> 00:17:07.240] policy of hybrid of like three days in office, mandatory in two days in office or at home.
[00:17:07.240 --> 00:17:14.120] I have a really easy commute, so I'd say probably about four days a week I'm in the office. It only
[00:17:14.120 --> 00:17:21.160] takes me about 12, 15 minutes door to door, which means I can start working at home,
[00:17:21.160 --> 00:17:25.560] especially since my team isn't even awake yet. They're on the West Coast. And then by the time
[00:17:25.560 --> 00:17:29.640] it's like lunch, I come in and then I take all my meetings and these like nice rooms and all that.
[00:17:29.640 --> 00:17:36.440] And so I can sort of do a hybrid where I'm doing both and sort of go into the office regularly,
[00:17:36.440 --> 00:17:39.160] but I don't need to be there the whole day just because it's such a quick commute.
[00:17:39.160 --> 00:17:48.680] What about you? I think our company policies half of the time. Like it's what we call our workers,
[00:17:48.680 --> 00:17:56.120] flexible workers. So it's two and a half, like 2.5 days in office, 2.5 at home. Like, of course,
[00:17:56.120 --> 00:18:00.920] it doesn't have to be like at a week level. They just look at Zoom out at the like monthly or
[00:18:00.920 --> 00:18:07.000] quality level around half the time in office, half of time at home. And our particular team is even
[00:18:07.000 --> 00:18:13.640] more flexible than that. So, so like I personally go into office two days a week and in a Seattle
[00:18:13.640 --> 00:18:19.080] office, we kind of set the Thursdays to be our in-person day. So that's the day where most
[00:18:19.080 --> 00:18:25.320] researchers and other employees will go to the, you can see the cafeteria is full and the parking
[00:18:25.320 --> 00:18:31.640] garage is full. And then I pick another day depending on my weekly schedule and to go into
[00:18:31.640 --> 00:18:37.720] the office. Yeah. It's, it's especially with distributed teams. It's like hard to know where
[00:18:37.720 --> 00:18:41.960] people are. And you sort of just assume that they're at the office or that they're at home,
[00:18:41.960 --> 00:18:47.480] depending on whatever their usual schedule is. And then I think the way that the companies measure it
[00:18:47.480 --> 00:18:51.240] is kind of what you said, they, well, at least for us, they check how many people are scanning
[00:18:51.240 --> 00:18:56.520] into the lunch and that's how they can get a good head count. I'm not sure that that's
[00:18:56.520 --> 00:19:00.120] officially the way they do it. Cause we can also scan in when we're walking into the building,
[00:19:00.120 --> 00:19:04.200] but you definitely see a spike at certain times of the day or certain days of the week.
[00:19:04.200 --> 00:19:11.240] And then part of it is tricky because like a lot of people work from home here and there,
[00:19:11.240 --> 00:19:16.840] or they work from the office and then you can just like very easily change your background to be like
[00:19:16.840 --> 00:19:23.320] whatever it is that you want. And so if you're, if you're always a person who has a background on,
[00:19:23.320 --> 00:19:29.400] then this person, they could be in Europe, they could be in Brazil, they could be in the US,
[00:19:29.400 --> 00:19:34.680] they could be at their desk in the office and you won't really know. Which I think is a plus,
[00:19:34.680 --> 00:19:39.000] like if you can get your work done and you're, it's not distracting you by all means, I think
[00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:44.840] you should do that. I have nothing against it, but the, it just means you don't really know
[00:19:44.840 --> 00:19:50.280] who the person, where they are or whether you can sort of go over to their desk and talk to them.
[00:19:50.280 --> 00:19:59.000] Yeah. I think they, I work fully remote for like the, during the pandemic from like early 2020 to
[00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:07.560] end of last year. Like, so almost like three full years of fully remote. And I learned this work
[00:20:07.560 --> 00:20:13.640] habit of just slacking people, whatever I have a chance to previously I was, Hey, let's, let's,
[00:20:13.640 --> 00:20:19.640] I will wait till lunchtime. Cause I know he, he is, before the pandemic, everybody goes to office
[00:20:19.640 --> 00:20:23.720] every day. I know I'm going to see him at lunch. So I just postponed that question till lunch.
[00:20:23.720 --> 00:20:28.600] And sometimes they work out perfectly. We get into a nice conversation, but most of the time
[00:20:28.600 --> 00:20:33.000] I kind of missed him because it's a big office. It's just impossible. Maybe get into another
[00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:37.640] interesting conversation with another person. But now I know I'm not going to run into him
[00:20:37.640 --> 00:20:44.760] at lunchtime. I would just slack him. And then if the question is really easy to resolve, then we'll
[00:20:44.760 --> 00:20:49.400] just a few back and forth and it's done. Otherwise we can schedule a separate meeting. So I think
[00:20:49.400 --> 00:20:54.440] that's something I've learned. I think it benefits me like working remotely, even now that I'm back
[00:20:54.440 --> 00:20:58.600] in the office, my default is, you know, though I can see that guy over there. It's just like three,
[00:20:58.600 --> 00:21:03.160] three cubicles away. I was still going to slack him cause it's, it's on the record. It's, it's easier.
[00:21:03.160 --> 00:21:10.200] Like, yeah. There's, there's definitely benefits. So it feels weird. I, I do it being a remote worker
[00:21:10.200 --> 00:21:14.440] or being distributed. I'm on the East coast. My team's on the West. All of our communications
[00:21:14.440 --> 00:21:19.800] via a message. It has to be right. Cause that's how we're always talking unless it's very insane.
[00:21:19.800 --> 00:21:23.800] And then I was visiting the office on the West coast and people were still messaging me
[00:21:24.440 --> 00:21:28.760] as it, when I was like a few cubicles away and I was like, guys, I am here now. I'm like,
[00:21:28.760 --> 00:21:33.400] this is the time where you come up and talk to me. But I think it's nice to have it on the record.
[00:21:33.400 --> 00:21:38.200] And some people just sort of prefer that communication also, whether it's like socially,
[00:21:38.200 --> 00:21:42.840] they don't, they don't want to talk physically in front of someone or they feel more comfortable,
[00:21:42.840 --> 00:21:47.800] or they just like to have the records or you can just use like all the emojis and the memes that
[00:21:47.800 --> 00:21:54.360] you want to sort of soften whatever conversation it is. Yeah. Yeah. And some people prefer to like,
[00:21:54.360 --> 00:21:59.480] um, you know, group their, their chats to respond at the same time. Like they want to just work for
[00:21:59.480 --> 00:22:03.960] the hour and then respond to Slack messages and I don't want to work up to them and then
[00:22:03.960 --> 00:22:09.480] interrupt their, their, whatever they're working on. It sort of lets it be sort of like a background
[00:22:09.480 --> 00:22:14.840] notification that they'll get to later. And I think it's important to have that it's, it's all
[00:22:14.840 --> 00:22:19.960] about the culture you build. Right. So like, uh, working from home I think is wonderful because
[00:22:19.960 --> 00:22:27.240] it's so flexible. Adobe, even the, um, even for interns, we encourage them to be flexible. So
[00:22:27.240 --> 00:22:30.680] they don't, they don't have to come into work every day. Although most of them still do because
[00:22:30.680 --> 00:22:34.840] they are renting a place. The place may not have good work from home, like, you know, equipment
[00:22:34.840 --> 00:22:42.040] and everything set up. Yeah, exactly. Um, but they still, they don't get to see me every day
[00:22:42.040 --> 00:22:47.320] because I don't, I'm, I'm flexible. I'm only coming in like half of the time. So it gives them
[00:22:47.320 --> 00:22:55.240] a glimpse of what their full-time coworkers are like. Yeah. Does it stress them out because
[00:22:55.240 --> 00:22:58.200] they want to be there when you're there and they don't know when you're going to be there. Do you
[00:22:58.200 --> 00:23:03.480] tell them ahead of time? Yeah. I have a, I have a very fixed schedule during the summer. I just tell
[00:23:03.480 --> 00:23:08.360] them here are the two or three days, two days. I'm definitely coming in Thursdays. And then like,
[00:23:08.360 --> 00:23:13.400] I think for now it's Monday and Thursdays and sometimes I go in one extra day, but those two
[00:23:13.400 --> 00:23:17.480] days you're guaranteed to see me. So if you are around, we can meet in person. Um, but if you
[00:23:17.480 --> 00:23:22.120] want to take those two days off, we can meet through Teams like that, that will get you. Um,
[00:23:22.120 --> 00:23:29.160] and they seem to, they're not freaking out at least so far as things is, it's fine. Yeah.
[00:23:29.160 --> 00:23:32.920] At some point we need to discuss how managers will never be able to tell
[00:23:32.920 --> 00:23:36.920] that the people that are managing are freaking out until it's probably too late.
[00:23:36.920 --> 00:23:42.840] Yeah. We do have, do these all, there's like postings, like fill out a form and then,
[00:23:42.840 --> 00:23:49.560] you know, I don't know how detailed they go into analyzing the statistics, but I think it's, um,
[00:23:49.560 --> 00:23:54.760] we're trying to measure that our managers are trying to manage that. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, no,
[00:23:54.760 --> 00:23:58.440] but it's good. I like you're in there a couple of days and then you have sort of a fixed schedule
[00:23:58.440 --> 00:24:04.360] where other people, at least during the summer know where they can find you. Um, yeah, it's,
[00:24:04.360 --> 00:24:11.000] it's just, it varies so much. Like every person I know sort of has their own schedule. Um, and it's
[00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:16.120] a sort of almost encourages these magical hallway conversations or you call them hallway conversations.
[00:24:16.120 --> 00:24:22.760] We call them magic coffee. I don't know why I Google, but that's where a lot of Google products
[00:24:22.760 --> 00:24:26.440] have come out in the past is like people bumping into each other in the hallways and having these
[00:24:26.440 --> 00:24:32.120] discussions. Uh, and so they're always sort of encouraging different teams to mix or end up in
[00:24:32.120 --> 00:24:37.400] the same cafeteria or whatever. Um, and a lot of that happens for how many in the office. Two more
[00:24:37.960 --> 00:24:44.120] topics that we can talk about. One is, um, you mentioned mentorship over zoom and also,
[00:24:44.120 --> 00:24:53.080] would you take a fully in-person job in the future? Um, so yeah, I think, uh, on the topic of
[00:24:53.080 --> 00:24:59.560] fully in-person job in the future, I think that's tricky, right? Like once you've tried it, you can
[00:24:59.560 --> 00:25:04.360] see the benefits. And even when I'm like fully going into the office every day of the week,
[00:25:04.360 --> 00:25:11.080] um, I still like to know that the option is there. Like if something were to come up, I could go home.
[00:25:11.080 --> 00:25:17.480] Um, and for whatever reason that didn't feel like the case pre pandemic. Like I'm sure people have
[00:25:17.480 --> 00:25:23.800] really nice managers and it didn't like, actually it wouldn't be held against them if they went home
[00:25:23.800 --> 00:25:28.600] a couple of days, but it just wasn't the norm. Right. So you sort of were expected to everyone
[00:25:28.600 --> 00:25:32.840] do your commute in the morning at the same time and then go home. And like, that's what everyone
[00:25:32.840 --> 00:25:39.160] thought. Now you kind of had this freedom of like, Oh, I'm working from home this day. Let's get
[00:25:39.160 --> 00:25:43.320] coffee. Like, cause I know you're also going to be working from home that day. Let's all get coffee
[00:25:43.320 --> 00:25:48.920] at the same time and catch up. And it's just like, um, I think it adds this extra dimension to,
[00:25:48.920 --> 00:25:55.800] of our lives, both in complexity, but also just like in freedom of, we don't have to be defined
[00:25:55.800 --> 00:26:01.800] by our, our like nine to five Monday to Friday job. Uh, and I think that's like definitely
[00:26:01.800 --> 00:26:07.320] a discussion people should be having. Um, that's like a very personal opinion of mine. I also just
[00:26:07.320 --> 00:26:11.640] like this, this sort of hybrid schedule because let's say Monday or Friday, you work from home.
[00:26:11.640 --> 00:26:17.560] There's plenty of people I know who can get most of their work done Monday through Thursday. And
[00:26:17.560 --> 00:26:21.880] so they'd sort of, they do this, they switch into this four day work week, uh, which I know some
[00:26:21.880 --> 00:26:27.480] companies are testing and whatever, but like, you can just do that if you're, if you're acceptable,
[00:26:27.480 --> 00:26:33.960] your team's okay with it and you're like still answering messages if they get sent to you. Uh,
[00:26:33.960 --> 00:26:39.320] but if you can get most of your work done and be as productive, then I think it's great. Like,
[00:26:39.320 --> 00:26:43.640] and that's only with a hybrid or like a work from home schedule. Yeah. Yeah. The reason why I asked
[00:26:43.640 --> 00:26:51.800] this question is, is, uh, like whenever, uh, you know, linking their constant recruiters reaching
[00:26:51.800 --> 00:26:57.640] out and most of that is just not, not what I'm interested in. But sometimes when really something
[00:26:57.640 --> 00:27:01.880] come up, this is what usually the first question I asked, like, dude, what's your remote policy?
[00:27:01.880 --> 00:27:07.800] What's your hybrid policy? And that's surprisingly in this day and age, it's still a good filter
[00:27:07.800 --> 00:27:12.200] because a lot of companies will say we are fully in person company. We don't allow like hybrid,
[00:27:12.200 --> 00:27:17.800] like hybrid does not kind of work. Like it's, um, it's surprising to hear that, like, although I
[00:27:17.800 --> 00:27:22.440] know all my coworkers, they're as productive, even more productive at home because they have better
[00:27:22.440 --> 00:27:27.880] setup because, you know, they can be more relaxed at home. They, they know stuff at home is being
[00:27:27.880 --> 00:27:34.040] taken care of like chores and like contractors, you know? Um, so yeah, there's, there's fatigue
[00:27:34.040 --> 00:27:38.280] associated with the commute. There's like no way to deny that. Like you don't want some,
[00:27:38.280 --> 00:27:42.760] there's some days where you just don't want to go, even if it's 12, 15 minutes. So for some people,
[00:27:42.760 --> 00:27:47.080] it's like an hour or it's just like the subway stopped working or it's raining, all these things.
[00:27:48.040 --> 00:27:53.160] Or I'm going to be late to this meeting. So now that added stress. Whereas if I was just at home,
[00:27:53.160 --> 00:27:56.920] I'm not necessarily late because I just, I go, I switch from one room to the other,
[00:27:56.920 --> 00:28:03.400] I turn on my laptop and now I'm on time. Right? So it's, it's, it's all these little stress factors
[00:28:03.400 --> 00:28:08.520] where it's like, it's adding stress to your day and anxiety to your day, whether it's a commute,
[00:28:08.520 --> 00:28:14.040] whether it's not being able to be home or your kid is sick or, or just like, I did all my work
[00:28:14.040 --> 00:28:19.640] already, but I still have to go like put on the suit and like sit there in my desk just because
[00:28:19.640 --> 00:28:23.400] I got, I'm supposed to be here that day and someone needs to see me there at the desk.
[00:28:23.400 --> 00:28:28.040] I think if you're doing your work and you're being productive, it's fine. If, if you're struggling,
[00:28:28.040 --> 00:28:32.440] you're falling behind, it's definitely better to go in and have like this sort of, uh,
[00:28:32.440 --> 00:28:38.280] collaborative work atmosphere or have people sort of support you. Um, but I think the more years
[00:28:38.280 --> 00:28:42.680] you're into it, the more independent people become, uh, and I think that then it's okay.
[00:28:42.680 --> 00:28:47.800] They can take care of themselves. I will personally would not take a fully in-person
[00:28:47.800 --> 00:28:55.320] job by, I kind of maybe hybrid is a good for me right now. Um, cause a few years ago during the
[00:28:55.320 --> 00:28:59.080] pandemic, I thought, Oh, I'm going to full in remote. I did not like in-person cause then I
[00:28:59.080 --> 00:29:03.480] don't have to commute and everything. But then I realized there was this like in-person factor.
[00:29:03.480 --> 00:29:07.800] That's just, it's hard to rule out. Like right now we don't have metaverse. We don't have the same
[00:29:07.800 --> 00:29:13.080] immersive experience yet. And in-person gathering and discussion, it's just, it helps bridge that,
[00:29:13.080 --> 00:29:21.000] that last mile gap. It's definitely not the same. So the fully remote, uh, if your whole team is
[00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:26.280] fully remote, that's fine. Especially if they're distributed, if you're the only remote one,
[00:29:26.280 --> 00:29:31.560] you're missing out on a lot of these like physical interactions and hallway conversations. Uh, but
[00:29:31.560 --> 00:29:37.400] fully in office also just seems so antiquated. It just seems so ancient and admits it's all this
[00:29:37.400 --> 00:29:42.920] added stress. So I like hybrid. I also like hybrid when it's flexible. Like you can choose the days
[00:29:42.920 --> 00:29:48.440] yourself. Uh, cause if you, if it's hybrid, but it's fixed days, then it's sort of just like,
[00:29:48.440 --> 00:29:54.440] I don't know, it doesn't, it loses a lot of that flexibility. Also, like some people are okay
[00:29:54.440 --> 00:29:58.280] working when they're traveling or like they're, they'll go to a different country and work out of
[00:29:58.280 --> 00:30:03.640] a cafe and be as productive and then also get to like enjoy and live their lives. Like I think
[00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:08.040] that's amazing. I have a couple of friends who did that and ended up eventually moving to a
[00:30:08.040 --> 00:30:12.040] different city that I never thought they would live in because they got to experience it. Uh,
[00:30:12.040 --> 00:30:16.040] so I think people are living in sort of more complete lives by having either the hybrid or
[00:30:16.040 --> 00:30:21.880] the fully remote. Um, and so I don't think I would go back to fully in office, um, unless it was
[00:30:21.880 --> 00:30:29.080] already in a place that I knew that I was going to be or settled out. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. How'd you say?
[00:30:29.080 --> 00:30:34.600] Yeah. Um, so the last point, um, mentorship over zoom. Love to hear that.
[00:30:34.600 --> 00:30:41.640] I think that one is particularly tricky because like, uh, a lot of mentorship comes from outside
[00:30:41.640 --> 00:30:49.480] of the, the one-on-one syncs. It comes from like, uh, setting up the, the infra or like showing
[00:30:49.480 --> 00:30:53.720] people how to do their jobs in like multiple different ways so that they can sort of learn
[00:30:53.720 --> 00:30:58.040] from themselves what they like, and also see the flexibility for like how to do things differently
[00:30:58.040 --> 00:31:03.800] or, or like create their own new version. And that's just like a, a, like a work, like pirate
[00:31:03.800 --> 00:31:09.160] liner, like how people like to work. But then there's like a lot of these softer things of like
[00:31:09.160 --> 00:31:13.800] talking about, are they happy? Are they having a good time? Uh, where do they see themselves?
[00:31:13.800 --> 00:31:19.000] Do they like working with this person or that person? And when you're doing it over, over zoom,
[00:31:19.000 --> 00:31:24.040] uh, it just feels so formal. You feel like you have to say this or that, or you have to like
[00:31:24.040 --> 00:31:28.120] please everyone or whatever it is. And it just doesn't feel like you can like sort of relax,
[00:31:28.120 --> 00:31:33.880] talk about it. It's hard to create that atmosphere. And it's also like, you know,
[00:31:33.880 --> 00:31:37.400] you're going to be in a meeting and you like sit and prepare and you stare at the screen.
[00:31:37.400 --> 00:31:43.560] It's, it's definitely not the same. Um, so I'd feel like special attention has to be paid
[00:31:43.560 --> 00:31:48.760] if you're sort of like a mentor or manager and you're dealing with zoom. Um, it's not necessarily
[00:31:48.760 --> 00:31:53.560] that you have to do it in person. It's just that you have to create these separate channels,
[00:31:53.560 --> 00:31:58.040] like the fun, relaxed channel, the work channel, whatever, so that people can feel comfortable
[00:31:58.040 --> 00:32:04.920] bringing up these side topics. And then also like have someone on the same time zone or on the same
[00:32:04.920 --> 00:32:11.560] coast or, or like the same office that they can turn to at different levels of experience to sort
[00:32:11.560 --> 00:32:17.000] of help them with that sort of mentorship part like that. Like, oh, where do you go if my, like,
[00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:21.560] I need a charger or the cable is not working, whatever, like all these little questions that
[00:32:21.560 --> 00:32:26.840] feel like they're silly to ask or to like create a meeting for a lot of this comes into like
[00:32:26.840 --> 00:32:32.120] how comfortable you are at the job. Um, and then also just like your growth at the job is like,
[00:32:32.120 --> 00:32:37.880] I don't get to see junior actions between my boss and his boss and their boss. Right. Like,
[00:32:37.880 --> 00:32:43.720] cause that's all happening in a different place altogether. And so it's nice when my manager tells
[00:32:43.720 --> 00:32:48.760] me about their relationship or like how their relationship has changed or how I can sort of
[00:32:48.760 --> 00:32:54.360] what I'm missing out on. Um, and that's something that he just has to know to bring up to me, uh,
[00:32:54.360 --> 00:32:59.800] the things that happen in person that I didn't get to see, uh, cause those are part of my growth also
[00:32:59.800 --> 00:33:03.800] is like understanding the relationship between all the different teams. When all I do is
[00:33:03.800 --> 00:33:08.920] interact with the four different teams that are related to like my future. Yeah. Yeah. So it's,
[00:33:08.920 --> 00:33:13.800] you mentioned that in Zoom just, it feels different. Would you think, um, do you think
[00:33:13.800 --> 00:33:19.880] maybe a one-on-one in like a fully virtual environment would, would help with that mentality?
[00:33:19.880 --> 00:33:27.880] I don't know. It's hard to say without ever having tried it. I feel like it will be in a new
[00:33:27.880 --> 00:33:32.520] experience altogether, but closer to Zoom than it is to in person, just cause we're still,
[00:33:32.520 --> 00:33:38.360] you, you, you're the feeling of putting on something or we're interacting with something
[00:33:38.360 --> 00:33:43.320] is still there of like, I have to go into a room to take a call or I have to have a computer
[00:33:43.800 --> 00:33:48.360] I have to have access to something other than just me walking and getting coffee. Right. Like I need
[00:33:48.360 --> 00:33:55.640] to, I need to be punctual for a certain time and place in order for this meeting to happen. Uh,
[00:33:55.640 --> 00:34:01.240] whereas the whole point of like in person, you can sort of like just wander off or, or it happens
[00:34:01.240 --> 00:34:06.680] spot like spontaneously. This is like, we have a scheduled meeting at a certain time. I need to put
[00:34:06.680 --> 00:34:13.800] on my, my headset and then I need to like do these four gestures. Like I need to speak clearly into
[00:34:13.800 --> 00:34:18.680] the mic or I have to wait for someone else to talk in order for it to happen. If it's like seamless
[00:34:18.680 --> 00:34:25.880] and like people are talking and then maybe then it works, but I don't know. Have you tried Starline?
[00:34:25.880 --> 00:34:32.040] Uh, I haven't. Yeah. I haven't heard, I haven't tried it cause, um, cause I just haven't, but I
[00:34:32.040 --> 00:34:37.320] watched a lot of YouTubers, um, experience it and their reaction was like, Oh, this is the future.
[00:34:37.320 --> 00:34:42.280] They feel like they're having a in-person conversation with that, um, the, their, whatever
[00:34:42.280 --> 00:34:47.720] that's on the other side. So I think, I don't know if that will, the feeling that we're chatting
[00:34:47.720 --> 00:34:52.920] through a screen will change with better technology or, or with something. I don't know. Yeah.
[00:34:52.920 --> 00:34:59.240] I, I hope so because it's definitely something that we didn't address in time for the pandemic.
[00:34:59.240 --> 00:35:04.680] It would have been really nice to have this figured out before the world shut down completely. Um,
[00:35:04.680 --> 00:35:11.240] and then it showed us the need for it. Uh, but I still have yet to see like a solution. Uh,
[00:35:11.240 --> 00:35:14.440] and a lot of it just goes down to different communication channels, right? Like you can,
[00:35:14.440 --> 00:35:22.200] uh, you can leave a bunch of artifacts for people to look at on a bug or you can send Slack messages
[00:35:22.200 --> 00:35:26.840] or you can do a call or you can meet them in person. Uh, it's kind of like sometimes you text,
[00:35:26.840 --> 00:35:31.000] sometimes you call, sometimes you leave a voice note, like each one of them serves like a slightly
[00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:36.600] different purpose. Uh, and they're all sort of useful. Um, the zoom meeting still works really
[00:35:36.600 --> 00:35:42.920] well for a lot of things. Uh, it's just not as comfortable because of the punctuality that you
[00:35:42.920 --> 00:35:48.200] have to be scheduled and you have to be in a certain place with a certain background. And
[00:35:48.200 --> 00:35:52.360] also the mentioned earlier, like the fact that it's always, it takes turns. You wait for other people
[00:35:52.360 --> 00:35:57.960] to finish and then you start. And that's not how most real world conversation goes. We interrupt,
[00:35:57.960 --> 00:36:05.240] we, we know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, uh, I've had experiences with, with like mentors and,
[00:36:05.240 --> 00:36:11.160] and managers and coworkers where if someone doesn't say something, then they, they get the
[00:36:11.160 --> 00:36:15.720] idea that they didn't get it. And so they'll keep talking and they'll just repeat it in like
[00:36:15.720 --> 00:36:20.280] different ways, which like sometimes is the case, like in, in person, if the person is not giving
[00:36:20.280 --> 00:36:25.560] you any cues, that makes sense. But over zoom, it's because they have to wait for you to finish
[00:36:25.560 --> 00:36:30.280] talking. And so like, I'm not going to like raise my hand in the meeting every single time once I
[00:36:30.280 --> 00:36:35.240] get it. And so it's just like these additional cues that are lacking. Um, there is this, like a
[00:36:35.240 --> 00:36:42.520] teams has this feature recently, it's called like speech, speaker, coach or speech coach or something.
[00:36:42.520 --> 00:36:46.920] Um, you can turn it on and it's, it's only to me, like when I turn it on, it doesn't turn
[00:36:46.920 --> 00:36:51.080] on for you. It's just for me. And it will coach me. Hey, you've been talking for too long. Let the
[00:36:51.080 --> 00:36:58.920] other side speak for a bit. And yeah. And then at the end, they also like, uh, show us the tits or
[00:36:58.920 --> 00:37:03.960] something like, like, this is the percentage that you talked. You are like above average or below
[00:37:03.960 --> 00:37:07.880] average. You should like some suggestions. I think that's kind of related to what you,
[00:37:07.880 --> 00:37:15.480] we have the same thing, uh, uh, for, for like meats. Um, but then it was, it's almost the
[00:37:15.480 --> 00:37:19.960] opposite. It's like, you're, it doesn't sound like you're talking. It's like, it's like encouraging
[00:37:19.960 --> 00:37:24.040] everyone to talk more and it doesn't ever discourage the person who was talking the most
[00:37:24.040 --> 00:37:28.520] from talking best. It's just like, okay, you're falling behind or like, you should really talk a
[00:37:28.520 --> 00:37:35.880] little bit more. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Cause we have this like a internal, internal conference event
[00:37:35.880 --> 00:37:41.240] or something it's called Adobe for all events. And then internally we, the goal is to like basically
[00:37:41.240 --> 00:37:46.760] bring everybody awareness to some topics. And one of the topic is it's like diversity and include
[00:37:46.760 --> 00:37:52.840] everybody's voice. And this topic came up like, like, like the meeting host is very cognizant of
[00:37:52.840 --> 00:37:58.120] letting everybody speak in the meeting. And that's, that's when somebody in the group mentioned this
[00:37:58.120 --> 00:38:01.160] feature, Hey, you should try to speak a coach because that does that automatically. And it's
[00:38:01.160 --> 00:38:07.000] not like it's, it's computer. So it's not, it knows the percentage very well. So, um, if you trust
[00:38:07.000 --> 00:38:11.640] the statistic and use that as one starting point, so you don't have to like writing a notepad, Hey,
[00:38:11.640 --> 00:38:15.720] and he can talk for five minutes and then next we need to ask them to talk about five minutes and so
[00:38:15.720 --> 00:38:20.120] on. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, it's definitely a good feature. And I think it's something people should
[00:38:20.120 --> 00:38:25.800] be more aware of is like how much time they spend talking versus others. Like I talked a lot during
[00:38:25.800 --> 00:38:31.560] this podcast episode. Uh, and so it's like, how do you, how do you also include other people in
[00:38:31.560 --> 00:38:38.120] the conversation in terms of like making sure they understand letting them show what they know, uh,
[00:38:38.120 --> 00:38:43.880] and then like making them feel included. And I think that might be a great idea for another
[00:38:43.880 --> 00:38:50.280] episode. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This, this has been great. So, um, before we wrap up, like if you have
[00:38:50.280 --> 00:38:54.920] any experience working in a distributed team, you have any thoughts and tips, um, like what
[00:38:54.920 --> 00:39:00.280] productivity and basically to have anything to help you work better, uh, leave a comment, let us
[00:39:00.280 --> 00:39:06.200] know. And with that, thank you for tuning in and thanks guys. Bye.