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Lots of people are incredibly bad at written communication.

My theory is that people who worked remotely pre-Covid were selected one way or another to have above-average written communication skills.

Covid suddenly brought everybody remote, and naturally the average communication skills for remote work dropped.



"My build pipeline is failing. Can you help me?"

OK, which pipeline, what errors are you receiving, when did it last work, any changes since then, etc.? A lot of people aren't good at communication, period. It's like pulling teeth sometimes.


>"My build pipeline is failing. Can you help me?"

Even that is better than someone pinging you "hi." It's such an immediate red flag in communication skills.


Hey! Do you have a few minutes?


Sure! What's going on?

<2 hours later>

Can we jump on a Zoom?


Kill me


Hey, I did X and I got an error.

Do you have screenshots? No. Console error logs? No. Time that it happened? No. Network logs? No. Can you reproduce the bug? No.

Great, that was 10 minutes wasted.


Slightly off-topic but using coworking spaces pre-Covid was also a different experience. They seem to have turned into call centres nowadays. I find it pretty hard to find a silent spot to work without having someone borderline scream at their screen next to me.


I'm hesitant to work out of anywhere other than my home because I may be called into a pointless Zoom meeting, interrupting everyone else...




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