The managers thinking that you are in office and calling you all of a sudden, without any message before, and then telling you “Ah sorry for calling you that way, but this is how it is when you are remote”, like wtf, at least you can ask before, maybe I was going to take a pee.

what the fuck is this manipulative bullshit? I'm working mostly remote and it's not like that. People first ask me in chat if I'm available for a call or not.

tell your manager to fuck off

@Hazarth now they ate using this hybrid type of work and when you are working remotely you have to stick to the rules the same as the office.

Idk, you can still say that you'll call back in a minute.

@electrineer you are right mate, but most of the time they think you were not working if you say that. I know psychopaths, but I am used to it. 😂

at what point do you want someone to contact you to ask if it is ok to DM you?

Why do you feel obligated to answer a phone call immediately?

Just text them back "just a minute please, in the middle of something".

If they press you regarding not answering immediately, politely tell them that your GI tract required attention and you thought it would be rude to answer the phone in a small room with a ceiling fan.

@Hazarth @Hazarth If your mom called would you tell her the same?

It's not manipulative, it is simply a phone call.

@xcodesucks it might surprise you, but I don't treat my mother like I treat my managers. She also doesn't give me tasks nor forces me to meet deadlines 8 hours a day so maybe that's why I expect a bit more organization from a literal work hierarchy, especially during work hours when the manager *knows* that I have shit to do, because surprise, I have shit to do every day between 8-16... So maybe don't call me in the middle of me being in the zone unless you need something critical, just DM me and I'll get to you when I have the time

It's not exactly rocket science and remote has nothing to do with it... Don't just walk to me and start talking when im not on remote, and in the same way don't just randomly call me. Let me fucking work

@xcodesucks it is not that simple, you can’t compare it to mother or any other type of this comparisons.

@Hazarth I get the sense that the phone call is not the real problem with work.

I’ve been in environments where things are caustic and it is a whole lot worse when your manager basically pretends you don’t exist (the ultimate in passive-aggressive perhaps).

Think of it this way. At some point when you advance to the point of being a manager, you will have some younger staff member working for you who gets angry with you texting them without warning, interrupting their work day with conversation about what they want to DM about.

Today’s text message is yesterday’s telephone call.

If you instead take a breath and think about /why/ they are calling you and how you can use this to your benefit, you might find yourself advancing faster. Just a thought.

Why not compare it to getting a phone call from someone who you should never be rude to? Isn’t getting upset about getting a phone call or someone knocking at your door largely the definition of anti-social behavior? Getting bent out of shape because your boss calls you is definitely career limiting behavior.

When I call someone at work, I always lead with “do you have a moment?”. Yes, many times I DM first so I can make sure I can get through. Do I have to DM first, not at all. I’m always happy to hear from any of my boss, staff or customers. And when anyone calls me, even vendors trying to sell me shit, they hear the welcoming tone in my voice which makes all the difference in the relationship.

In this world it is not “what you know” it is “who you know”. And the corollary to this is that people will forget what you did for them ‘last week’, but they rarely forget how you made them feel. And remember, you don’t have to answer. The power is yours.

@xcodesucks a phone call is much more disruptive, that's a fact. You can't ignore a phone call because it could be really important. That's where you get Information like "your mother had a stroke" not "do you have some time to talk about this irrelevant task that's like 8th on the priority list of all the tasks you already have assigned.

A DM you get a notification, and you glance at it, understand it, and get to it when appripriate... A phone call you are forced to get otherwise It's consider rude. Asking "do you have a moment" is essentially pointless, I already stopped work to in reaction to the alarming ringing in my earphones... Not to mention, how is one going to respond to that question when caught mid-work? "no, I don't have a Moment, I want to finish this one function and test it while i still have a chain of though" except I don't anymore, cause you broke it, not even mentioning that you would start talking anyway, cause no one deems "focus" important enough reason

@Hazarth I find your perspective fascinating. From what you wrote, your approach is that unprompted phone calls are only for emergencies.

So prior to 1992, did you try and use T9 to ask someone for permission to call them?

@xcodesucks prior to 1992 things changed considerably. You can't argue that jusst because X was done in the past, A form or X is valid today. Classic absurd example, human sacrifices.

And technology changed the Landscape even further. Everything evolved, we now have enterprise level reliable instant messaging with history and near instant search function. You have no idea how many times I regretted having something as a call in the past, because now there's no information trail of what was said. Please use this technology where possible.

When people say something "should've been an email" this is what they mean. Trackable, informative, non-intrusive...

I mean ok, if the critical services are down, call me.. but if you just want to remind me of something or ask something that's not required like *right now* then just DM it man... Im much more likely to give you relevant info in due time if I can get to it with a clear head and focus. Otherwise you're just wasting my time

And by wasting my time I technically mean company time. Cause I just can't overstate how frustrating it is to be 4 libraries and 2 code bases deep in debugging and testing hypothesis one by one and navigating poorly documented flows and memory allocations and then have someone come and ask me if I want to go for lunch, or if I know which task I worked on a month ago... I might as well start debugging from the start because you just destroyed 80% of the context I was holding in my head. Do you know how tiring this shit is? And if this happens and hour before end of day I might as well just go play on my phone, cause Im not working Overtime because of some dumb manager on colleague thinking their are oh so important, that I need to hear their heavenly voice, otherwise Im just a confused phesant. If it was a damn message I can reply quickly or ignore it and reply later and finish my damn task gracefully.

And to say this is because of WFH to make me feel guilty, because "this is how it is"... No ... No it isnt, you made it like that by force.

This manipulative shit of "this is how it is with WFH" when we have a perfectly working Instant message tech with countless benefits over voice really grinds my gears.

Like I will actually snap at you if you try this shit on me.