In the spring of 2018 I flew to New York City to start a new job. I had never lived in New York before, and I still haven’t, unless you count my onboarding week, because this was my first distributed (remote if you’re nasty) job, and I have not looked back since.

(Yes, there was a little over a year between my first distributed job and my second, but shh. I’m trying to build a narrative here.)

Intellectually I understand that some people really don’t like not going into an office every day. Well, “understand” is a strong word, but I’m aware that it happens. The question I usually ask when a job interviewer asks if I have any questions is something like “I think distributed work is better, but it has its own challenges. What does your company see as the challenges unique to distributed teams and how do you address them?” Often the answers tell me they haven’t thought about this very deeply, but sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised.

What Works (for me)

What follows is a list of things that I’ve found to be effective supports when I’m on a distributed team.

• Daily synchronous contact, preferably audio or video:
  Having a synchronous, non-text-based conversation with at least one teammate every day seems to remind my hindbrain that I’m working alongside other human beings.
• Periodic physical meetups:
  At least twice a year, everybody on the team who is able to comfortably travel should meet somewhere in meatspace and spend a few days around each other, preferably doing some work-related and some non-work activities. I find it easier to work with people who aren’t physically present when I have a mental model of them that doesn’t fit in a Zoom window.
• Drop-in rooms:
  (This one’s experimental. I haven’t got enough data to say how helpful it is, but I want to keep investigating it.)
  A drop-in room is video call where people come and go as they please, and the assumption is that people are there to work, rather than discuss. Greetings, short questions about the thing you’re working on, etc are okay, but any longer conversations should move to other channels. It’s the Zoom-era equivalent of taking your laptop to the comfy chairs by the lounge for a while after lunch.