How does it feel to have a “Long-Distance relationship” in a company
Today, I will talk about some long distance relationship thing.
But wait!
It is not this kind of long distance relationship that i will be talking about, but more of like this.
The story began one year ago, when i first joined my current company as a Software Engineer. I was entering a small team that looked like it consisted of 3 people. And i was being told that there were actually 6 people.
“Where are the others? Taking leave?”, I asked.
“Nope, far away there at India.”
Thereon, my journey began.
Here, i had an opportunity to work together with overseas remote colleagues. I will share on about what it actually feels like, about this “Long Distance Relationship”
Communication
Over here in my company, we are mostly using Slack (put link) for working chat and stuff. And it’s also the same for coll, we are using slack all the time for it.
Of course, verbal communication will not be able to beat communication over some messenger and there is no other means.
Getting over sprint planning is also a challenge for our team, since our team is thousand kilometers apart we are using google meet for the sprint planning and you can guess it yourself that getting through it is not easy.
Miscommunication is bound to happen, but most importantly we need to be able to keep understanding the situation and handle all the situation calmly.
Having overseas relations are great
One of the main perks in having overseas coworker, is that i got to learn a lot about them. Learning about different holiday in different country is also somewhat a mandatory, there are times when it’s holiday over there but it’s not over here (Yes, that’s kinda sucks!).
Not to forget, we also need to adjust our time since there is about one and a half hour timezone difference.
Over here in my place, there are a lot of stories about India Engineer about how they are a very super talented Software Engineer.
Lots of my colleagues also asked me.
“They must be pretty good then?”
But honestly, they are human too. Yes, they are pretty good at what they are doing, but everything comes from hardworking and the harsh competition over there (yes, the amount of Engineer graduates are huge).
The thing is, they are not just born smart, there is a process to everything.
Also one funny thing i learnt is that when i thought typical Chinese parents(like my parent) are pretty traditional and strict, i found out that Indian parents will not lose to that too!
Visiting Them
Several months ago, Me together with my other colleagues got the chance to visit them over in India over in Noida.
How does it feels?
It’s very exciting, it feels like visiting a pen pal you have never visited before, even though you have been working together for several months.
The reception from them was also very warm. They brought us around and showed us a great place to hangout.
As for the food, personally i enjoyed the Indian Chinese foods that was recommended to us (even though it’s not so Chinese for me 😝).
And here comes goodbye
There is always an end to a story. In this story, it ends when they are being moved to the other team.
Even though we can still communicate through slack, the communication will no doubt be scarce.
Parting with them feels like parting with your that one friend in school, where you and your friend is going to another school. It feels like you will not be able to see each other again anytime in the future.
Since being in different team, there is almost to zero chance that we will get the opportunity to visit them again.
Concluding everything
There sure are up and downs in having long distance colleague. But i must say, it’s one time of an experience and it has taught me plenty of things like how to communicate effectively over written communication.
Even though communication was the number one barrier, what is all matter is just understanding each other. There ought to be different perspective from their and our side and the most important thing is that we all just need to try and understand each other.
And working with overseas colleague is no doubt a very exciting experience that is very hard to be described. I would say one might need to experience it beforehand to really now how it feels like!
Will i ever take the opportunity to work with overseas colleague again?
Yup, absolutely will!
That’s the end of my story, thanks for reading it till the end!
