Ask HN: Remote people: Do you have a constant voice/video call running all day? - borisandcrispin
======
troydavis
No. That sounds incredibly distracting as well as fairly awkward.

------
onreact
Last company I worked for a as "remote worker" had three tools you had to
switch on all the time: Flock, Slack and Skype. For actual conference calls
etc. more tools were used ad hoc.

All the interruptions and constant onslaught of messages were very distracting
and hampering productivity. After a while I had the phantom ringing syndrome
where I looked up the tools all the time even when no message arrived.

Companies require remote workers to use those to exert control (to make sure
they are online/at work) but it backfires as no high quality creative work is
possible when you add so many stressors.

~~~
borisandcrispin
Damn, Flock, Slack and Skype at the same time...

------
jpincheira
Nope. Being sync, and being so extremely "sync" like that is just detrimental
for remote work. You have to go async in order to really leverage the benefits
from remote work in your organization.

------
dvdhnt
No. I find that invasive. I would honestly quit if that were to become a
requirement.

------
cbanek
I used to, but it drove me slowly insane. It wasn't all day every day, it was
one day a week for about 4 hours in the afternoon. Everyone is in a conference
room, working on laptops, munching on food, discussing things, etc. There's
usually a standup round. And then there's a few remote people like me.

I didn't want to be a remote worker (which is why I relocated), and this just
reinforces it. This meeting is working with a remote team in our same project
but in a different location. It's really hard to communicate over
teleconference with meetings/groups. The microphones either pick up some noise
or side conversation, if you can hear the other person at all. And the lag can
be very tiresome. Whiteboards are also liabilities.

Even just trying to listen in on the background and tune it out when I wasn't
being talked with was hard.

I really would advise against it. I find slack to be more useful and less
distracting.

------
MitchellCash
I did, it was non-mandatory and most of the (small) company would be on the
call each day. I would turn my camera off and opt for just audio, but others
would leave theirs on.

I enjoyed it for being able to have a quick back and forth when I had a
question for something that was stopping my current task. Alternatively, I
would be waiting on an unknown response time to a chat message which lead to a
lot more task switching mid progress. But most of all, I just enjoyed the
general talk that comes from being on a non-specific all day call - sports,
family, news, etc. I learnt a lot more about my work mates that I otherwise
wouldn’t have, which made us closer and work more enjoyable, plus working
remotely can just get lonely sometimes.

I say all this and must mention that this call would happen daily for 6 months
or so, but has slowly lost participants or only happens every other day as the
company changes/grows. For me, I would like to see it come back!

------
baobaba
I was a remote full-time solo developer for a client (small UK-based medical
team) for 6 years. All work done over email; 2 phone calls in all those years.

Could some things be done faster over a phone call? Probably. However, both me
and the client preferred the async nature of emails and avoided calls as much
as possible.

------
unixsheikh
No. I would never work like that. In all the projects I have been doing
remotely we have used email, wiki, and occasional online meeting or phone
meeting. It has always worked great, even with people from a completely
different timezone (day/night difference).

------
codpiece
We communicate by Slack, email and Zoom. I routinely turn mine off for hours
at a time and no one complains because they respect that we need to do focused
work. I would love to cut down on non-essential meetings, but that's a
stretch.

------
viraptor
Not all day, but we do have some time (timezone crossover) when people can
join a conference to talk about anything. We also do party line conference if
we feel like it - basically an invitation for anyone to drop in and pair on
something.

------
kwimykwim
Yes. A good portion of our team sits in Mexico and India. They find it easier
to collaborate with the US based staff through an always on WebEx. We
typically will keep the conference phone muted and the remote folks mute their
individual mics. Each US based team has a dedicated webcam that stays on. When
a remote person needs someone they can just un-mute their mic and speak to
whoever is at the table.This works well for us. Some remote folks leave their
cameras on and others turn it off. We also utilize Microsoft Teams. The tools
are there and it is up to the individual to determine how they want to use
them.

------
gtirloni
I've tried it and I think it works great for a closenitted team. I'd have some
reservations for a company-wide session.

Related: if you need someone for accountability purposes, this is a great
service: [https://www.focusmate.com](https://www.focusmate.com)

------
borisandcrispin
Recently I've been seen more people that are having an always on zoom/slack
call that anybody can join to discuss whatever they want.

I find this quite intriguing and don't know if this is a trend or just for
some specific use cases... anybody else doing that?

------
frenchman99
No. We call each other as needed, either on Slack, Jitsi or other similar
platforms. Sometimes, I get Loom.com screen casts from colleagues if they have
something to show me which that be responded to asynchronously.

------
CM30
No. That would be extremely distracting, and make it harder for me to
concentrate on doing my job.

Leaving Slack and an email client open in the background works fine as it is.

------
Endy
Nope, but we have a fairly active Slack channel that we use, so we just put
things in text.

Having that on my work PC and IRC on my personal really gets mind-boggling.

------
toomuchtodo
No. Sounds terrible.

