Return To Office - Pros and Cons of Remote vs Office Work

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all right what is up welcome to the drive home just leaving the office here it's uh what's today it's Monday just leaving Microsoft and the Redmond campus and uh we're going to talk software engineering I'm just going to get my GPS set up here because I'm going to be sitting in traffic which is fine that's cool kind of expect to it's the end of the day and uh it's kind of why I figured I'd be doing some of this talking to a camera because I'd much rather make better use of my time than uh sitting in traffic and pondering my thoughts alone so um I was doing a little bit of reflecting today about what I wanted to chat through and also thinking about how funny it might be if someone just sees me sitting in my car talking to myself but maybe they'll think

I'm on a call which is fine anyway it's like what am I what am I thinking about today like what's going to be top of mind for me to go over and I thought like why not why not talk about being in the office because I think that's a pretty big pretty big topic these days and I'm not forced to be in the office but I am at the office I'm like I said I'm leaving right now and I think there's a lot of value in it but I want to be careful when I always say that because suggesting that there's a lot of value in being at the office does not mean that it's impossible to work remotely or that working remotely is not valuable it's not like a mutually exclusive thing right these are different things and I think there's value to both

of them so I I think I'm pretty fortunate I am you know a technically Microsoft is not necessarily fully remote it is hybrid you do need manager approval technically to work from home but I found at least in my experience uh like I am a manager and like any manager I've had so far no one's complaining if you want to work remote uh full-time like a lot of people are doing it but what's been interesting is that this team that I'm on um there are people that come into the office which is great so previous team just for context uh my entire team worked remote and that would have meant that if I went into the office it was kind of kind of pointless like I would drive in and then I'm just getting on calls with people that are remote and like what's the

point of that so you know you spend time commuting and doing this um just to get on a call and then you're paying this overhead this you know it's like whatever for me it can be up to 2 hours in a day like an hour to the office an hour back if I can sneak into the fast lane and stuff then it's not so bad it's you know 35 minutes 30 minutes but then you get onto calls and you're like why am I doing this uh but this team it's awesome cuz there are people that that go in different days and stuff um sorry I'm just letting someone through and that's been that's been cool like I do get FaceTime at the office I've really enjoyed that and some of these interactions that I've just missed for like a long time because what it's been

I kind of lose track with Co um how many years has it been been in Microsoft for 4 years as of like what last week and the first half a year was like from Canada before I moved down to the US but then I was still remote but yeah with Co man like I haven't I just never had time in the office right so I went from being like in an open concept space and a startup to like you know you're working with people all the time turning your desk to chat um you got to get into like a what do they call them like a war room I don't really like the the term but you got to you know just get stuff done and get together and work on problems and it's like you have this luxury of proximity and I I haven't

really had that in a while so that's just how I'm used to developing software in teams is is working like that so again uh coming to the office has been really cool because because we get that now again not everyone's going into the office and certainly the people that are they're not in there every day so it's uh it's interesting because look I'll give like today for example I have some employees that are they are remote and they're permanently remote so I think that's an important part to mention is like I have people that are they don't work in the US so like they're remote and that's fine um so I do come in and I'm going to be on calls with them and it will always be remote just because of the nature of how we work and then I have other folks that

are local and some days they'll come in some days they won't so today for example I'm doing you know one1 calls with people and that's been totally fine I have other people that were in it the office today doing one-on ones with them and you know as a manager I have to make sure that I'm able to accommodate people effectively in both of those types of situations which I feel like I can and we just have to like lean into this human element which sounds funny um but we have to keep in mind that like we have this Geographic separation we have time zone separations and stuff but as much as possible we want to get that benefit of feeling like we're in the office working together I think that's what I'm trying to get across here right and sometimes it's going to be difficult

especially with time zone differences and stuff um you know uh being located in Redmond and having people that are mostly in Pacific time kind of like we get we get it kind of easy and it's it's definitely challenging for folks that aren't in the same time zone as us and I can say this I feel like with a bit of confidence because when I started I was still in Eastern Time Zone and I'm not talking about like you know I have folks I work with in China like that's a huge time zone difference so it's not even like that it's only a few hours different and even that can start to make you feel isolated in some ways can make you feel like you're kind of you don't have a say in your schedule um which I mean that's not I'm not saying that's true

like you do have flexibility and I I have felt that leadership or my managers have like made that pretty clear but it's almost like you're still kind of on everyone else's schedule for things so even though there's flexibility it's not totally up to you about everything right um like team meetings that are you know uh everyone's getting together for those are going to be at core hours and that might fall outside of they do a really good job of trying to make sure that's within everyone's like cor hours but it's still different I gu trying to race me um but yeah know I feel like being in the office has been really cool because I'm trying to get some of that feeling back of like we're working on hard problems together and for me and particular one of the things that's been challenging going from

startup life being one of the original Engineers um being a manager that was Hands-On you know coding every day but still working with my teams to you know big tech company so no longer a startup I'm not coding at work anymore so there's that aspect areas that I'm not familiar with right because I'm relatively new I'm not like creating these things from the beginning I really miss that uh that ability to be Hands-On and working closely with people so it's it makes it challenging for me so I've definitely appreciated that but yeah I wanted to talk about this because I think that it's important that we recognize the different aspects of it right I think there's too many people that get into this conversation and it's like hey look like everyone back back to the office it's the only way no one's working from home

because like we can't trust people which I think is kind of crappy it's a nice M2 it's a beautiful color you can't see it unless I pass him and then he's in my rear view but um the the other ways of course like okay no one back to the office we have to do everything remote um and I I feel like having the flexibility to pick is is key that's what I want to get at so when we're in a situation where we can go to the office I think that's good but being forced is not good because you're you're missing out on some of that flexibility I got to do a bit of a merge here but I got to slow down to move over It's hard talking and thinking okay so yeah like again I was reflecting on what was going on today

and just some of the conversations and being able to go over to someone's desk pull up uh whether it's Visual Studio Azure devops looking through stuff together oh man this part of the road sucks sorry people are moving over Lanes um that is powerful just like the like one of the things I miss from the smaller companies is having this way faster turnaround time on things right so if you're if you're listening to this it's like chains on the road man that's dangerous um when you're at smaller companies at least from my experience it's like you need to have a conversation about something you can have it like that right um at bigger companies with more people bigger teams everything's distributed some decision making is just slower getting a hold of someone can be slower if I have a a subject matter expert that's in

a different time zone that might mean I'm waiting to the next day and I'm not saying that these things don't happen in small companies they certainly do but the frequency is significantly different from my experience it's another crappy merge spot I got to get over to the fast lane without dying so so I like I I don't like sitting in traffic right I I don't like commuting I think it sucks I like cars so I like driving in fast cars but I don't like the commute but I do I do really appreciate getting to meet with people in person okay we're in the fast lane that's good so for me I can remember when I started at Microsoft I remember my first manager at Microsoft so started from Canada I was working remote and my job is you know the sorry hired with the expectation

I'll move to the US right that's fine and had flexibility was cuz during Co it's like don't rush it's okay um so that's all great and I can remember saying to my manager like I can't wait for the office to open back up because I can't wait to be working with people that's how I've been working right and it took I don't know probably a year I would say until I started going like hey like having the flexibility is pretty nuts like I can I can adjust my work hours if I need to go run errands during the day it's just hey send a message on teams I'm going to be working you know late this evening anyway cuz I have to work with people in China or in the morning um and that's cool but like just like this flexibility and I was like

man you know what I don't know if I could give that up I don't know if I could go back to being in an office all the time and then I started to go holy crap like I don't I just don't know if that's for me anymore and the longer that it went on like I said on my previous team the more I was like yeah like I'm I'm All About This remote life so for me it has been cool like I said to be able to have a team where people are in the office and going back has been a good reminder about some of these things that I've been missing out on because I do think that there's pros and cons to literally everything that we do and uh quite frankly if if if people like don't like to acknowledge you know I

have an opinion about that's great you're acknowledging the pros that's great but if you can't acknowledge that there's any cons like I don't I almost like don't trust you cuz I I don't trust logic like that there's pros and cons to everything in this case right today alone was like rapid feedback um you know we were meeting to talk about a couple things and it was like oh crap I didn't do that when I'm back at my desk I'll go check it out and then I'll let you know later in the day and then I was in meetings the whole day and ra at the end of the day like literally before getting onto this um you know just was walking by I was like hey by the way here's the update we were looking through things together the convenience of that kind of thing

is huge like I said it's not impossible what the scenario I just described is not impossible to do over teams or slack or whatever you're using it's not impossible but this convenience this barrier to to having clear communication like that I just thought was uh was pretty incredible to have the convenience of its own um for me and I don't know how others feel about this like as a manager of course like I have one-on ones and stuff with my own manager so I kind of want to talk about this from two perspectives but from as a as a manager right like one thing that I can recall being remote this is probably one of the biggest drawbacks even on video calls so first of all no one's forced to go on camera right no one's going to say like hey you better turn that

on sometimes it's encouraged you know cuz it's great sure um but no one's forced to do it but if you can imagine in a one-one conversation like I as a manager I want to make sure that I'm having conversations with people and and understanding how they're interpreting what I'm saying like uh am I saying confusing things like I need like body language and other things uh if I have to give a difficult feedback if I have to give positive feedback like I want to I want to understand the stuff that's going on and no camera is very difficult right you can you can miss out on a lot of details by not having video in terms of like feedback right non-verbal feedback and even with a camera you don't see someone 's full body language you can't see if people are fidgeting as easily you

can't see like there's just so many of these other things that we uh that we pick up on like almost subconsciously maybe consciously as well for a lot of people but um as a manager I've really missed that kind of opportunity where I'm having conversations with people and and trying to get a better understanding of how the conversation's going so I I enjoy that as a manager uh for being in person like I said earlier I do need to make sure that I'm doing an okay job of uh giving like a I need to do my job effectively whether it's remote or in person that's something I kind of miss and I really appreciated that today in conversations um I would say like you know body language seems like such a subtle small thing but it's a it's super valuable super valuable um we also

get this kind of like and again it's not the only way it can happen I feel like some casual things can come up more uh in person right like just to give you an example walking between meeting rooms okay so the the meeting officially happens when we're sitting down in the meeting room and it kind of like officially ends when we're leaving but we're walking back to our desks right so you can have these casual conversations before and after and again I'm not trying to say that it's impossible on a call it's kind of be kind of stupid for me to say that it's impossible but the the convenience or this opportunity for these things to come up is uh is definitely there so I actually did an an interview today um with someone from back in in waterl his name is stand and we

were talking about the importance of like just being being people with other softare Engineers right it's uh kind of funny to say but these these opportunities where you can have real genuine engagement with people uh you know managers trying to build trust and relationships with employees too you you want to recognize people you want to make sure that they're feeling Valu they're feeling seen and some of these little side conversations can make a big difference in that right um no one's no one's forced to like share personal life and stuff but the more like our Dan and I I think we're both kind of agreeing the more that it kind of feels like you're working with friends you know the happier everyone is the more engaged people are but we we're biased because we've we've seen what it's like to work in organizations where it

feels like that I think a lot of people you're listening to this you might say well you know screw that work place for work that's it I want my paycheck and I'm done that's totally cool like you're I'm not I'm not telling you how to live your life all that I'm saying is that I have been in places where I feel like I'm working with friends and I can tell you to me it makes a world of difference like I don't care what the work is at that point I don't care if it's hard cuz I know I'm working with people that I enjoy being around so that's kind of the management perspective I'd say for like one-on On's being in person just as opportunities kind of come up and uh it's kind of similar the other way so for me uh talking with my

own manager um I feel like there's better opportunities for building relationships and uh and Trust right so it's probably a similar thing I'm trying to think if there's anything unique from my perspective um I don't know like I I think right now I have a manager that's uh he's awesome but I feel like I'm trying to I'm trying to imagine like giving difficult feedback to me or something I feel like in person versus fromo probably would make a difference with him I don't think but maybe maybe that is a consideration for some folks so anyway I don't know if I have any other thoughts on what that might be like for for us I mean today like for example we had our 10one and it went way over time cuz we were just really in depth in conversation but that's not really unique to in

person a remote at least not with my experience we've kind of done it had short one of ones we've had long ones uh in person and remote so I don't think any difference there but uh I'd say you know similar things where it's good to pick up on his body language that kind of thing it's just like I don't know if people realize is this like as software Engineers obviously we spend a lot of time writing code writing messages emails reading these types of things but it's almost like it's not a very effective way to communicate I realize that might sound silly but um what I'm what I'm saying by that is like there's too much opportunity for miscommunication when things are written yes I understand you can proofread things you you can follow follow up with stuff you know it's asynchronous there's a lot

of benefits to different types of written communication but like when you miss out on tone of voice body language uh there's just more opportunity for things to kind of go sideways I think and maybe if you're listening to this you probably experienc it on a code review right you have a code review and you can't tell if someone hates you or they're having a bad day or they're indifferent or they're actually super excited about the code you wrote because you got a comment and you decide to attach a tone of voice to them right you're reading it the way that you think that this person's saying it but surprise you don't actually know how they're saying it because you literally have to invent the tone that you're assigning to it so it's just it's too easy to uh to miscommunicate so in person I feel

like definitely has that advantage and uh that's been good so kind of looking forward like I haven't had much exposure to this kind of idea but more exposure to working with partner teams in person I did a little bit of this about a year to two years ago we had some big uh cross team projects and I think when there's challenges and there's cross team stuff it's far too easy to have like an US versus them mentality and going back to the miscommunication thing with um you know being remote it's like it's too easy to assign a tone of voice you might not even have met the people ever you don't know what they're like so you can't even you're literally totally guessing the mood they're in or how they're receiving things right and I can remember working on some cross team projects and we

had a few opportunities to meet up in person and holy crap um it's I I'll put it this way meeting in person to go over stuff or together on things carries a benefit that lasts Beyond just the the meeting that you're having in person that session and what I mean by that is like if you haven't especially if you Haven met the people before ever sorry car beeped at me cuz it thought someone was pulling out in front of me but thankfully that didn't happen or else this video would be done um but if you if you haven't met the people in person before you you get for the first time like oh this is what they're like in person now you have a better framing for how they might be responding to some of your stuff and uh but yeah I mean the benefits

carry Beyond just the one meeting and another example that I want to share is not uh for the the cross team thing but even within my team I had individuals that um that we had travel budget they they came in so my employees came in from Mexico and just the the benefit of that within the team of having people meet uh kind of engage with each other and stuff like that was huge um I can't I don't know I can't uh I can't explain enough just how valuable that was to have people meet like a single time in person because any any difficult conversations that came up or any you know perception that was negative or even neutral like I feel like everyone left those uh sort of that period a time where people were visiting and they were like man this was so positive

like it was just a positive experience overall so that was super cool back to the partner thing though like meeting with partner teams like I haven't had uh much exposure to that outside of uh like that one situation was a a TT that's the other car I don't know if I'll film out of that cuz it needs some work but um so I'm hoping to have more of that that because I feel like at least for me was kind of talking about the benefits of working with my team and stuff being in person and getting to meet people reading body language and that's good it's all great stuff once that's established it's kind of like I get that benefit even when we're back to to calls and stuff but the partner teams I need to I like I want that opportunity to build it back

up cuz it's it's it's kind of starting from zero so the more opportunities I have to do projects and stuff cross team the more that I want that ability to go get into a meeting room at least once meet the people I'm working with going to pass a bunch of people here here we go um so yeah and I and right now I do have some projects on her cross team and I can already sense like if I sat down in a meeting room with these people once twice whatever to kind of build some of that report uh I'm very confident that would make a huge difference and I can imagine that going forward having like you know debates and stuff which is totally normal we want to be that challenge each other make sure that we're kind of doing the right thing for for

all of our teams which does involve debating and having conversations about what we value those conversations will be much better and more effective once we've met in person and I think that's maybe a little bit of a weird thing to say cuz I I believe it but does that mean that there's no way to get that without ever meeting person I don't know I don't think I have a way yet where I can emulate that super effectively being fully remote if I'm being honest right I haven't seen that happen yet so yeah I do kind of see like maybe it kind of just feels like it's a it's a shortcut to effective communication I don't know uh or a crutch maybe right a crutch might be a good word where I can rely on that because I have used it before and it's been effective

but I do need to consider for my remote first employees like how can I make sure that I get that benefit um or even partners that I'm never going to meet in person because they're working remote how can I try to get that benefit out of what I'm saying for these in-person conversations right like how do I build that report part of me thinks it's just doing uh a better job like what's the word I want to use a better job uh more conscious purposeful um like engagement with them so being genuine with them so doesn't good example is like next time I want I need to go meet with a team or whatever if I need to work with different engineering managers or product managers and or other Engineers is there an opportunity where could I just schedule like 30 minutes with them 15

minutes with them and just be like hey like I just wanted to like we're going to be working together I wanted to get to know you a little bit better like can we just chat and like catch up and whatever right kind of seems like fluffy stuff and maybe you're listening to this and being like that sounds dumb like why are you wasting both of your time but I'm trying to suggest that like even if it sounds fluffy that's blinding um if it sounds fluffy I think there's a ton of value in it and you don't you may not notice like immediately cuz it just seems like whenever you're having a conversation with someone like but I think uh there's a lot to that that goes uh that goes further than we think right even the even expressing intent that you want to schedule time

with someone to to get to know them better because you want to work more effectively with them like I'm just thinking if someone said that to me like hey like first thing I might be like a man like I'm busy but if I think about it the fact that someone's reaching out and saying I want to work more effectively with you and I just wanted to schedule some time with you like I would appreciate that I think that's pretty cool I've had a couple coup of people do that in my career I'd say and um feels welcoming you feel like I think that's an opportunity where you feel kind of seen or heard which is nice um so that might be something that I have to do a better job practicing for example so I got to give that some thought because I think it's

easier for me to just say this out loud right talking to a talking to a camera as I drive and it's like yes I should do that but I really think I should and um I got to come up with some some ways to hold myself accountable for that which means probably just like literally opening up the calendar and just sending a message to someone right here's an invite 15 minutes 30 minutes just want to catch up here's why I want to make sure if I'm inviting someone to a meeting or whatever it's like there's clear intent cuz I also have to acknowledge the night so scream and like I don't care uh I hope not but you know people are busy it's something to think about okay what do we got going on at this intersection so yeah I'm almost home um my uh

my in-laws are visiting right now which is cool it's really good to see them I think my father-in-law has not been to our house before he's visited us here when we were still at our apartment and my mother-in-law has seen the house before she drove out with my wife and my wife's dog from Canada so that was pretty cool so she's been here before but it's been a little while so it's nice to have them them both out here it's funny because my my father-in-law was watching my wife's dog while uh oh this person totally messed up I should have went um he was watching my wife's dog right so for about a year when we were in our apartment cuz she's a huge Alaskan M she's a big girl and uh I have two and we technically weren't even allowed uh Alaskan Malamutes were

one of the breeds not allowed in the apartment uh so we've had her now since we've been at our house for a few years and uh it's funny when they showed up in the driveway she started howling and she recognizes them right it's kind of cool to see so we got a full house we got my in-laws visiting we got our three dogs and our two cats and we're trying to introduce the big Alaskan Malamute to the little cats and it's challenging because the Malamute wants to eat the cats she is extremely interested in the cats and basically every opportunity she's like I'mma eat you so we're working on that we tried a bit of an experiment uh while the in-laws were here to see if we can do an introduction didn't work um we didn't lose any cats so that's good but um basically

had to call it off right away once the dog goes after the cats and tries to get the cats into her mouth we go that's it so that's a work in progress but I'm just about home here so hope this is interesting and we'll do some more of these me backing in before my neighbor hits me there we go