Soft Skills Engineering - Episode 106: Working From Home Without Rotting and Meetup Etiquette

Episode Date: April 22, 2018

Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Since working remotely I’ve noticed a trend to do things like not leaving the house, growing my beard out to above average length, or not wearing (real) pants. What should I do to keep from losing any/all interpersonal skills? Is there such a thing as meetup etiquette? When I attend meetups and attempt to initiate conversion with people, I’m hesitant to interrupt people who are in discussion with others. Should I wait, try to join the discussion or just barge in on the conversion?

it takes more than great bit shifting skills to be a great engineer this is episode 106 of the soft skills engineering podcast i'm your host dave smith i'm your host jameson dance soft skills engineering is a weekly advice show for software developers and other interested parties i feel like i need to figure out what 106 shifted by one bit is let's see uh all right shifted which direction because if you shift right you cut it in half if you shift left you double it it's kind of easy well it takes more than that skill oh okay i want to thank our patreons art i want to thank our patrons the real word i thank our patrons for supporting the podcast paulinho darosha david jackson chris fitkin ken howard sean clayton and dustin coats thank you all for

supporting we really appreciate it you're all supporting at the level where we thank you every week we have a lot of other supporters too if you want to join them you can go to patreon.com soft skills eng or you can go to soft skills.audio our website and click the support the show button on there thank you so much thank you so you want to read our first question today i do yeah i want to get further away from the part where i forgot how bit shifting works okay let's just open that gap nice and wide yeah just to be fair i also forgot for a moment i was hesitating like yeah what would that be and i did google it before i realized what the answer was so it does yeah yeah after i googled it i remembered oh yeah this is not hard anyways oh no i wanted to get further

from this and we're closer to it every second i spend talking about bit shifting extends the length of time that people remember jameson didn't remember how bit shifting worked to the question yes this is from eric as a developer who has been working remotely over the last nine months i've noticed a trend to do things like not leaving the house growing my beard out to an above average length or not wearing real pants think flannel pajama pants during the winter what should i do to keep from losing any or all interpersonal skills also how do i not be mistaken for a hibernating bear so sorry was there a problem in here that needed addressing i'm not quite

don't emerge from your office growling honey or picnic baskets yeah while i was reading this i went check check check check check yes yeah growing my beard out uh not wearing real pants ask me what i'm wearing right now dave in a very platonic way what pray tell are thou wearing wait how does plato plato spoke greek right yeah i don't know how to speak greek okay so what are you wearing i'll pretend like that's what i meant by platonic uh i've got i've got my comfiest bathrobe on and i've had two meetings today already no video i presume no video not today not yet um growing my beard out yeah actually my beard is above average length my daughter broke my trimmer and i just haven't gotten it fixed so

that's my excuse and have you lost any and all interpersonal skills well i did just tell you i'm wearing a bathrobe so yeah probably it's probably not a good interpersonal skill oh man i well i have not worked yeah jameson is your man in this one i i've worked from home i don't know maybe a day a week here and there and i can attest that on those days i certainly let a lot of interpersonal things go i mean no showering you know basically wear pajamas all day it's kind of nice actually i like how eric said flannel pajama pants during the winter like my friend i wear flannel pajama pants year round not just during the winter yeah there are some things that are great about it some of the downsides so i think the point under this

question is like maybe it's unhealthy to let go too much maybe there's some value in in having a routine of getting ready and kind of getting dressed and i don't do that all the time but i agree that if you just let everything go and just become like i don't know the matrix was a thing right where people just lived in pods and then were in a computer and you could probably approach something like that if you work from home where all you do is like the bare minimum to keep yourself alive plus stick a computer on that so you can do work where do i get a bathtub full of slime to sleep just wait it'll fill up eventually gross so i i think yeah i think the question is how do i work from home healthily and i have a lot of thoughts about this one of them is exercise

i've talked about this before on the podcast but this is really helpful to me i actually used to work out at a gym outside of my house and that was fine i don't i don't go to experience the camaraderie of bros at the gym though so like it did get me out of the house but it was more about exercise i've since started working out in my garage in a home gym and that's almost been better because it's easier to fit into the day it is one less thing to get me out of the house but it's it's really easy to like take a lunch break and go go meditate in the garage gym while i pick up heavy stuff so i i that that's the opposite of what i thought you would say i mean here you are Where it's good to get out of the house?

No, no, no. What I said, what I was thinking is here you are working from home and you switch to an in-home gym instead of a gym membership. And I know, I know you didn't go to the gym for camaraderie, but don't you think it would be, you would want to keep reasons to get out of the house open instead of closing them? Maybe. I'm kind of a homebody anyways, though. Okay.

I think there is value in me leaving the house. and sometimes i go multiple days without leaving beyond going to the garage and that's bad some kind of in-person contact with other people right if you work in an office you get to just hang out and chat with people um and it's a lot easier to do ad hoc social things too right people go out to dinner afterwards or they go out to lunch and i don't get that anymore really so there's actually probably right after this show i'm gonna go do a remote lunch there's a bunch of remote workers that all live pretty close by and we're going to meet up and eat so much together and hang out talk about probably tcp or i don't know some boring computer thing finding opportunities

like that where you can engage with other people whether it's going to meetups or just going out to lunch with friends i don't know i'm probably on the lower end of the spectrum as far as like amount of in-person social contact i need to be happy but i still do need some so that's helpful i also i'm looking to my right i have my whiteboard over here and i have a bunch of stuff written at the top and it's basically like don't go crazy jameson uh this too shall pass is one of them take a walk drink water morning is wiser than evening go to the gym i don't know It's just, like, reminders. Otherwise, I sometimes will just, like, sit down and work for 13 hours in a row,

and then I sit up and my back creaks. Yeah. And the slime starts dripping off of you, and you're like, oh. Yeah. I'm sitting in a pod full of slime. That happened. How did that happen? Right before my eyes.

I love how you have affirmations written on your whiteboard. They kind of are, yeah. This two-shot pass is a little bit out of the ordinary with the rest of them. That's a good one, though. It is a good one, man. So this was a big concern before I started working remotely full-time. When I had worked remote days, work-from-home days or whatever, I was grumpier those days. And then I would come back into the office and be happy.

So I was worried that I would just, like, devolve into grumpy Jameson. And it hasn't happened because the whole team is remote. so i'm not i don't get that same feeling of like i'm getting stuff done and and uh everything else is an annoyance but are you sure you just haven't re-baselined to grumpy jameson and now you don't know that you're grumpy well you tell me dave i think you are not i think you're now you bet you better give me the right answer dave or i'm gonna lose it well if it happened it happened slowly and i was right alongside with you the whole time so i probably re-baselined with you you've been slowly boiled like the frog in the

pot yep i do think that there's there are definitely people who would be absolutely miserable working remotely full-time like that really loud boisterous extroverted gregarious engineer on your team that imagine them just in their office just telling loud stories about their weekend to themselves how can they be happy oh man so what else do you do to to get out and make sure you don't devolve into a hibernating bear some of it is just the natural side effects of having a family so i have a lot of strong encouragement to to end work and go do stuff with them and sometimes that encouragement bursts through my door in the middle of the day and like pokes buttons on my keyboard and sits on my lap and we program together so that that does help

actually i think it would be harder if i were living by myself it would be even easier to get sucked in one other thing is actually this is a probably a pretty big change before i worked remotely i had my gaming computer set up in my office and so i would i would occasionally do work in my office and i would also fairly regularly just play video games and i had to stop all that completely i i i have a hard time doing things for entertainment on the computer alone in my room because that's so much of my day already and i i mean it was still fun i like i enjoyed playing video games but i realized that it had a negative effect on my mood and my interactions with other people and so i just kind of kind of made it less convenient and cut it out so cold turkey you don't

play video games anymore no i'll play every once in a while and it's not like some enormous effort i just like unplugged stuff and move stuff around so it's kind of a pain in the butt because otherwise the temptation is like i finish my day i'm like oh man i need to relax and then i just like swivel my chair 30 degrees to the left and start playing video games and you're like boom instantly in the battle arena yeah exactly and they're a fine distraction but i think my life has been better since i uh since i made that distraction more of a deliberate choice instead of just a convenient thing to do i am in the same boat i noticed something about myself that was when i worked from home i would often find myself drifting toward entertainment on the computer

instead of work uh both during work hours and after and um i really didn't like you were stealing from the company yeah yes and then i got a call from the company warrant officer just kidding wait is that even a thing warrant i don't know what that is i just made that up i was thinking warden um anyway uh yeah i i just stopped playing games completely about a year ago and um i'm very happy well let's play right after this let's yeah get you back let's get right back into it back into it yeah but i think if someone working from home that's actually a really good idea because you have an outsized portion of your day spent in isolation staring at a screen i think you probably don't want to add to that if you're already doing that you know what i mean

yeah yeah i i played more when i worked in an office and it felt a little more comfortable i guess a little i don't know yeah i just feel worse after i play now some of it might just be old man jameson right video games are just youngins and i only do serious things like watch the office on netflix yeah maybe you just got tired of getting destroyed by 12 year olds yeah my veins don't flow with Mountain Dew anymore I don't have the twitchy reactions yeah I don't know I've been getting destroyed by 12 year olds since I was 12 I was never I'm always like comfortably above average but not actually amazing and great and then all the games now have matchmaking so you always play with people that are around your skill level so

you just always get always lose half the time yep that's right I hate that about modern games actually okay we've we've rambled what were you gonna say well i was gonna say the fact that you work from home affords you a certain level of flexibility that you don't have when you're in an office are there any like activities that you can do to help uh you know avoid the grizzly bear scenario um because of those extra flexibility oh man i had a meeting in my yard yesterday i was just like weeding the garden while i had a meeting it was super great wow it wouldn't work for every meeting but for that particular meeting it was it was kind of more conversational and it was so nice to just be outside poking around in the weeds and and still doing productive things like every time

you unmute it's like jameson did i hear birds in your office is that a chainsaw just doing some waiting just aerating my lawn yeah it was it was really soothing actually it was much more soothing than sitting in my chair so you clearly don't have any kind of ritual about showering or getting dressed right no no i probably should maybe i'll evolve to that one day i've heard of people who do work from home and they make a point of taking a regular shower putting on clean clothes every day uh that would not be me but i've heard of it i've heard of those people too i'm sure they exist well i what about i mean i love the fact that you're able to go out to lunch with these people like uh these are not co-workers obviously since they don't some of them aren't like former

co-workers you mean no no some of them some of them work at the same place oh really oh i didn't know that okay but some of them are just other people that work remotely for other companies in utah oh okay okay um are there any other kind of things that you could do besides lunches that in the same spirit there are many things that i could do do do i do that i don't know i could just lay out my whole social life here but in general i am a pretty uh pretty introverted person i don't go out a ton so that hasn't changed much since working from home i still didn't go out a ton when i was in the office okay yeah i don't know sorry does that answer your question yes okay well there you go there's just all the wisdom you could possibly

need from working all of it good luck do you want to read our next question dave yeah sure okay this comes from miguel who says is there such a thing as meetup etiquette when i attend meetups and attempt to initiate conversation with people i'm hesitant to interrupt people who are in discussion with others should i wait or try to join the discussion or just barge in on the conversation great show keep it up guys thanks miguel great question when miguel says keep it up you guys i mean at some point there will be a last episode of this show right yep maybe it'll be the last one because the world will end afterwards but it's possible that we'll just say like oh we're done and how do you think it would feel to be the last person that gets a

question answered like are they gonna feel like what have i done what was it about my question i don't think they'll know they were the last question it's like the halting problem you know you don't know you're the last one i just made me think great show keep it up and what if we were like we can't keep it up anymore this question we are not like that this is a great question you did not kill the show no when when you describe this problem i imagine a circle of people all talking and it's like how do you how do you work your way into the circle especially if you don't know them maybe they know each other and my surefire solution is you you need to end up in the middle of the circle somehow did you ever go to like dance parties when you were a child or

perhaps an adult maybe i don't know what your what your adulthood is like are you are you familiar with the dance circle dave oh yes yeah a circle just forms and then people go in the middle and they just dance and everybody pays attention to them and claps it's usually very supportive and like that's the time where if you're a horrible dancer you just get it double down on your horrible dancing and everyone will still go crazy and think it's amazing so my solution is you end up in the middle of the circle you need to crawl between people's legs and just pop up in the middle and start shouting out stuff about the css spec or i don't know just like you have to turn them all from talking to each other to paying attention to you but not dancing well it's it's

the verbal equivalent of dancing the meetup technical meetup equivalent of dancing you just like somersault through someone's legs pop up in the middle and say i think docker is crap and you're all wrong and then everyone turns and looks at you and you're part of the conversation now that's awesome so you need to prepare some kind of inflammatory remark yeah i assume you're always prepared for that programmers love to say this thing you love is crap actually so you know to me the hardest part about breaking into one of these conversations is no is not knowing whether the people are all together and they know each other or whether it was an ad hoc conversation that formed on its own you know what i mean i because yeah i i just always assume they all

know each other pessimistically they're all best friends and their friendship meter is full they cannot hold another human exactly exactly and i think that does us a great disservice but i feel the same way too i'm like oh i could never possibly interrupt that you know these are bffs having their you see one of them laugh awkwardly at small talk that the other person makes and you're like i can't how can i compete with that relationship they have yeah their bond i totally get what you mean yeah yeah look at them laughing about childhood memories and one of them was probably like how about that rain it was and then it wasn't how could you possibly intrude on that it's like a sacred moment between two human beings

yeah i think at meetups and conferences i've i've felt this and most of the meetups and conferences i've been to i've been either like a speaker or an organizer or someone who's on the air quotes like inside you know and i still feel this it's it definitely doesn't go away just being like more a part of the event um man i'm glad to know i'm not the only one then because i i have struggled with this as well and i have found one situation where it actually is easy to break in and that's when people are eating and sitting down and you have you are standing with your food and you need to find a place to sit and there's an open seat and and you can be like hey can i sit here and then boom you're in like your food is your ticket in i did that last year and it

didn't happen i sat down and everyone ignored me it was really awkward oh oh that was the only time that's ever happened to me though but you know what i had a built-in out because i was done with my food you're like well i'm done eating now so i'm gonna leave guys yeah i think i like mumbled something like that and everyone looked over and was like you're even here weird but i've also done it and it's worked out well i'm actually i'm remembering a time last year at a specific event it was at react rally last year a conference that i helped organize and i was at like the cool kids table with these famous people who are all very nice and very friendly and very welcoming but definitely people that are well known in the community that other people look up to and

several people just came up and were like hey can i hang out can i chat with you guys and everyone was very friendly and they just sat down and we all started talking and i don't know it was fine so i was inspired you mean they asked if they could chat and people said yes and didn't just completely reject them yeah that's what i always worry yeah the risk is you try and people just ignore you and like whatever you weren't a part of the conversation already so you still aren't that's fine. But I think, especially if they're people going to conferences, a lot of times they're pretty friendly and they enjoy talking to people. You don't have to be sycophantic. You don't have to suck up to them and treat them like a celebrity, but I don't know, people are open to

just talking with normal folks. So I have a line that I like to use to break into circles like this, which is, Hey, is it okay if I listen in? And, uh, that way you kind of just say, Hey, I'm interested in what you want to, in what you're saying. And I'd like to just stand here and listen it's very unobtrusive and even if they are bffs you can still just kind of step in and listen in um and i think i think that's never failed me i think i've always been able to do that whether or not i can participate in the conversation is another story um which by the way i have no intention of just listening after you say that you turn and look at the camera and say that was a ruse i plan on talking exactly um but it is good to listen anyway to get a sense

for the vibe of the conversation and the relationships that may exist already and just understand you know you don't want to just jump right in and make a comment that's already been discussed you know so you have to give yourself a few minutes to baseline and realize which direction the conversation is going so that you can comment on things that haven't already been said so you know that's why it's great to say can i just listen because that is what you intend to do for the first few minutes okay i thought your your secret catchphrase was going to be did you here p equals np and then everyone turns and looks at you and you're in and you're in except now you don't have they were like prove it and you're like oh crap hang on i have to go do a

thing with some banks i have to go meet my traveling salesperson uh yeah or like what do you think is better bitcoin or docker you just gotta get the conversation going some inflammatory remarks oh yeah i like that oh man i think my high school experience prepared me to fail at this and not feel as bad because boy was i awkward in high school so doing this as an adult is way easier because people are nicer now yeah it's true the main takeaway is a lot of people feel this way and it's not weird to to feel awkward about approaching groups that's just an intimidating thing to do but in my experience for the most part people are pretty friendly about it and if you just want to hop in and listen and just slowly start to participate that that usually works out

well and if it doesn't you just walk away yep and find another group to go awkwardly intrude on now i will say this when you find yourself in the opposite situation maybe you're on the inner sanctum of some group and you're chatting along and having a great time and you see someone wandering by maybe giving little listful eye looks over at your group call them over sad charlie brown yeah exactly kind of giving like puppy eyes to your group yeah exactly one foot in front of the other kind of dragging it sideways by the toes you know they just groan which i could be with the group when you see someone in that situation invite them over call

them over and say hey come on over and introduce yourself my name is miguel what's your name you know it just is so much easier and if every group did that no one would feel awkward because they would just get it'd be like gravity they would just get sucked in instead of having to go and like push their way in through a force field that is a fantastic point dave i'm glad you brought it up and i agree we should do it next time you're at a meetup that's the that is the etiquette and that you know when you ask about the etiquette really that should be the etiquette there should be no etiquette for how do i break into a group the etiquette should be as a group member how do i invite man you're so wise dave that's the first time you've ever said that that's great advice

um have we answered the question i think so okay great question good luck yeah i hope this leads to great conversations and fun things in your life yeah me too all right where can people go if they want their own questions answered go to our website at softskills.audio i bet you didn't know audio is a top level domain well it is i think we're the only website on the internet That uses it. Click on ask a question where you can fill out a form to ask your own question. We've gotten lots of great questions. Sorry we didn't get to all of them this week.

Well, actually, I don't think we've ever gotten to all of them in a week. We weren't sorry the other weeks. But do not fear because we will eventually get to all of them or the universe will die a heat death. Either way. Where can people go if they want to support the show? What can they do? well do you remember that soft skills the audio website that dave just mentioned a second

ago it turns out that's also where you go to support the show there's a giant support the show button on there you can click on that it'll take you to patreon and we would really appreciate your support if you've benefited from listening to it if you enjoy it and if you've got a couple bucks to kick our way it would uh it would help support the show and help pay for the stuff we have to pay for that's right and if you don't have a couple of that's totally fine too you can just go click the ratings button on your podcast app and give us as many stars as you think you'd like to give us uh up to five i think you can't give six which is sad it's in the secret ui yeah all right i think with that we're done catch you next week