Awful Communication: Remote Employee Lists Major Drawback of Working From Home

A remote worker complained about the communication problems that often occur between folks who work from home. TikToker @sixcatsandahouse aired her grievances in a viral clip that accrued over 41,000 views on the app.

"This is one of my biggest pet peeves in corporate America. I had somebody send me a ping this morning. And they were like, 'Hey, we implemented this change over the weekend. For this one location,'" she explains, talking into the camera.

Unsure as to why their coworker decided to message them about this change, the TikToker reached out to the employee. However, as the TikToker explains, they weren't exactly treating their correspondence with the same amount of earnestness as she was.

So she tried to get to the bottom of the message. "And I was like, OK. I wasn't involved in that at all. So I'm like, OK. And I responded immediately, all right? Takes them like five or six minutes to respond to that. So I'm sitting here like, why are you telling me this?"

Their coworker replied. "I wanna open up, like a group chat with people at that site and their manager. Just in case they have any issues, they can tell us about it."

OP reiterates at this point in the video that she has nothing to do with the alterations referred to be her coworker in their initial message.

"Again, I wasn't involved in this change. So I say, OK. I respond immediately, 'OK? Do you need my help with something?'"

In a move that appears to further frustrate the TikToker, she says that their coworker takes even longer to get back to her. "Ten minutes goes by. And I'm sitting here, like, what am I doing?"

Finally, the coworker gets back to her, "And they respond with, 'I want to ask for help.' And I'm like, help with what? Your communication skills? 'Cause you need it! Why, and then I'm like, I respond immediately, 'Help with what?'"

The TikToker didn't receive a response to her follow-up question, either. At this point in the video she motions to the screen. "And now they're gone. They're away on Teams. Like, tell me, ping, and tell me what you need, and then let me reply. Don't drag it out. This is, I hate this," she says, running her fingers through he hair at the end of the clip.

According to tech company Enboarder, there are some common communication issues that remote workers often experience while engaging with their fellow employees. And many of them appear to be in line with the concerns voiced by the TikToker in her aforementioned video.

One such issue is a "lack of immediacy," which is the same gripe that she mentions in her clip. According to the write up, this can be attributed to the fact that employees aren't in a physical location and engaging in their work together.

If this were the case, the outlet pens, workers can simply hop up and head on over to the desk or office of their co-worker to address the problem that they're facing. "In the office, close physical proximity means communication is much more immediate."

However, they state that if a work from home employee "hits a roadblock" then they may "not know where to run," which can impede communications.

Furthermore, the same piece states that a lot of communication between human beings is non-verbal, so many of these physical cues are lost on people via text.

According to Workplace Insight, "88 percent of remote workers struggle with miscommunication" which could be attributed to the lack of consistently picking up on these physical cues from other people. Also, the "lack of immediacy" in correspondence could also have something to do with it.

Ultimately, engaging in stricter correspondence protocols and reinforcing the importance of getting back to one's colleagues in a timely fashion over whatever communication tool: Slack, Teams, or any other messaging client when a group of employees are on the clock is one way to solve this issue.

It seems that several other TikTokers who replied to the TikToker's clip are very aware of these problems when it comes to communicating with their own co-workers. One user on the app wrote: "Can we normalize not responding since 'hi’ is super low on priority list, but 'I need help with xyz' may be higher priority?"

Another person said that they, too, are done with this type of delayed remote messaging chatter. "I can’t stand that. And worse when they lead with 'hi' and make you sit for 10 mins. I would NEVER."

But there are other people who said that there's an opposite side to this remote worker conundrum. Like dealing with employees who think that it's completely fine to send a video call request before their job's official start time. "Meanwhile the boomer employees of my client company who I’ve literally never spoken to in my life will cold call me WITH CAMERA ON at 8:32 am."