5 Habits of Highly Ineffective Remote Workers

Please, for the love of God, stop doing these things

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If you’re expecting me to encourage you to exercise more, clean your room or start your own business, I’m afraid you’re in the wrong place. To be frank, you’ve stumbled upon a moderately irritable man sarcastically complaining about the woes of remote working.

I’m sure there are plenty of self-help articles out there if you’re looking for a fleeting hit of motivation. So if that’s your aim, feel free to seek them out — it was nice to meet you, and I wish you the best of luck!

For anyone who still wants to hang around, let’s get right into it — what makes these remarkable people so ineffective?

1. They never communicate their agenda

When organising a meeting, they love to use inexplicit titles like “catch-up” or “quick chat”. The more creative types playfully introduce more than the required amount of vowels into regular words to appear nonchalant and non-threatening, e.g. “meeeeeeting”. They might even take it to the next level and showcase their wit by including an entertaining meme in the meeting body.

Here’s the thing. If you’re inviting me to a meeting, I need to know two things:

1. What the meeting is about
2. What my role is in the meeting

If I don’t have both of these crucial pieces of information upfront, I can’t possibly ascertain whether it’s worth my time, or your time for that matter. Additionally, even if I am the right person — you’re never going to get the best out of me unless I have the opportunity to prepare.

2. They presume availability

Do you know what I don’t miss about being in the office? People appearing at my desk unannounced and attempting to strike up a conversation without any regard for what I might be doing.

Never fear, though! These people still exist. They’ve simply evolved their skills for the Digital Age. You see, these are the same people who expect you to be readily available for a chat by sending you private messages like:

“Hey, how’s it going?”