It's been _rough_. I knew going in that I hadn't joined a new company in 5 years, so it'd be difficult. But this has been a whole different level.
Nearly 6 months in now and I still don't feel like I've meshed with the majority of my team, only one or two people who are just extra friendly, and forget knowing anybody outside of my team at all.
I rarely get pings from anyone asking how things are going; I usually wind up needing to do that myself.
I've never been a very extroverted person, but I'd definitely prefer working from an office (in obviously better circumstances) during this period of on-boarding and readjustment. I feel so isolated right now, which is completely opposite of how I think I would have been if I were still at my last role but during this environment.
I really miss real whiteboards.
The only thing worse that being on a software team that has no whiteboards, is being the only remote person on a team that has whiteboards in the office.
You can get an entry-level Wacom for < $100, and it scratches the whiteboarding itch for me in a lot of situations.
I’m also not convinced that there is a tool that when mastered can provide the same fluidity, but I can claim that, and to the contrary I’d love a recommendation.
It’s definitely not the same as drawing on a whiteboard, but I’ve found it useful for explaining abstractions.
(That said, if whiteboards are important to a team, I would imagine there's software for sharing tablet drawing. I've heard there is. I just haven't investigated.)
I think in 6, 12 or 24 months possibly longer for some. Many will regret when they look back they didn't realise what was really going on with the company. They just heard from their contacts and also heard what people wanted them to. They got stuck in a silio.
The new section of the office where a team was parachuted in which somehow has an impact.
How do people expect to form casual but often extremely useful contacts with the people who really know what's going on in other teams, department, divisions or other locations?
You won't hear the gossip from your workmate who works early or late, the postroom, the security guard or receptionist about that out of hours meeting the management team had or whatever.
How will you really know of you haven't been offered a poisoned promotion?
To a degree your rely on being told the full picture by those with the overview. Which is likely to be the management. Which no doubt may happen in many places the majority of times until the one time it really affected you or your team.
For example a group of us headed in to the Riverside sub office on the outskirts of London by the Thames yesterday. For aircon offices and a r oriverside pint at lunchtime as the UK had its hottest August day in 17 years.
Straight away those who caught on a group of us had met up in the office started to wonder why? With a number of messages and calls wondering what we were up to.
While we bonded and had a change of scenery. Some of those at home, for no reason got paranoid.