Remote Jobs That Promised Async Still Book Back-to-Back Meetings
Remote employees are experiencing a frustrating disconnect between promised async work cultures and the reality of constant meetings, distractions, and a lack of visibility. This leads to wasted time, increased mental fatigue, and a feeling of being micromanaged or distrusted, despite delivering results. The pressure to appear 'busy' in virtual settings is counterproductive.
SOURCES (60)
“Alot of group calls, 1on1s where its not just you or someone speaking for 30 mins and everyone listening without saying a word. Have actual convos. Be friendly. Let everyone speak. Have a lil talk at the end of each meeting and not just "ok…”
“Casual chats work best for me. Talk about random stuff and joke around a little. Not every conversation needs to be about work.”
“Invest in a good quality ANC headphones and if you have small meeting rooms and need to focus on your work, use them to work in silence”
“I’m not a manager but all 12 people in the department I’m in work remotely. We have biweekly 1-hour operational meetings and quarterly 1.5 hour meetings for bigger updates and discussions. Our director also recently introduced 30 minute optional “coffee chats” Friday mornings where anyone can join to chat about what’s going on in their lives. It’s been great to keep us connected. We also have a team chat on Microsoft Teams where we will message to celebrate people’s work accomplishments and also”
“I try to have a 1:1 with one of my direct reports each day, which evens out to meet with each of them about every 2-3 weeks. I almost always feel good about the connection after I'm done. Other than that, most of my days are usually meetings about different projects or upcoming efforts. I also have a weekly team meeting with each team. I feel like we're at a good cadence for meeting.”
“Who are these devs who want to communicate outside of chat where you can go back and look everything up? In any case, focus is priority #1. If you don't have it you're screwed. So put the headphones on and work out the rest from there.”
“yeah F that. wear noise canceling headphones. I have been in those places and you learn quickly just wear head phones and crank. I can not stand those loud places so I wear headphone. F the "family" culture, When I was in the office I would have on the head phones and be listing to something on youtubemusic and just working. My headphones are bose Q35 and been using them that way for years. Plus double as a great headset.”
“Not a manager, but we are assessed in my company on output not on "being visible". Basically, we need to hit our billable time targets as well as meet the project deadlines. This approach is fine with me. I keep my head down and focus on my work all day. I will ping a coworker as needed if I need a second opinion on something or if I need a consult on a topic that is not in my wheelhouse. We might call one another occasionally for a brief chat to maintain some team cohesion, but we are”
“According to my boss this is impossible. How do you ensure people are working without micromanaging them? Sorry, I mean, something something water cooler.”
“Scheduling blocks of time in outlook places you in busy as well. Attendance. Payroll. Check emails. Audit PTO. Scheduling. Even reminders. All are scheduled. All easy ways to avoid being questioned. If you’re going to do it. Do it right.”
“Agree with this! 1-1s will help. Monthly team meetings to help slowly create a team culture.”
“I manage remote teams, but I'm in meetings 10 - 12 hours a day, so I only talk to whoever is in the meetings.”
“I manage a remote team of 8 across 3 countries, and I spend my whole day checking Slack and our tracker, but most days I don't actually talk to anyone. We tried Toggl and Hubstaff first. Landed on Monitask a few months back, mostly for hours and budgets. I'll end up watching someone's activity log fill up for hours and still have no real idea how they're doing. Feels backwards. 🤷🏻 I don't want an office again, I like the flexibility too much. But some days I go 9 hours with”
“When I became the lead on my team I made the change (to our scrum masters chagrin) to have the daily stand-up be a slack thread, and we now reserve the 30min block zoom meeting to discuss any blockers or clarifications, and only those who need it join. Somedays everyone is good and we get the time back. Been about a year and everyone is really happy with this. Back when we were an in person team the daily standups were nice, but remotely its usually just a chore. Being able to reference a slack”
“What helped me was asking people for quick screen share sessions when I'm stuck. It won't last too long, mostly 4 or 5 minutes. And it turns into a conversation naturally.”
“I think it's the random conversations that make the biggest difference. I'd just have a chat with colleagues about something outside of work, but nothing too personal.”
“Resting: ~17 blinks/min Deep work: ~11/min Video calls: ~5/min I assumed focused work would be the problem. It’s the calls — and the rate doesn’t recover between back-to-back meetings, it just sits at the floor until lunch. Has anyone else tracked this? submitted by /u/testtest91 [link] [comments]”
“So def have a video call going through the workday. Cameras off. Mostly muted but unmute to stay stuff. But can get into some culture and team building convos. I have one running in the background w/ my two virtual assistants in South Africa (am American). Ask about weekend plans in slow times. Get into random convos in slow times. Ask questions is the answer. Engage about work and provide positive feedback when you appreciate stuff. Similar things to building rapport in person at work.”
“My other feedback is my best work friends are the friends I worked with when we all worked together in person, 6 years ago before we were remote. Now we just constantly talk on a group chat we started during the pandemic.”
You don’t build connections at work. You get your paycheck and leave.
“It's a good question -- remote for about 7 years now and I'm also a rarity (same company for 27 years) and just face to face "can I bug you for a second?" or conversations in the hall or etc are valuable starting out. "I stand on the shoulders of giants" - but I had some great mentors. I try to pay it forward whenever possible now - everybody's new at some point. One great thing my company does - we have a "match with a mentor" program that I do particip”
“The useful stuff for me has been shared work, not extra calls: pairing on a task, async screen recordings with context, and short debriefs after decisions so people can see the reasoning. I also like recurring 1:1s only when they have a concrete purpose, like reviewing a draft or walking through how someone approached a problem. Casual chat works better when it is attached to a real activity, like a coworking hour or project channel, rather than a random virtual coffee.”
“We chat a few minutes before meetings. Every few weeks we play a team game for 30-60 minutes.”
“I try to spend the first 3-5 minutes of every meeting not talking about work. Doesn't have to be personal (news, tv shows, anything). Helps to build relationships that aren't purely transactional and doesn't add extra meetings. (Optional) virtual team events every couple months can be fun. Jackbox games (quiplash/ drawful) are usually funny enough to get a laugh out of the people who don't want to be there.”
“I think what he means is that we need to set up a meeting to discuss the creation of a taskforce that can establish industry leading guidelines to effectively quantify the value added to stakeholders in the possible implementation of an AI-powered, people-centric, agentic workflow compatible, vertically integrated (but horizontally scalable) monitoring solution.”
“You mean develop relationships? I agree. Do your work, do it the best you can, be polite and friendly and helpful and accommodating and that’s it.”
sounds like a great work environment, has it always been like that?
“We do weekly 1:1, and weekly team meetings. In all of our meetings we leave space space for chat. At our weekly team meetings we have a "connection before content" to start the actual meeting. It's not just "how's your weekend" but structured to give people the opportunity to share as much as they feel comfortable with based on the prompt. Some are deep, and some are fairly surface. I got the idea from Chad Littlefield who does a YT channel on it and his site has a nu”
“Working remotely for 15 years now, and you're right - connections don't just happen in a remote environment, you need to deliberately create space for them. There isn't one workflow that works for every team. It depends on your/team personality. I prefer 1:1s with some time set aside for ad hoc chats, for other teams group calls may work better. The important part is that not every conversation is strictly about the task at hand. Leave room for informal chats, sharing experiences, te”
“Ask people if you can sit in on things you're curious about. Most people are pretty open to it, and you pick up a lot just from hearing how they work through things and with other people. It also gives you more to talk about later than a random coffee chat would.”
“What actually helps you learn from coworkers when you’re fully remote? Do you prefer 1:1s, group calls, casual chats, or something else?Looking for practical ideas that work beyond just scheduling more meetings. submitted by /u/Frisho [link] [comments]”
“Setting up regular 1:1s is probably the best move. You learn way more when there’s actual time to talk.”
“15 min brain pickers is how the people under me generally ask me to help them. I also provide training docs as I see new problems arise and when they escalate issues to me.”
“you need to be proactive about reaching out and setting up meetings. they can be 30-minute introductions, 10-15 minute coffee chats, or just casual conversations. let those naturally turn into collaborating on projects, shadowing, or workshop sessions. with remote work, if you’re not intentional about building relationships and learning from others, it’s really easy to feel siloed.”
“Ask questions, collaborate, ask advice. Learn about your coworkers and what their strengths are. It’s a difficult question to answer knowing nothing about the company culture or position.”
“I think rotation makes the most sense when there genuinely isn't a good overlap. If everyone has a 9–5 workday and there’s a 2–3 hour window where all time zones overlap, I’d keep the meeting fixed somewhere inside that window. Predictability is valuable. But if someone has to join at 7 AM or 9 PM no matter what, keeping the same slot every week basically means the same person permanently absorbs the inconvenience. In that case alternating between two fixed slots seems much fairer. One thing”
“You’re describing an outlier of a situation. Most remote folks work within 1-3 hours of each other. So sure in your example perhaps there’s some leeway. However the precedent of sending messages without expecting a response right away isn’t going to line up proper expectations if there are specific guidelines laid out and followed. Inevitably that will be exploited which is why there needs to be rules to begin with. I don’t think we’re going to find a middle ground here.”
“I’m all for using the quiet hours function. That’s a fine option. What I’m not fine with is your implication that sending out work messages during non business hours should be normalized. If it’s urgent or an emergency that’s an exception. Exceptions should never be the rule. I think we’ve run our course here ✌️”
“You are a walking assumption machine. Establish business hours. Stick to those hours unless it’s urgent. End of story. The modern acceptance of just allowing your work to be front of mind 24/7 is exactly why normal citizens hold absolutely no power against their employers. I’m assuming you’re young. Probably a young family or no family. Your perspective will change.”
“I have a coworker who sends Teams messages to myself and others at all hours of day and night as well as on weekends. It’s almost never urgent and could wait until the next day. Most of us work regular work hours (broadly 7am to 7pm) but this person often works outside those hours and then sends DMs. My other team members, including our manager, don’t have a problem with this. I think it’s rude. I’m curious what others think. submitted by /u/Own-Occasion-7895 [link] [comments]”
“same problem with podcasts. any actual words and suddenly i'm listening instead of working. i've switched more to environments, rainy apartment, aircraft cabin, distant city, stuff like that. enough going on that silence doesn't feel weird but nothing for your brain to follow”
“Let me just say that I completely support colleagues choosing not to RESPOND to emails during the weekend. 100%. If I was demanding an answer from them before the end of the weekend, yep, I'm completely in the wrong. However, that's not the case and that's not what colleagues are asking. Because of the way my schedule falls, the weekends are actually work time for me (yes, I build in days for rest. They just don't happen to be weekends) and I often send emails over the weekend. I”