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Working remotely is hard

moishelettvin.com

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Re: Working remotely is hard

#81

Post by tmlee »

usaphp wrote: post #5
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…

Eating home cooked food fresh instead of microwaving it

Access to kitchen is golden. You can steam, stir fry, use conventional oven, all great options to a healthy meal.

Re: Working remotely is hard

#82

Post by blisterpeanuts »

I respect the blogger's choices, but he didn't mention family. Once you have little ones, working from home becomes an incredible benefit. Obviously for females it's advantageous, but for males as well.

For example, I work full time from home and am able to drop my elementary school daughter to school and pick her up at arbitrary times of day (15 mins. round trip) while my spouse is off at her day job which is in a classroom and thus has rigid scheduling.

It makes it possible for my wife to work. It also means I can skip the shower and "business casual" dress-up ritual every morning. I typically work all morning in my pajamas/sweats, throw on running shorts and head out at lunch time for a quick noon time run, knock off around 5 or 6pm and throw some dinner together.

I'm in nearly constant contact with my teammates and management using skype chat and email. Occasionally, Webex conference calls with customers. Once in a while we screen share. (pro tip: You should disable Chrome browser's Gmail popup notifications if you are screen-sharing with your boss and you tend to get a lot of email from recruiters....)

Then there is the quiet, the ability to step outside for 3 minutes and breath the fresh air, make your own coffee or drink of choice and not have to settle for the office Keurig or institutional drip brewer. My preference has long been a French press and freshly ground beans -- though lately it's been chai tea -- easy at home, a pain to set up at an office.

The work-from-home option is truly a great advancement if you have a complicated home life, such as children. You can also take the laptop and pretty much work from anywhere; I frequently take the family on vacation and just work 9-5, saving my real time off for other occasions.

Certainly, it's "not for everyone" -- especially, I would think, for 20-somethings who are recent grads and still socializing into the work environment, or for people in some kind of tight work loop where the shoulder-to-shoulder approach is necessary, and the 5-minutes-in-the-hallway is critical for random idea vetting and brainstorming.

Re: Working remotely is hard

#83

Post by blisterpeanuts »

AJ007 wrote: post #26
buf wrote: post #6

I'm the CTO of 17hats. The entire engineering team works remotely. It's not as challenging as you seem to suggest. Right now is the best time ever to be remote. Excellent tools like Slack and Speak really help comms. We pair program very often by sshing into a tmux session which makes any lag close to nil. We use Trello for sprints. And Invision for product work. It's extremely efficient. We have our usual retrospect…

One this is certain, it has gotten easier. In my case I can work remote and be entirely mobile. In the past that involved a drop of productivity at least 50%. The disadvantages are the health problems that occur if a remote worker is sitting at home all day, physically and mentally. These can take years to begin manifesting themselves and are really bad if the remote worker can't self identify them.

What kind of health problems? I've been working remote for about three years now and so far, haven't noticed any problems in myself.

Certainly it's made it easier to jump on the home elliptical, lift a few weights, do a few chin-ups, or run outside for 45 mins.

Back when I was in an office downtown, it was an expensive and time consuming project to go out 4-5 times a week to a gym at lunchtime or after work, then need to shower immediately before you can be around your workmates again, etc.

I'm also so much more relaxed now that I don't have to commute. That was a real stressor.

Re: Working remotely is hard

#84

Post by bluehawk »

compumike wrote: post #67
cxseven wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microwaving cooks food without generating as much carcinogenic char as other methods, so it can actually be healthier. Relatedly, freezing is the healthiest way to preserve and transport fruits and vegetables. It also allows them to be harvested when naturally ripe, rather than artificially ripened.

Alternatively, use something like https://www.pantelligent.com/ (disclosure: co-founder / engineer) so you can control cooking temperatures. This lets you get delicious browning without the non-tasty and non-healthy burnt "char" bits. Edit: sales team just added coupon code T2F8NB9UBC for HN readers! [expires 11/16 at 11:59pm PT]

Why can't I find out how much it costs without giving you my email?

Re: Working remotely is hard

#85

Post by brahmwg »

For me, working long hard hours from home can begin to make me feel an association between being at home and doing hard work (as opposed to coming home from work, where home is a place of rest). I think being able to have work separate from home is important, especially for the family. The stress of work should stay at the office, and being able to compartmentalize that stress while working from home is a skill I have yet to fully master.

Re: Working remotely is hard

#87

Post by err4nt »

mildbow wrote: post #47
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…

Great list!

I agree with all but the 9-5 premise. The thing that makes it easy for me is Git! Having all of our work stored in version control gives our team 100% accountability in a totally painless way. And if there's ever a project I'm working on outside of git, I do daily dump archives so each day is snapshotted.

No need to track hours, no need to wonder what somebody did all day. If you want to know what I did last tuesday go check my commit!

Version control = accountability and trust

Re: Working remotely is hard

#88

Post by mirimir »

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…

Same here. I often work to loud music. Loud like a pair of old JBLs at 50W per channel. I usually work in a bathrobe or sweats. And I abhor meetings, unless I'm billing at a decent rate.

Also, I totally don't get the complaints about loneliness and isolation. I have the company of family and friends. And I distinguish firmly among clients, coworkers and friends.

Re: Working remotely is hard

#89

Post by foobarian »

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'm not a fan of people interrupting either, but I've come to realize it does help the team run more efficiently. If I get 3 legitimate interruptions a day where 5 minutes of my time saves the other developer an hour, overall it means my team just accomplished 3 hours of work in 15 minutes.

Or say some error or urgent request comes up, it's been my experience at our office that the point person can look around, grab people into a quick meeting and resolve something in 10 minutes that would otherwise kick around in email for days.

It also helps on the social side to be "plugged into" the company. When you run across some weird error or feature request it's really valuable to know who you can even ask about a related part of the codebase or functionality. And you build that mental database by socializing.

Just a few of points the other way :-) I've done both remote and office work and just happen to prefer the higher bandwidth/iteration speed of in-person work.

Re: Working remotely is hard

#90

Post by err4nt »

imaginenore wrote: post #69
vinceguidry wrote: post #40

I wouldn't work remotely even if you gave me 25% more salary to do it. My ideal work context would be a six hour day at an office in the city that I can walk to from my condo. Sit-stand desks, balance-ball chairs, decent coffee, but no catered lunch / dinner. I want to take coworkers or dates out. Preferably with a nearby park that I can take walks in. Sit at home with a computer all day? Sounds too much like solitar…

I'm the opposite, I turned down $300K in LA to keep my remote job at a lot less. I move around the world freely, I don't need to commute, i can work in my underwear or while sitting on a beach, and I generally don't even have to be available during the office hours as long as I do my job and respond to emails reasonably quickly.

Living the dream! I have also telecommuted from the tropics, though on a fraction of your less-than-300k I bet.

What has your favorite work location been so far?

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