At my WFH job, I spent a lot of time searching Slack, and reading through documentation which had been distilled from Slack conversations. I learned a lot faster than I have, so far, at this job.
I try to encourage public (or group) chats but I _think_ people, especially juniors or new-joiners, are reluctant to look unknowledgeable.
For some things, I've explicitly told people: "can you copy and paste this question in our support channel, so I can answer there?" But for a lot of things, I've just accepted that this is the new normal, and for some of it, I even understand why it is the way it is.
And god help you if your org also has a short chat retention policy.
Spoiler alert: He was one of, if not the worst, manager I have ever had because, surprise! he was awful in every other dimension as well.
It’s a huge drag on their efficiency, in person or remote, and hurts hiring because they struggle to provide even a handful of of remote days per year in a market where every office worker I know (aside from here) is at least hybrid-leaning-remote (and most office workers I know aren’t in tech, nor is this a tech company). They have no idea that it’s bad, though.
The problem with chat-based solutions is people get lazy in articulation. So instead of a cohesive idea it’s spread across a giant thread. And instead of actually creating a proper document, it’s easy to say, “Meh, I’ll do it later it’s in slack.” But then it never gets done, and the info is privy to only those in the conversation.
It can be good or bad either way, but there’s no substitute for in-person communication; and there’s no substitute for a thoughtfully constructed document.
Seems like an actual use case for LLMs. Yeah I understand the potential issues but (worst case) confusing documentation with some errors and flawed assumptions yet proper citation and sources (so it can be manually improved and eventually turned into thoughtfully constructed document) seems better than having no docs or entirely outdated ones.
But after that, it's a real tradeoff. You can't just expect people to create and publish meeting notes when they catch a senior in the hallway and get an explanation they need, even if it would help others in their situation (or help themselves, in 6 months when they need to do that again and can't quite remember the steps (Unless their mentor modeled this important skill, I guess?)). https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/reitXJgJXFzKpdKyd/beware-tri...