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Why I Only Work Remotely

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Re: Why I Only Work Remotely

#131

Post by hash-set »

jgrant27 wrote: post #101
Klathmon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My workplace is 80% remote, but not in the way you might think. Just about everyone works from home 4 days a week, and comes into the office one day. It expands the hiring pool by a pretty significant amount, one of our devs is 2 hours away (4 hours round trip, and he still commutes less than his wife does every week), it lets us get a lot of the "face to face" benefits done in one day, and the rest of the time is re…

This actually sounds workable. One other thing that is clear is that a 5-day onsite 40 hour work-week is not productive. IMO a 4-day week split between office and home would be way more productive.

I don't know where you live, but the stress of commuting alone has led me to want to get out of the business. Companies have got to smarten up! There's no earthly reason why dedicated knowledge workers need to be on some cube farm or stupid newsroom office every day. It sucks.

Re: Why I Only Work Remotely

#132

Post by hash-set »

criddell wrote: post #48
seanwilson wrote: post #27

The time to travel to the office is often ignored too (it sounds lazy to even mention it because it's the norm). If you're working remotely and it takes 30 mins to get to the office, you're at an absolute minimum burning 5 hours a week going back and fourth from the office when you could be doing something else. Add in the extra time changing to and from work clothes, and having to leave the office to get food instea…

I actually enjoy my commuting time. I listen to podcasts or think about what I need to do when I get to work (or home). If I'm on my bicycle, I find that my mine really wanders and I enjoy that. Once I'm at work, I get down to it and am good for about 4 hours or so (on good days) of really good work. Spend an hour or two on email, light reading, talking to coworkers, and that's my day.

You're the only one. Commuting SUCKS!

Re: Why I Only Work Remotely

#133

Post by dennisgorelik »

swozey wrote: post #9

At home I can control the noise & temperature of my work environment. These aren't brought up often but they're huge to my productivity. I can't work well when I'm uncomfortable. Trying to code with numb fingers or while sweating is miserable to my productivity.

I do not remember any office where I would be sweating. It's always cold in the office for me.

Re: Why I Only Work Remotely

#134

Post by free652 »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #128
d357r0y3r wrote: post #31

I rarely work remote even when I have the opportunity to do it; I'll explain. The author seems to have a single-mindedness about optimizing their own performance. If performance in terms of your value to the business was about sitting down at a computer and coding, getting in a "flow" state, etc, I would agree. Problem is, personal efficiency doesn't necessarily align with value generated. I've seen engineers spend m…

Good points, but why not do voice (Skype) calls while working remotely? Voice + screen sharing is about as efficient as a face-to-face conversation. And if you need to sync your working time with other team members - how is that a problem in remote environment?

>Voice + screen sharing is about as efficient as a face-to-face conversation.

Not even close. It's doable, but not as efficient.

Re: Why I Only Work Remotely

#135

Post by [deleted] »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #128
d357r0y3r wrote: post #31

I rarely work remote even when I have the opportunity to do it; I'll explain. The author seems to have a single-mindedness about optimizing their own performance. If performance in terms of your value to the business was about sitting down at a computer and coding, getting in a "flow" state, etc, I would agree. Problem is, personal efficiency doesn't necessarily align with value generated. I've seen engineers spend m…

Good points, but why not do voice (Skype) calls while working remotely? Voice + screen sharing is about as efficient as a face-to-face conversation. And if you need to sync your working time with other team members - how is that a problem in remote environment?

[deleted]

Re: Why I Only Work Remotely

#136

Post by hash-set »

kin wrote: post #67

Everyone has something that works really well for them. It's nice to have an employer that respects that. Personally, I find a lot of value in putting a face on everyone in my team. To me, it's a lot easier to work through a problem in person vs. over Slack or Skype. But that's not to say I disagree with the OP. I totally value the efficiency of working in isolation if and when I'm at a point where I just need to be…

I have had the same issues, but you have to know when to pick up a phone.

Re: Why I Only Work Remotely

#137

Post by RUG3Y »

late2part wrote: post #74

Richard Hamming said [1] it best: Another trait, it took me a while to notice. I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you…

This is anecdotal. It seems to me that there's a time for the door to be open and a time for the door to be closed. Having the option to either at the appropriate time makes a huge difference.

Re: Why I Only Work Remotely

#139

Post by snarf21 »

porpoisemonkey wrote: post #108
snarf21 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. I personally am much more distracted at home because "I'm home". When I'm at work, I'm in work mode. I also find that I solve a lot of yesterdays roadblocks during my commute (20 mins each way) and the shower. Solving problems is not always about characters per second of new code. Over the years, I can't even count the number of times that I heard a conversation taking place and was able to step in…

> personally am much more distracted at home because "I'm home". When I'm at work, I'm in work mode. Not sure if you've tried this or if it's practical for you, but I've found that having a completely dedicated space, with dedicated tools, can create a working context that helps boost productivity. I won't name them due to privacy concerns but my company has been very good about dealing with remote workers and provid…

I think it is more me personally than being about a dedicated space. I also probably average about 3 ad-hoc white board sessions in my office per week with varying people and topics. Additionally, I feel much more a part of a team all working towards a common goal when there is personal interaction. This is just what works for me, others prefer quiet. I work best in chaos and distractions. Part of it is my brain. If I think about only one thing/task all day, invariably I'll spend half the night still thinking about it. I've talked to others that only feel productive during hours 2-5 of a 6 hour work window. To each their own.

Most of my experience that I was referencing was fully on-site teams. I wasn't saying that ad-hoc conversations were necessary but that they inevitably happen. Last week the CEO came and told the support team "I talked with customer X and we're going to upgrade their hardware. Then they can use the new apps but also their existing fobs". I'm in the same room and interjected that their fobs aren't compatible. That plan was scraped and a new plan was created to help the customer. Solving an incident like this via tools requires almost all conversations to be done via tools and inevitably you have to invite everyone to everything or otherwise you defeat the point. However, this means that people now spend a lot of time "listening to virtual ad-hoc conversations" via the tools just in case it is relevant or you have input. It can also be solved with meetings but again you have to over-invite and it is more time people aren't working on the tasks they are already behind on.

Incidentally, this is one of my biggest issues with Slack, etc. You can use it to have fewer meetings but really all you have done is turn your day into lots and lots of micro meetings that may or may not be relevant or require your input. People need to learn how to plan and run productive meetings but that is a different topic. :)

Business communication tools and project management are actually two of my biggest personal passions. I've even created a free online tool (MVP right now) to help people practice team communication in a fun and interesting way.

Re: Why I Only Work Remotely

#140

Post by dahart »

citizens wrote: post #104
dahart wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really well said. It has taken me a long time in my career to realize the things I wanted - to be left alone to code - weren't translating into the product getting done any faster when I actually was left alone. I've watched other programmers fight for and get left alone, and then watched as they went off into the weeds coding things that solved problems we didn't have. Sometimes being left alone even increases my st…

> coding things that solved problems we didn't have Couldn't this be solved by using a project management app?

In my experience, no. Project management apps don't substitute for communication very well, and things tend to get worse and not better when apps are expected to carry important discussions. If tasks are cut and dried, specified precisely, with no decisions to make, and no input from the engineer, then apps might help a lot. I've never had very much work of that sort, I'm usually highly involved in the discussions about what should be done and how it should be done.

Worth noting that the experiences I'm talking about, watching programmers go off the rails, and going off the rails myself, many involved the use of various project management, tracking and review tools.

It's not true for all projects or all programmers, I make no absolute claims. But my personal experience has been that figuring out the right approach to anything that takes more than a couple of days takes multiple conversations no matter what. My personal experience has been that tasks that run longer than a week almost always need one or more course corrections before they're complete.

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