Hygiene of remote work or the benefits of telepathy

    Have you had to stumble in work? Here you take the task: to set up a beautiful timer: "There are always 2 hours left until the end of the super offer." Open the editor ... and click: and how to do something? It seems that I heard something that we began to do on Vue landings. Or is there still a reaction?


    It’s good when you are in open space sitting through two tables. You can always get up and quietly ask a neighbor, “Remind me, are we taking Vue for everyone now?” Worse if the TL is in a different time zone. The same question - but the answer is tomorrow. And if he spun, then the day after tomorrow. And that's it, instead of 1 minute - two days of delay.


    Or worse. You sit, do not touch anyone, and then suddenly a quiet whisper on 3 floors with the question above. You answer quickly, and again restore the context. But all you had to do was look into the wiki ...


    So, my personal rules of remote work, which I absorbed during freelancing.


    Of course, I do not always follow them. And yes, several years of work in the office are already causing distortions like "let's just meet and discuss live." But I am fighting! And I try to continue to stick to them.


    1. Always take the time to find the answer yourself.
      Reasons: information that he found himself is remembered better; a huge layer of context is imperceptibly accumulated along the road.
      Bonuses: saving on TTL question-answer, up to a week when the guru in another time zone is on vacation in a binge.
      Cons: even a simple yes / no answer often takes an order of magnitude more time than getting an answer on your own.
    2. Always describe the context by asking a question. Not “ take React or Vue? ” But “ we started sawing the front for the landing for the customer Kudykatishkin. Is there already a solution for the standard for it? I didn’t find the wiki, the last one only has a bare html layout for them. We need to take React or Vue for dynamics? ".
      Reasons: the figured quota of modern soap readers is not always convenient for discussions, and when a guru is summoned in the middle of a discussion, he will almost certainly respond based on his current context. Setting the local context allows you to get an answer to YOUR question, rather than thoughts on the topic.
      Bonuses: the topic becomes a self-documented piece for archeology, even if once again they forgot to enter solutions into the wiki.
      Cons: "To correctly ask a question, you need to know most of the answer" (c) Robert Sheckley. "The right question."
    3. Always describe the context, giving an answer. Not " Vue .", But " since the conquest of the pharaohs, for all customers who are not indignant in the hope of leaving for cheaper studios in the future, we use Vue. For all customers who are indignant, a wiki entry is mandatory. " .
      Reasons: all the same curly quoting, plus intelligent highlighting of answers to questions in search engines. The presence of a local context allows this solution to be applied in the future.
      Bonuses: a person who wants to find an answer on his own can find this answer and follow it. By the way, this answer may be outdated. So when we write such an answer, we look at the next paragraph.
      Cons: if you are the same “guru”, then the number of such questions grows over time, and this growth is often not leveled despite all attempts at training; so ... look at the next paragraph.
    4. When we get the second question, we find our last answer (which, as we recall, will hold enough context in itself), we bring it to a reasonable place in the wiki ("general technical principles", "basis on the Kudykatishkin project" or "FAQ Guru") , create a short link to the answer, and quote the answer along with a link to it.
      Reasons: the answers may be outdated, in the paragraph by the link you can write "out of date!"; we quote everything as it is in order to reduce the time spent by the questioner (he already spent time searching for an answer, and if for some reason he could not find the last answer - do not force to lose even more time).
      Bonuses: our FAQ is growing, which minimizes the number of questions from people who are successful in searching,
      Cons: creating documentation falls on the shoulders of those who can give an answer. Stop, but is it a minus?
    5. Turn on telepath mode. Yes, I know that all telepaths are on vacation - so we have to do their work. Use the provided context to answer questions that obviously follow. Just say “ Vue. By the way, for three days we decided to make new landings using Gridsome, look at the excellent description of how to prepare it at link.int/gridsome. And please check the graphics that it is without watermarks - I know, "it’s not your job, but the layout has switched to neural networks, so that part is slipping, I would not want the customer to notice it again . "
      Reasons: this is still the context of the same issue - the reader, even if he knows all this, will be sure that everything is valid; and if he still doesn’t, he suddenly finds out.
      Bonuses: the more information is included in the answer, the higher the chances that there will be no more questions, which means that more question-answer cycles will be saved. And also for those who then find the answer.
      Cons: branch prediction carries the risk of wasted work in this particular case, but it’s a good skill in telepathy.
    6. While we are writing the answer, we are additionally rethinking and trying on the given context. Yes Yes. We try to avoid thoughtless copy-paste. Question: “I saw that we did everything on Vue, but for some reason the last three landing pages were on jQuery. I didn’t find any information on the wiki, and the author of the last three landing pages left for the sea (why did they throw the last bugs on me).”. Yes, you can paste the above answer about “Vue unless otherwise stated in the wiki,” but it’s better to either try to ask the vacation manager (directly or by casting it to the thread) and run a communication tracker with the client.
      Reasons: yes, yes, you know better, and yes, everything must be on the wiki, but people are mistaken, even as infallible as you and the customer communication department. Maybe this is a requirement that they forgot to add to the wiki? ..
      Bonuses: if you have forgotten, it will be possible to deposit, to avoid a conflict with the client, and also once again remind all responsible to bring such things.
      Cons: loss of time here and now for additional excavation.

    During my work, I had to apply these rules when coding, when reversing, when analyzing data, when layout, during protection against DDoS attacks and when filling out tax returns. Try to recall the dozens of recent discussions where consensus was still reached, and imagine that the question and answer would be reformulated in accordance with these rules ...


    ...
    Promised bonus: 10 paper and 10 e-books "Business on their own" were distributed by Milfgard (freebie over, thank you all!).


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