It's become harder to "ask casually" since remote work started

With the increasing prevalence of remote work, many engineers are getting used to working online. I am one of those engineers and have been working remotely for about a year. When I returned to the office after a long time, I realized the ease of casually starting a conversation. I would like to delve deeper into this experience.

Before Remote Work

Originally, before the outbreak of Corona (before February 2020), I was going to the office to work. At that time, I was working with the same group or team, and if something bothered me, I would talk to the person sitting nearby. Even when I had to ask questions to people in other departments for administrative matters, I would casually approach them as they were just a few meters away.

The Spread of Remote Work

Around March 2020, the Corona turmoil began, and before I knew it, the number of times I worked remotely increased. Then, with the declaration of a state of emergency, the number of times I went to the office drastically decreased. Even when I do go to the office, there are restrictions on the number of people who can go.

Returning to the Office After a Long Time, and Realization

Now (March 2021), the state of emergency has been lifted in the Kansai area where I live. As a result, I started going to the office, and the opportunities to work in the office increased to the extent that it does not become crowded. In such a situation, when I was working in the office, I started to feel that it is easy to consult with someone casually in person. I started to wonder why I felt that way.

Can't You Consult Casually Online?

I think you can consult casually online, but I don't think it's as casual as offline. For example, online, you might have to go through the following steps:

Check if the person you want to consult with is free on their calendar
Contact the person via chat tool to let them know you want to consult
Prepare a virtual room for a video conference
Coordinate schedules with the person you want to consult with
Consult

I think all of these steps can be done quickly in a few minutes, and you can probably skip some of the steps. However, when you talk to someone offline, I think the steps are something like this:

Look for the person you want to consult with in the office
Consult

What I want to say is, compared to online, there are fewer adjustments when consulting offline.

Can't You Consult with Text Instead of Speaking?

You might think, why not just communicate with text instead of speaking? But that's not casual either. Sure, if you properly convert what you want to talk about, the background, and the purpose into text using a chat tool, a log will remain. This means that you won't have to argue about what was said later, which is a good thing.

However, converting to text takes away the casualness. There must be situations where it's difficult to convert to text (e.g., when you don't know what you don't know), and forcing yourself to convert to text in such situations is tough.

Converting to text might be a good thing to do, but it raises the barrier to casualness.

Is "Immediately" Important?

The reason I seek casualness is because I often want to ask something immediately. If it's not immediate, I'll search for internal documents myself, read the code, and do my own research. But if all that effort can be avoided just by asking someone, I think it's more efficient to ask and learn from someone.

When you want to ask something immediately online, you can only see the other person's situation from their calendar schedule, so you might mention them in a chat tool. However, such actions can disrupt the other person's work. Offline, you can see the other person working and understand situations like, "Ah, it seems okay to talk to them now."

※ "But the person being asked is interrupted from their work!" Yes, that's true. I'm sorry.

How to pursue casualness?

For example, if you develop and introduce a web app in your company that links all calendar, chat tools, and video conferencing tools, and allows you to consult with others with just one click, it might increase the opportunities to talk casually online.

However, what seems troublesome is the slight hassle of having to launch that web app every time you want to consult. What I want to say is, I want to work in an environment where I can always talk casually. I wondered if I could create a casual conversation environment by always using so-called virtual office tools (Remotty, Sococo, etc). These tools can solve the problem of not being able to see the other person's situation properly just from the calendar, as mentioned in "Is it important to do it immediately?"

Does using a virtual office tool solve everything?

Even if you introduce a virtual office tool in your company, there might be issues such as:

Few users
- → There's no one to consult with
  - → Stop using it
Usage rules are not established
- → Rules about whether or not someone is away are not enforced
  - → Become untrustworthy
The time frame for use is limited
- → When you want to consult, the other person has exited the virtual office

Even though you introduced a virtual office tool, it may not have produced good results. I have had that experience, but now I think that a virtual office tool might be necessary. That might be because only now, having experienced remote work, I understand the convenience of virtual office tools. However, even if you introduce a tool, if the culture to utilize that tool (ex. solving the issues mentioned above) is not established, it might still be difficult to start talking casually.

What did I want to say after all?

I never thought about casualness when offline, but after experiencing online work, I started thinking about it.

Casualness is really delicate and requires consideration of small details. Initially, if someone says, "Can't you consult casually in a chat tool!" I would apologize, but everyone has their own personality, and forcing it would accumulate stress on the person being forced.

Since "casualness" varies from person to person, I think each company should thoroughly analyze it. Based on that, why not try a virtual office tool?

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