A user manual to working with me, with the intent of demystifying my preferences and improving our collaboration 🙂
- I generally prefer asking to guessing. It can sometimes be a little awkward to be on the receiving side of a non-assuming question! But I'd rather confirm than continue to guess incorrectly.
- This can be especially awkward if I need to ask someone's name again, but I'd rather get the name correct than say, "Hey... you!" "How are ya today,... friend?"
- At the end of a synchronous discussion (chatting in person or in online meetings), I like to write down what we discussed, what (if any) decisions we made, and what (if any) outstanding questions and tasks remain. I like to then share those notes in an asynchronous channel (like Slack) for posterity, keeping a paper trail, and catching up those who couldn't participate.
- I try my best to respond to asynchronous messages within an hour, within a working day.
- If I think I'm going to be away from communication tools for a while during a workday, I'll set a status that explains that I'm away. More on that below!
- I reach out for help when I've been stuck on something for over an hour with little progress. I'm likely unaware of what I don't know in this situation, or I'm totally overlooking something right in front of me because of tunnel vision.
- If I'm working on a review and I have more than a handful of comments, I'll likely reach out to start a synchronous chat about what I'm seeing. Synchronous chat, with the nuance of voice and (sometimes) video, can help communicate my curiosities and interest better than a wall of unresolved comments.
- I set my status in Slack to indicate when I'm away from the machine or otherwise slow to respond. I consider Slack a combination synchronous/asynchronous messaging tool, and so if you need to reach me right away but I'm unable to answer, my hope is the status tells you what's up.
- Some examples:
- 🌯 when I'm away for lunch and probably not also using my computer
- :brb: when I'm away from my machine for something else (things come up!) but I expect to be back within the hour
- 🤒 when I'm so dang sick I can't even manage to have a thought near my computer
- 💬 when there's a more specific message to share, with the message appearing upon hovering over the icon/in my profile
- Some examples:
- I set my status icon in GitHub based on longer-term trends. For exmaple, 📚 may indicate I'm in learning mode for the next little while. I consider GitHub asynchronous by default, so I think it's less important to indicate my presence right now in the tool.
- Offline mode: Letting me use an app even if I don't have a connection, then syncing/revalidating upon connecting again
- Reducing app size/bundle size/payload size
- Being responsible with JavaScript