<story><title>Remote work has its perks, until you want a promotion</title><url>https://www.wired.com/story/remote-work-perks-until-want-promotion/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>moriarty-s3a</author><text>This is completely cultural. I had a manager that I didn&amp;#x27;t meet in person for over a year and he was constantly sharing stuff like this with me, frequently multiple times a day. As the sibling points out, if you aren&amp;#x27;t speaking with your manager weekly, or really almost daily, then something is very wrong.</text></item><item><author>MattGaiser</author><text>&amp;gt; This is doubly true of my bosses. It sucks, but there&amp;#x27;s no way around it.&lt;p&gt;So many opportunities in my life have come from casual interactions with my bosses, i.e. they spot something in an email and because I am sitting nearby, they propose it to me or they are coming out of a meeting and mention some corporate goal.&lt;p&gt;Working remotely, I do not even speak to my boss every week now. I am a microservice outputting work.</text></item><item><author>ahh</author><text>Humans don&amp;#x27;t have emotional object permanence.&lt;p&gt;My ex-girlfriend described herself this way to me once and I thought it was funny, but it&amp;#x27;s in fact true of people in general: if you&amp;#x27;re not physically present near them, they will forget that you really exist as a human and a social peer.  It&amp;#x27;s unfortunate but it&amp;#x27;s true: you are going to naturally think more about and have better feelings about the coworkers you see every day in person. No, VC doesn&amp;#x27;t count.  I think this is pretty much a human universal; the only exceptions I know are quite far on the autism spectrum.  (Even I notice myself doing this, and I&amp;#x27;m definitely somewhere on that line.)&lt;p&gt;Given that, I want to be in the room with my coworkers. I want them to unconsciously think of me as part of their tribe, and I want to feel the same way about them; that means we need to be able to perform regular in-person social petting.  This is doubly true of my bosses.  It sucks, but there&amp;#x27;s no way around it.&lt;p&gt;(Also, while this is less universal, there are plenty of extroverts, even on HN.  I&amp;#x27;m one.  It&amp;#x27;s ironic, in that I &lt;i&gt;also&lt;/i&gt; suffer from pretty nasty social anxiety; large rooms of strangers scare me and choke me up.  But lock me in a room by myself for a month and I go crazy. I am happier, by far, when I can be in the same room as people I like.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cl0rkster</author><text>I agree completely. Reading these responses, there&amp;#x27;s a lot of negativity to communicating with your manager. While I&amp;#x27;ve been in times that I completely understand this, I chose my latest job purely on manager. It pays less and I couldn&amp;#x27;t be happier. He was innovative in using a shared Google doc that gets updated with tasks, goals, and progress by both of us daily. We meet officially on a schedule once a week, but often chat in the interim. Personally, I use the Google doc as my running, living Todo list. It helps keeps thoughts organized, and my manager sees a lot more than he ever could in a daily stand up. Sometimes, here&amp;#x27;s even able to proactively assist.  Which, if you work hard, is an excellent thing. My manager and I would never hang out as friends, but we&amp;#x27;re both fascinated by technology and business culture and speak on it often.  Worry more about positive relationship than specific method, I&amp;#x27;d say.  And if you hate your manager, job search on primarily that criteria and take a job your want with enthusiasm even if it pays less.  You can&amp;#x27;t quantify peace in dollars.</text></comment>
<story><title>Remote work has its perks, until you want a promotion</title><url>https://www.wired.com/story/remote-work-perks-until-want-promotion/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>moriarty-s3a</author><text>This is completely cultural. I had a manager that I didn&amp;#x27;t meet in person for over a year and he was constantly sharing stuff like this with me, frequently multiple times a day. As the sibling points out, if you aren&amp;#x27;t speaking with your manager weekly, or really almost daily, then something is very wrong.</text></item><item><author>MattGaiser</author><text>&amp;gt; This is doubly true of my bosses. It sucks, but there&amp;#x27;s no way around it.&lt;p&gt;So many opportunities in my life have come from casual interactions with my bosses, i.e. they spot something in an email and because I am sitting nearby, they propose it to me or they are coming out of a meeting and mention some corporate goal.&lt;p&gt;Working remotely, I do not even speak to my boss every week now. I am a microservice outputting work.</text></item><item><author>ahh</author><text>Humans don&amp;#x27;t have emotional object permanence.&lt;p&gt;My ex-girlfriend described herself this way to me once and I thought it was funny, but it&amp;#x27;s in fact true of people in general: if you&amp;#x27;re not physically present near them, they will forget that you really exist as a human and a social peer.  It&amp;#x27;s unfortunate but it&amp;#x27;s true: you are going to naturally think more about and have better feelings about the coworkers you see every day in person. No, VC doesn&amp;#x27;t count.  I think this is pretty much a human universal; the only exceptions I know are quite far on the autism spectrum.  (Even I notice myself doing this, and I&amp;#x27;m definitely somewhere on that line.)&lt;p&gt;Given that, I want to be in the room with my coworkers. I want them to unconsciously think of me as part of their tribe, and I want to feel the same way about them; that means we need to be able to perform regular in-person social petting.  This is doubly true of my bosses.  It sucks, but there&amp;#x27;s no way around it.&lt;p&gt;(Also, while this is less universal, there are plenty of extroverts, even on HN.  I&amp;#x27;m one.  It&amp;#x27;s ironic, in that I &lt;i&gt;also&lt;/i&gt; suffer from pretty nasty social anxiety; large rooms of strangers scare me and choke me up.  But lock me in a room by myself for a month and I go crazy. I am happier, by far, when I can be in the same room as people I like.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>MattGaiser</author><text>Fair, it is going to depend on the boss and how your office interactions were before everything went remote.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; if you aren&amp;#x27;t speaking with your manager weekly, or really almost daily, then something is very wrong.&lt;p&gt;I am someone who likes a lot of autonomy.&lt;p&gt;In-office, beyond my Scrum team, I am otherwise trusted to deliver what I need to deliver. That leads to few check-ins and mostly social banter with my boss as I will be in touch if I require anything. No news means all is well.&lt;p&gt;It is just that remote removes most of the social banter and problems don&amp;#x27;t pop up for weeks.</text></comment>