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

What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

blog.doist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 213 posts

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#101

Post by puranjay »

acchow wrote: post #99
d357r0y3r wrote: post #10

Great article that really highlights the negative aspects of Digital Nomadism. I work with some folks that do this, and when we talk about it, they can't understand why I would want to just stay in my medium-sized city and travel a few times a year. Like, why wouldn't you want to spend 6 months a year in Thailand? It's such a no-brainer! And for me, it's just sort of mind-boggling that you'd jet set around the world.…

People glorify traveling way, way too much. It's even trickled down into actual work. New grads from college somehow think management consulting's traveling every week is a fancy perk. What?

Consulting companies here sell traveling as a perk. And the new grads lap it up.

Personally, flying and airports are just miserable. Traveling is nice but too much of a hassle to do more than once a year.

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#102

Post by diminoten »

nickjj wrote: post #35

I don't think the title ("What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work") makes sense for this article. He mentions co-founding a company and never had a "real" job but his title is all about being a remote worker for a company. There's a HUGE difference between being a remote worker FOR a company, and a remote worker for YOUR OWN company. In the employee / company case, you have someone telling you wha…

I got excited to learn about some novel aspect of working from home that I, as a remote worker for 2+ years now, might be able to incorporate into my life.

I cannot overemphasize how little I identify with anything written in this article. This guy's life experience is completely non-intersecting with my own.

It's possible what keeps me from feeling isolated is the fact that I've grown up on the (slightly more modern) Internet, and am able to draw energy from being in a chatroom/conference call with my coworkers in the same way I am when there in person. So many afternoons/nights/weekends forging friendships in the dark recesses of IRC/B.net/AIM/Ventrilo/Discord made me comfortable enough with the mediums that I know how to manage remote relationships as well as I manage in-person ones.

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#103

Post by GVIrish »

acchow wrote: post #99
d357r0y3r wrote: post #10

Great article that really highlights the negative aspects of Digital Nomadism. I work with some folks that do this, and when we talk about it, they can't understand why I would want to just stay in my medium-sized city and travel a few times a year. Like, why wouldn't you want to spend 6 months a year in Thailand? It's such a no-brainer! And for me, it's just sort of mind-boggling that you'd jet set around the world.…

People glorify traveling way, way too much. It's even trickled down into actual work. New grads from college somehow think management consulting's traveling every week is a fancy perk. What?

Different people enjoy different things. For some people, traveling is fulfilling and exhilarating. For other people being in unfamiliar settings with unfamiliar culture and language is much less fun.

And even within that, some people can enjoy travel up to a certain point. Might be fun to travel for work once a month, but not for 3 out of 4 weeks. I traveling for my first job where I was gone 60-80% of the time and it was fun, but after a year it got old.

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#104

Post by puranjay »

neokantian wrote: post #50
d357r0y3r wrote: post #10

Great article that really highlights the negative aspects of Digital Nomadism. I work with some folks that do this, and when we talk about it, they can't understand why I would want to just stay in my medium-sized city and travel a few times a year. Like, why wouldn't you want to spend 6 months a year in Thailand? It's such a no-brainer! And for me, it's just sort of mind-boggling that you'd jet set around the world.…

You can be part of a community anywhere in the world. I have lots of equally remotely working kick-abouts here.

That's the problem, isn't it? With office colleagues, you don't have to go out of your way to find people. They're right there, they're obligated to be nice to you, and you're stuck with them for hours every day. That's just the basic recipe for building relationships

With nomad work, the entire impetus falls on you to find a community and build connections. Easy for extroverts perhaps but not so easy for the rest of us

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#105

Post by cryptozeus »

sscarduzio wrote: post #11

Sorry you were not able to build meaningful relationships in Taiwan. Probably that is not the easiest place, I get it. But maybe you should work a bit more on yourself instead of writing throwing so much shit to the people who earned their high degree of freedom with a lot of effort. Also, you are discouraging people that are trying to find the courage to exit their comfort zone and reach their objective.

Actually this is not true, I find this article insightful and he does have very valid points. At the end it is up to the individual to decide if remote life is for him or not. No need to bash the author for putting this blog out there

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#106

Post by diminoten »

lukethomas wrote: post #25

I've worked remotely for almost 7 years, for a few companies. Loneliness is a real thing, especially for people who are more outgoing/social. Here's what I've found works for me: 1. work at a coworking space/coffee shop. Be around people. Get out of the house some. 2. Watercooler conversations don't happen automatically. I try to schedule a coffee meeting 1x/week with someone. 3. If you manage a team, you need to und…

One of my fiancee's professors at Kellogg was all about performing a nightly reflection on his day, and the example questionnaire on your website reminds me substantially of the ideas he was preaching. I think his name was Harry Kraemer, you might find some inspiration in the stuff he's talking about.

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#107

Post by THE_PUN_STOPS »

acchow wrote: post #99
d357r0y3r wrote: post #10

Great article that really highlights the negative aspects of Digital Nomadism. I work with some folks that do this, and when we talk about it, they can't understand why I would want to just stay in my medium-sized city and travel a few times a year. Like, why wouldn't you want to spend 6 months a year in Thailand? It's such a no-brainer! And for me, it's just sort of mind-boggling that you'd jet set around the world.…

People glorify traveling way, way too much. It's even trickled down into actual work. New grads from college somehow think management consulting's traveling every week is a fancy perk. What?

As a recent grad I spend two grand of my company’s money every week traveling to new and interesting places all around the country to solve interesting problems. I don’t pay rent and everything I need is free Monday to Friday. On the weekends I fly for free to all sorts of fun places around the country where my friends live.

Having only a suitcase of possessions is very freeing, and I’m saving tremendous amounts of money.

For me, it is a fancy perk.

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#108

Post by poulsbohemian »

Me, for background: "Non-traditional" worker since ~2005, including stints as employee, as freelancer, as business owner. Some in a co-working space, some in home office, some as road warrior.

I don't really recognize the issues the author is describing. Obviously exercise, activities apart from work, and being cognizant of one's mental / physical / emotional needs are all good things. But, I can't say I've ever felt loneliness or any kind of existential dread over any of it. If it weren't for my kids (school, activities) we would go nomad for big chunks of the year too.

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#109

Post by inertiatic »

Sure, these things can happen, such feelings can come up. But these pale IMO next to the disastrous effect of forced interaction for one third of your day every day of your life.

Yet very rarely do we see an article complaining about such things (besides the occasional mildly damning article on open office arrangements).

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#110

Post by xfitm3 »

acchow wrote: post #99
d357r0y3r wrote: post #10

Great article that really highlights the negative aspects of Digital Nomadism. I work with some folks that do this, and when we talk about it, they can't understand why I would want to just stay in my medium-sized city and travel a few times a year. Like, why wouldn't you want to spend 6 months a year in Thailand? It's such a no-brainer! And for me, it's just sort of mind-boggling that you'd jet set around the world.…

People glorify traveling way, way too much. It's even trickled down into actual work. New grads from college somehow think management consulting's traveling every week is a fancy perk. What?

Traveling is like going to meetings. If you don't have a lot of work to do - great. If it gets in the way of accomplishing something good it becomes a pain point.
Post reply on HN