I Only Work Remotely • Hacker News Board

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#81

Post by justinlaster » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 3:41 PM UTC

AckSyn wrote: post #72

justinlaster wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can try to hyperbolically describe it as a "crutch", but if you're just going to ignore that you are in fact constantly chemically altered then I'm not sure what to tell you. The whole "be your own man" is baseless feel-good ego massaging.

It's comments like these that do an incredible disservice to actual conversation. No one is arguing eating food doesn't aid in the regulation of a standard baseline for natural chemical balances in the body. Which is exactly what it is. A standard baseline for your typical, normal, healthy human being. Taking your stand of "but everything is chemically altering" is being intellectually dishonest in this argument and…

It's not a "ridiculous position". It's a succinct rebuttal of a position that serves no purpose other than to grand stand. Evidence based perspectives are not intellectually dishonest.

>A standard baseline for your typical, normal, healthy human being.

This is so vague. Ironic that you feel the need to claim I am being intellectually dishonest. When I consume marijuana, am I doing more harm to myself compared to when I eat sugar? Based on all the available evidence we have, the answer is no. When I consume marijuana, am I doing more harm to myself than when I drink coffee? Again, based on all the available evidence we have, the answer is probably no. In fact caffeine is more likely to be harmful to me for a multitude of reasons.

>group look bad by such poor arguments.

Meanwhile, the entirety of your statement is condensed down into "lol bad argument." Also, I don't actually smoke marijuana (I've tried it, it was "okay"), so your personal appeals are not only completely irrelevant and self-serving, they're useless as well.

You would do well to take all your charged criticism at my statement and apply it to your own; it fits it a bit better.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#82

Post by mattmanser » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 3:41 PM UTC

jp555 wrote: post #32

battlebot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe try not using drugs as a crutch? It reminds me of a perverse version of what athletes use steroids for. Be your own man, not some chemically altered monster.

I guess you don't drink coffee? How many people use caffeine to chemically alter their state? How about using alcohol to ease social interaction anxiety? Nicotine is another very popular tool for altering one's state. We are all essentially bags of chemicals. If someone hacks their diet to optimize nutritional chemical input, are they a chemically altered monster? Where's the line? Even playing sports together, shari…

You think drinking caffeine makes you feel anything like getting stoned? Or that smoking a joint is comparable to smoking a cigarette?

If you ever get stoned, you are in for a surprise.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#83

Post by hobarrera » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 3:44 PM UTC

mi100hael wrote: post #73

> I am a night owl. You can tell me I have to have my butt in a chair within your line of sight at 8 or 9am, but that is very wasteful. This used to be me and I used to believe it was just the way things were. I'd naturally sleep 10+ hours until noon on the weekends, struggle to wake up for work, and then struggle to fall asleep before midnight. I had little energy for exercise and always felt stressed trying to find…

> But the truth is, it's perfectly possible for anyone to adjust their sleep schedule and become a morning person. It just takes some conscious effort and the will-power to suffer through a week or two of re-adjustment.

That's not 100% true. I've done it, and deal with a couple of weeks of pain to realign my schedule.

I then went to bed late ONCE, and slept late the following morning. My schedule had the re-sync'd back to it's original form, undoing three weeks of work.

I can't really explain it, but it doesn't matter how much effort I put in, just staying up very late ONCE, screwes up my schedule, and I have to go back to two weeks to pain to realign my clock again.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#84

Post by hobarrera » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 3:46 PM UTC

mi100hael wrote: post #73

> I am a night owl. You can tell me I have to have my butt in a chair within your line of sight at 8 or 9am, but that is very wasteful. This used to be me and I used to believe it was just the way things were. I'd naturally sleep 10+ hours until noon on the weekends, struggle to wake up for work, and then struggle to fall asleep before midnight. I had little energy for exercise and always felt stressed trying to find…

> 3. Put down screens like phone, laptop, and TV after about 8pm. The artificial, bright light throws off off your body's natural instinct to get sleepy when it gets dark.

What I am supposed to do during four hours with basically no media? That sound a bit extreme. 90 minutes of that ought to do. Oh, if you DO watch something (eg. movie), try an app like redshift, to reduce make the light blueish, which is what actually deprives you of sleep.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#85

Post by ryanSrich » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 3:47 PM UTC

throwaway2016a wrote: post #48

So to provide another point of view... I worked exclusively from home for two years. The cabin fever was so bad I couldn't take it anymore. I may be in the minority for programmers but I need other people around and I need the energy of an office. From a management standpoint. A good whiteboard session goes a long way to kill communication issues on projects that are creative or not 100% straightforward. Although, of…

I've been working remotely for more than three years now. I've dealt with cabin fever a number of times.

Early on my initial reaction was to find a co-working space. My employer was more than willing to help out. I started looking around the city and eventually found one I thought I liked. After a few days I realized I hated it. I wanted to escape the office scene and here I was, given the freedom to do that, right back in an office.

The second thing I tried was going to more meetups. This failed mostly because meetups are on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This clashed with my workout schedule. When I changed my workout schedule I found that going to meetups was a major chore. I rarely found any value in it and my networking skills are super shitty. I'd go, sit for an hour, not talk to anyone and leave. A complete waste of time.

The last thing I tried and something that has worked for me for over a year now is a combination of coffee shops, a co-working space, and my home office. I'm a man that needs options. I can't be tied down to just working at home, or just working at an office. Somedays I don't want to see or hear anyone. Those are the days I stay home. Other days I want the noise and movement of a coffee shop. So I'll venture out to the 100s of shops in my area. I meet more people there than I ever did at meetups.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#86

Post by Wilya » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 3:49 PM UTC

bshimmin wrote: post #69

Wilya wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What he's saying, is pretty much that he doesn't want to work for people that think like you. And it's okay. Not everyone can be a good fit for every company.

It absolutely is okay for him, you're right. And it's absolutely great that there is such demand for tech right now that people can afford to be so particular about their working hours and their various ways of working. What I find less great is the suggestion that all employers should "accept your employees for who they are and optimize for their abilities" - does anyone really think that if everyone just worked wha…

It obviously depends on what work there is to do. In most of what I do, I work alone, with little need for cooperation, working through the backlog of tickets to implement. And the same goes for my coworkers. So I don't know why the morning people would have to wait for the night owls or why the night owls would need the morning people to stay around late. Everyone has their own stuff to do. If I need to talk to other people, I do it between 11AM and 5PM. Or schedule ahead of time so people can anticipate.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#87

Post by hobarrera » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 3:51 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #82

jp555 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you don't drink coffee? How many people use caffeine to chemically alter their state? How about using alcohol to ease social interaction anxiety? Nicotine is another very popular tool for altering one's state. We are all essentially bags of chemicals. If someone hacks their diet to optimize nutritional chemical input, are they a chemically altered monster? Where's the line? Even playing sports together, shari…

You think drinking caffeine makes you feel anything like getting stoned? Or that smoking a joint is comparable to smoking a cigarette? If you ever get stoned, you are in for a surprise.

Try leaving caffeine for a couple of months, and then have a cup of coffee.

I actually did this, and it's amazing to actually notice the strong effect it has.

It alters your mood SO MUCH you'd be amazed. But since you have a daily dose, you can't really tell. Much like you will never know what a weed-adict behaves like when he hasn't consumed in days.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#88

Post by mstade » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 3:51 PM UTC

ThalesX wrote: post #70

mbrzuzy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is problem with flex time. Companies love to advertise flex time, but when you come in at 7am and leave at 3, you get tons of looks and even the odd comment.

I recently had a chat with my direct supervisor. I told him I would like to start working flex time 8AM to 4PM and cut my lunch break to 30 minutes, eventually working 8AM to 4:30PM. He had a talk with his boss, gave me the O.K., I requested it in a written e-mail. Since then, I come in at 08:00AM every morning, I get two and a half hours of productive work until people start coming in and the meetings start. Then I…

This. Whenever I tell people to get stuff in writing to cover themselves, they think I'm just being a stickler and that doing so would just set a bad mood in the working relationship. But I've never found this to be true. Just be professional in negotiations and make everything crystal clear, because you can be sure that anything fuzzy or muddy is coming back in your face later, one way or another.

Also this:

> I also requested extra days instead of a pay increase.

If your extra days are paid (I'm assuming they are given the latter part) then it may well be a smarter deal fiscally even without the pay increase, particularly if your marginal tax is high.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#89

Post by adrianN » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 3:53 PM UTC

mbrzuzy wrote: post #59

lj3 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm; I have been that morning person who left 2 hours before everyone else and, while I didn't get fired, I was punished for it.

This is problem with flex time. Companies love to advertise flex time, but when you come in at 7am and leave at 3, you get tons of looks and even the odd comment.

That's not a problem with flex time, it's a problem with company culture. Flex time works where I work. We have people who come in early and leave early and we have people we regularly come it around lunch and stay until the lights go out.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#90

Post by SippinLean » Mon, Jan 30, 2017, 3:53 PM UTC

jp555 wrote: post #32

battlebot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe try not using drugs as a crutch? It reminds me of a perverse version of what athletes use steroids for. Be your own man, not some chemically altered monster.

I guess you don't drink coffee? How many people use caffeine to chemically alter their state? How about using alcohol to ease social interaction anxiety? Nicotine is another very popular tool for altering one's state. We are all essentially bags of chemicals. If someone hacks their diet to optimize nutritional chemical input, are they a chemically altered monster? Where's the line? Even playing sports together, shari…

False equivalency, all chemically altered states are the same? If someone used alcohol (another of your examples) at work, during the work day you'd consider an intervention; you wouldn't shrug and say "eh, bags of chemicals".