Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Working remotely is hard

moishelettvin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 163 posts

Re: Working remotely is hard

#41

Post by modfodder »

vogt wrote: post #31
jcroll wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one can come to my desk to socialize Yeah who would want that? I've done both and both have their pros and cons, socializing is definitely a perk and introvert or extrovert should not be underestimated in keeping you healthy and happy and a skilled professional.

You answered your own question. An introvert would not want that. You can force your standards of what makes someone a "happy and skilled professional" on them if you like, but that's not always a case grounded in reality.

I am an introvert and occasionally miss the forced socialization of working in an office. After long periods of working from home, I'm usually ready for some office work.

Re: Working remotely is hard

#42

Post by Thaxll »

dplgk wrote: post #2

Working remotely is excellent. 1.5 hours less commuting - that's more time to get work done or go to the gym or read the news. No one can come to my desk to socialize or ask a quick question to fuck up my flow. No one requiring me to arrive at an office at an arbitrarily early time. No dress code. No ad hoc meetings in the conference room. Listening to music I like aloud. All conf calls done on speaker. I'm home to r…

And you lose all social interactions. I enjoy people stopping by my desk and having random chat with them.

Re: Working remotely is hard

#43

Post by percept »

buf wrote: post #23
ygjb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are some: communication, loneliness, isolation, timezones, discipline It's really great that working remotely (anecdotally) works well for your team. It also doesn't work well for some folks. Like any other approach to business, YMMV, but discounting the disadvantages that have been enumerated for you is explicitly ignoring the fact that some people, including those who are top performing employees in their fiel…

You have a point. If someone does not enjoy remote work, then they should not get a remote job. I'm not a very good country music singer. When I sing country music, I feel shame, discomfort, and general depression. Therefore, I don't sing country music.

As a remote worker you can sing it loud and proud.

Re: Working remotely is hard

#44

Post by cpncrunch »

dplgk wrote: post #2

Working remotely is excellent. 1.5 hours less commuting - that's more time to get work done or go to the gym or read the news. No one can come to my desk to socialize or ask a quick question to fuck up my flow. No one requiring me to arrive at an office at an arbitrarily early time. No dress code. No ad hoc meetings in the conference room. Listening to music I like aloud. All conf calls done on speaker. I'm home to r…

Working remotely is an awesome experience for me as well, but I work for myself so it might be different if you work in a regular job that lets you work from home. I have the ability to ignore customers who are being overly pushy/demanding/rude, and I can take time off whenever I like. I tend to take a lot of breaks during the day to watch TV, do exercise, etc. I'm married, so that is sufficient social interaction for me. For work communication, I find email/skype to be more efficient than being in an office and having "status" meetings every day.

However, I can see that if you work for someone else, there could be a lot of pressure if things aren't going well or if you have a demanding boss, and you might feel trapped being at home and not having anywhere else to escape to.

Re: Working remotely is hard

#45

Post by richardwhiuk »

dvanduzer wrote: post #7
tomcam wrote: post #3

It turns out that most work is hard,period. Try being a single mom working at Wal-Mart and tell me how tough it is to do PowerPoints in a noisy Starbucks.

Indeed. The biggest challenge to remote work is when there's a local core. The groups that are serious about it enforce rules about collocated humans preferring the remote collaboration tools anyway. It's tough to bake this into a culture that didn't start there.

I'd guess it's hard even if you start with that. Local equivalents are often much better (e.g sharing a screen with someone is much better than all screen sharing apps, meeting someone is much better than all of the video conferencing apps etc).

Re: Working remotely is hard

#46

Post by buf »

percept wrote: post #43
buf wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a point. If someone does not enjoy remote work, then they should not get a remote job. I'm not a very good country music singer. When I sing country music, I feel shame, discomfort, and general depression. Therefore, I don't sing country music.

As a remote worker you can sing it loud and proud.

I didn't want to rub it in.

Re: Working remotely is hard

#47

Post by mildbow »

dplgk wrote: post #2

Working remotely is excellent. 1.5 hours less commuting - that's more time to get work done or go to the gym or read the news. No one can come to my desk to socialize or ask a quick question to fuck up my flow. No one requiring me to arrive at an office at an arbitrarily early time. No dress code. No ad hoc meetings in the conference room. Listening to music I like aloud. All conf calls done on speaker. I'm home to r…

I've found, after coding+managing remotely[0], that it takes a specific set of traits to be a successful remote worker.

- strong work ethic: no one needs to tell you that it's time to start working for the day/after lunch etc.

- strong communication: not the same as being an extrovert. might even help if you are an introvert. Just comfortable with text being the dominant means of articulation.

- strong 9-5 boundaries: might not be 9-5, might not be exactly 8 hours, but they have work hours and non-work hours and adhere to them.

- not junior: I've met a few junior devs who are good remote workers, but overwhelmingly most are seasoned. Maybe it just takes time to figure out the work-life balance/discipline integral to being an effective remote worker?

- trustworthy: the kind of person you can hand off something to and know it will be done.

- not great at ping pong: maybe those relate to the strong work ethic? That is, they never took/had time for honing ping pong skills at work ? Maybe that's just me :)

I work remotely too so maybe the traits are biased towards the positive.

[0] Team lead with one on ones + reviews for ~20 people.

Re: Working remotely is hard

#48

Post by vogt »

modfodder wrote: post #41
vogt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You answered your own question. An introvert would not want that. You can force your standards of what makes someone a "happy and skilled professional" on them if you like, but that's not always a case grounded in reality.

I am an introvert and occasionally miss the forced socialization of working in an office. After long periods of working from home, I'm usually ready for some office work.

I personally miss some human interaction after long periods of time at home, but not office interaction. It works for me to break up my schedule to socialize with my wife, friends and family to properly quell those feelings.

Re: Working remotely is hard

#49

Post by qq66 »

There are two components to successful remote work: it has to work for the employee, and for the company. Obviously, how well it works depends not only on the particulars of the arrangement, but on the specific employee (introvert, extrovert, etc.) and the specific company (type of product, type of role, other employees, etc.)

"Remote work is terrible" and "Remote work is The Way" are gross oversimplifications that are guaranteed to be wrong.

Re: Working remotely is hard

#50

Post by asyncwords »

jcroll wrote: post #24
dplgk wrote: post #2

Working remotely is excellent. 1.5 hours less commuting - that's more time to get work done or go to the gym or read the news. No one can come to my desk to socialize or ask a quick question to fuck up my flow. No one requiring me to arrive at an office at an arbitrarily early time. No dress code. No ad hoc meetings in the conference room. Listening to music I like aloud. All conf calls done on speaker. I'm home to r…

> No one can come to my desk to socialize Yeah who would want that? I've done both and both have their pros and cons, socializing is definitely a perk and introvert or extrovert should not be underestimated in keeping you healthy and happy and a skilled professional.

I enjoy socializing, but I do not enjoy socializing when I'm trying to work.
Post reply on HN