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I Only Work Remotely

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Re: I Only Work Remotely

#181

Post by Arizhel »

gcp wrote: post #173
Arizhel wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a solution? From what I see, parents simply have no time to actually spend with kids, they have to spend the equivalent of a full apartment rent on daycare, the cost of raising kids properly is utterly unaffordable, and the cost of living and healthcare makes it impossible for one parent to stay home instead of both having jobs, and the very high probability of divorce makes it foolhardy to enter into suc…

the older you are the higher the likelihood of birth defects or autism or Down's syndrome For what it's worth, we've been getting really good at identifying these very early with tests that also hold little or no risk to the mother and baby (e.g. NIPT with free-cell fetal DNA). Of course, if there's moral objections to terminating such pregnancies even in the very early stages, that doesn't help. reality of modern Am…

I have to disagree about the testing bit with autism; from what I understand, that doesn't even show up until a kid is a couple years old or more. Anecdotally, I have two friends with kids, and both their kids are mildly autistic. I think, in both cases, the mothers were in their early 30s.

>I guess they'll keep the population demographics at a sustainable level by immigration or something.

Yep, that's exactly what they're doing. The people having all the kids are either immigrants (esp. Hispanic ones), or ultra-religious Christians. All the people supporting "liberal" values aren't having any kids because it's too much time and money. So I think we can look forward to something somewhat similar to what happened to the Islamic world: it used to be at the forefront of science and math, and then turned into what it is today when the clerics took over.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#182

Post by pmoriarty »

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 wonder how prevalent cabin fever is among workers who manage to travel and work from a variety of different interesting places rather than sitting at home all the time.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#183

Post by awfgylbcxhrey »

gcp wrote: post #156
awfgylbcxhrey wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

then it may well be a smarter deal fiscally even without the pay increase, particularly if your marginal tax is high. How could that possibly be the case?

Because more free time without a meaningful decrease in income increases quality of life? You can also run your own company and earn extra during the off time.

Because more free time without a meaningful decrease in income increases quality of life?

I was asking specifically about 'fiscally' and, in particular, the mention of marginal tax rates.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#184

Post by gcp »

Arizhel wrote: post #181
gcp wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the older you are the higher the likelihood of birth defects or autism or Down's syndrome For what it's worth, we've been getting really good at identifying these very early with tests that also hold little or no risk to the mother and baby (e.g. NIPT with free-cell fetal DNA). Of course, if there's moral objections to terminating such pregnancies even in the very early stages, that doesn't help. reality of modern Am…

I have to disagree about the testing bit with autism; from what I understand, that doesn't even show up until a kid is a couple years old or more. Anecdotally, I have two friends with kids, and both their kids are mildly autistic. I think, in both cases, the mothers were in their early 30s. >I guess they'll keep the population demographics at a sustainable level by immigration or something. Yep, that's exactly what t…

Oops, you're right. I was thinking of Down and related disorders, which highly correlate to autism. But the relation doesn't work the other way.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#185

Post by antisthenes »

mi100hael wrote: post #167
antisthenes wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of misinformation here, so let's go 1 by 1. For the record, I'm a night owl, and I've been trying to change my schedule to a morning person for about 11 years now (with limited success). 1. Sure, that works, for a time, possibly even a few months. Until you begin subconsciously turning the alarms off or hitting the snooze. That leads to a self-reinforcing loop of "turn alarm off --> pleasure from sleep…

> Until you begin subconsciously turning the alarms off or hitting the snooze. Your counter-argument here appears to be "it's hard." Sure, it is, but your goal is to make it easier by ensuring a routine, a better nights sleep, etc. Some mornings still suck, but they still suck when it's 9am and the bed is warm and you're already late and don't want to go to work. > That's simply not true. Coffee takes about 5-7 hours…

> Your counter-argument here appears to be "it's hard."

The counter-argument here is that it gets progressively harder. If something is getting progressively harder for the same benefit, what's the purpose of continuing to do so?

Likewise, if something is a consistent difficulty, but with diminishing returns, what's the purpose of continuing?

> I suggest avoiding caffeine after noon because it's a crutch.

I take it you don't suffer from ADHD or any other learning disabilities. Some people need crutches to walk and not everyone is wired for the same focus and concentration ability. Calling an enjoyable harmless habit a "crutch" is nothing but a snooty high horse remark. We're not talking about popping adderall here (which has its own legitimate use cases), we're talking about 1 cup of coffee/day.

> In general you shouldn't be working out once you cross that time threshold, either, since you want your body to be preparing to sleep. Spend some time in the kitchen preparing your breakfast and lunch. Do some laundry or house cleaning. Get your things ready for the next day so you wake up without stress. Then grab a physical, paper book and read until you start to feel drowsy.

Again, thanks for the snooty and terrible advice. People fit household chores into the time-frames they have, and frankly house cleaning is a sometimes vigorous physical activity that's very likely to leave you in a state of elevated heart rate, just as a workout would have.

> Possibly the number one greatest thing about waking up early is that you all of a sudden have an extra two or three hours all to yourself. You can work out early in the morning, work on side projects, actually sit and eat breakfast, etc. I basically eliminated my afternoon crash since I no longer skip breakfast and overeat at lunch, and I don't hit a major caffeine low.

The time doesn't come from nowhere. There are only 24 hours in a day and early birds just shift the productive day to 3-4 hours earlier. If you're in bed at 9PM, You lose out on the productive 9-12 hours.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#186

Post by gozur88 »

gcp wrote: post #25
Jaruzel wrote: post #21

One of the opening lines resonated with me: "...I cannot trust employers to provide me with an adequate work environment." This is becoming more and more the default position, especially in the contract market. A recent contract I had, had quite poor office space - small old desks, old 17" monitors, no personal storage, chairs in poor repair, and a badly working hot-desk system (I have yet to encounter 'working' hot-…

In most engineering offices I've been into being a morning person would mean you have less overlap with everyone else, since coming in late and staying late is the norm. In one company I consulted for, a morning person almost got fired when a regional manager noticed he left 2 hours earlier than everyone else. It was hilarious, in the saddest possible way.

This doesn't surprise me. Early in my career I tried to take advantage of flex time so I could miss commute traffic. I came in at 6:00 and tried to leave at 3:00. Three things would happen:

1) Managers scheduled meetings at 3:00 or even 4:00. "Yeah, I know you normally leave at 3:00, but this is the only time I could find where everyone was free." Dolt. I'm not free.

2) I'm sitting at my desk at 2:45 and someone walks in with a Problem. It's not something that can't wait until tomorrow in the great scheme of things. But they're planning to work until 7:00, and if I don't solve this problem they're going to be unable to do anything until tomorrow.

3) I'm in the groove. My fingers are flying, code is being created. Five or six mental balls are in the air. I'm in a mental state that doesn't happen all the time, or even every day. I don't want to stop, and it's time to go home. If I came in late like everyone else the longer I stay the better my commute. But since I came in early every minute I stay is two minutes I lose from my day. So do I shut down and leave, or do I mentally commit myself to staying for at least three more hours?

Beyond that, while being all alone is great if you have everything you need, I found people need input from me and vice versa quite a bit more often than I expected, which really cut down on the actual productivity.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#187

Post by cableshaft »

ChemicalWarfare wrote: post #129
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.

Most companies I've dealt with had some sort of "core hours" policy in place. Typically 8am - 4pm unless your job requires you to work with ppl in different time zones on a regular bases. Anything outside of that would require your manager's approval. 7-3 is typically not a major issue with the exception that you'll stay later if need be for meetings/P1s (although that's a different can of worms) etc.

I thought the idea behind core hours was supposed to be less than 8 hours, as it's time everyone is guaranteed to be there, with wiggle at the beginning and the end, not just 'these are your hours'.

Like at a previous job, core hours was 10:00am to 4:00pm. Some people came in at 7:30am and left at 4:00pm, some people didn't get in until 10:00am and left at 6:30pm. But from 10 to 4, everyone was supposed to be there.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#188

Post by bb611 »

gcp wrote: post #17
padobson wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allowing remote work is a good signal for process quality too. Distributed teams don't share code on thumb drives or assign undocumented tasks at the water cooler.

Or have singular people in the company with undocumented, critical knowledge. PS. "Distributed teams" isn't the same as "working remotely", although many things that make the latter work apply to the former too.

Not always true, my last job had one director who worked 100% remote. She had multiple years of process knowledge she chose to share only when specifically needed to answer a question in a meeting or email. Much of this was critical information like "last year we published this report this way, but we promised to change the format this year." Even better, "we agreed not to change for 3 years but we're doing a ground-up rebuild in 2018."

A significant subset of my job for a year and a half was figuring out how to maximize the number of answers I could get from her, and recording them in the team wiki.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#189

Post by EleventhSun »

labrador wrote: post #57

Some of us have been making these arguments for decades to little effect. The manager either has discretion to let people work at home or he/she doesn't. And if he/she does it's very much their personal preference. Rock star devs can work at home if their managers are allowed to make that decision and the rock star demands it. Most of the time it feels like a whim of management.

I've been explicitly told not to do it and still do it. So long as you're productive it doesn't matter.

Re: I Only Work Remotely

#190

Post by gcp »

bb611 wrote: post #188
gcp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or have singular people in the company with undocumented, critical knowledge. PS. "Distributed teams" isn't the same as "working remotely", although many things that make the latter work apply to the former too.

Not always true, my last job had one director who worked 100% remote. She had multiple years of process knowledge she chose to share only when specifically needed to answer a question in a meeting or email. Much of this was critical information like "last year we published this report this way, but we promised to change the format this year." Even better, "we agreed not to change for 3 years but we're doing a ground-…

Not 100% true

I don't understand what part you're disagreeing with. If anything, you're very strongly reinforcing my point.

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