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The Remote Manifesto

about.gitlab.com

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71–80 of 119 posts

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#71

Post by apaatsio »

rofo1 wrote: post #25

I've been working remotely (for companies that are not all 100% remote) for some time now and other than the occasional communication problems, there is simply no downside to it (for me). I am much more focused, I do better work, in a better health mentally and physically (I can exercise since I can organize my time), I don't waste time on commute. The people I work with are interested in results and that's what I de…

The whole "golf friends" thing doesn't make sense to me. I go to play golf to play golf, not find friends there. That seems to be unpopular opinion, but seriously, why do we mix those things up?

My point being, why do we do bother to do anything with friends? If you're going to do something, whether it be work or play golf, isn't it better with friends than with strangers?

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#72

Post by atemerev »

xtracto wrote: post #59
atemerev wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer to build my social life around the people I choose, not the people I am stuck with.

You ought to have choices to choose. The problem with remote working is that you are stuck with Whatever people you already knew. And I say this as someone who loves remoting. But most of our friends in the new city we live in are the wife's colleagues and 1 or 2 ex colleague's of mine. There was a thread in Reddit some time ago, about how difficult it is to make goodfriends on your 30s. Lack of options surely would…

Yes, you have to make effort to go on meetups and conferences, and meet your friends in other cities on your own. Your colleagues are perhaps a "convenient default option" to socialize, but it doesn't replace proper social life.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#73

Post by cubano »

I could never go back to a regular 8 to 4:30, with a timed lunch break and all that inflexibility.

I actually recoil in horror at the thought. Just the time wasted in traffic and associated costs is too much to bear.

However, hardly anyone at "the office" is looking to create a relationship with a 50-something senior dev anyway. Without a doubt we are the invisible workers at tech companies, if we ever even get the job in the first place, so that's actually another plus for remote.

However, I've never been the type to mix work life with a social circle, so I'm probably just buried in cognitive biases here.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#74

Post by znpy »

onion2k wrote: post #23
baroffoos wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That bias already exists, if 2 candidates with the same skill apply and one is asking for a lower pay then they are likely to be picked over the other. Why pay more for the same skill? If you want to have higher chances of being accepted then lowering your costs so you can lower your required pay is a good strategy. I'm fairly sure the gitlab ceo commented before that they don't want to pay people way way over the lo…

Why pay more for the same skill? Because people aren't stupid and when they realise they're being paid less than they're worth they'll leave, and then you'll have to go through the pain of recruiting someone else.

> when they realise they're being paid less than they're worth

Some observation though:

1. If you're still being paid more than local offerings, it's still worth pursuing.

2. More remote-only companies mean more global-scale competition. In the long run, this would mean that people would be paid equally among the various location (so yes, they'll leave).

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#75

Post by ex_ex_nihilo »

scarecrowbob wrote: post #39
jsty wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on which country you and your employing entity are in, this could end up netting you all of the disadvantages of self-employment with none of the benefits. E.g. in the UK, HMRC will determine your tax status based on, amongst other things, how much control your 'not employer' has over the work you do. So if GitLab were to treat you as just another member of the team, you'd run a big risk of ending up treate…

I agree with this comment. I'm wholly in the US, so maybe my experience is unique to me. Bit I was freelancing for quite a while and then one of my clients ended up buying all my time. IMO, there weren't any benefits from remaining a contractor once I was working full time. We ended up cutting my pay a bit to account for a shift in taxes and that worked out better for both me and my employer.

If you were individual 1099, then no there is no advantage really. And you have to pay self-employment tax. If you were B2B 1099, there are ENORMOUS advantages. My average effective federal tax rate on ~$250k/yr is right around 1.8-2.2% because I'm 1099 B2B and have a great tax attorney and accountant. Obviously on paper I make like $30k a year or something stupid like that, I don't know. My attorney adjust things monthly or quarterly as necessary, starts new LLCs or whatever is required.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#76

Post by apaatsio »

jypepin wrote: post #6

My observation is that there are 2 schools of thought about remote salaries. One side will pay SF-based competitive salaries no matter where you are, are the other side will have a "cost of living" adjusted salary. Gitlab is in the latter group. I recently thought about it, and was wondering if this could create some bias / unfair preferential treatment when interviewing and competing with other candidates. If candid…

I don't know about the legal side but if this is legal, it's pretty much a no-brainer for the company.

Assume that candidate A asks $90k and candidate B asks $80k. Let's also assume that each employee brings an equal amount of value to the company, let's say $100k. So, the company makes 100% more profit off of employee B even though they are paying only 11% less.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#77

Post by ex_ex_nihilo »

pferde wrote: post #51
pgeorgi wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what impact it has on social development, interpersonal skills, empathy, sympathy etc. Why is work supposed to provide for that? It's not kindergarden where, in addition to "activities" (ie. job assignments), you're also told who to play with.

It's not about what it's supposed to do. Any time spent among people and communicating with them affects your interpersonal skills, whether it's work, family outings or kindergarten. And human beings have thousands of years of being predominantly among other human beings.

So go work from a coffee shop or take a walk. I'm not sure if anyone has told you, but it's not been normal for humans to go to an office five days a week for 8 hours a day for most of human history.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#78

Post by manbearpiggy »

The advantages are discussed more, while the disadvantages are just a paragraph. I think with this article it's a case of 'reason is slave to the passions'.

I genuinely want to know the arguments against.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#79

Post by dsumenkovic »

baroffoos wrote: post #9
jypepin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main issue is that if the company is not 100% committed to remote work, the extra effort it takes to have everything documented and written will probably not happen, and the remote part will not be successful. So it seems like it's just easier to make remote successful if everyone is remote. Kind of like quitting smoking cold turkey vs saying "I'll start by smoking less". I've been remote on a non-remote…

Exactly, from what I have seen gitlab seems to have this figured out very well. From what I remember they have slack groups and video calls where employees can have casual talk about non work things so they can get to know each other better. I can't see this happening at my company if one person went remote. The most I can see happening is someone doing remote once a week so they catch up on the rest of the days and…

That's right. GitLab has Group Conversations [1] every day at the time when West Coast and Europe overlap. The most-wanted hours in the company to organize meetings are dedicated to talking about different areas of the company and learning how they're performing. We also do a Company Call [2] every day, which comprises about five minutes of announcements and 25 minutes of people chatting.

Our Coffee Break Calls encourage team members to spend several hours a week socializing and building a relationship that's separate from work. Since working remotely can also lead to team members never meeting in person, we have a visiting grant [3] to cover transportation costs, and every nine months, the entire team gets together for the GitLab Contribute (ex Summit) [4]. The next Contribute happens in less than a 10 days and I can't wait for it!

[1] - https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/group-co...

[2] - https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/#company-cal...

[3] - https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/incentives/#visiting-grant

[4] - https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/contribute/

I am sorry for the long list of links, just wanted to share as much as possible so people are aware of what the regular week at GitLab looks like :)

(I am working for GitLab btw)

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#80

Post by neogodless »

While this is all about remote, and talks mostly about remote, I found the initial bullet list very interesting. In my opinion, only the very first bullet point (omitted here) is tied to remote working, and the rest are probably ideas you should take a good look at if you could stand to improve your own processes and workflow (whether or not you are or will become remote).

> Flexible working hours over set working hours.

> Writing down and recording knowledge over verbal explanations.

> Written down processes over on-the-job training.

> Public sharing of information over need-to-know access.

> Opening up every document for editing by anyone over top-down control of documents.

> Asynchronous communication over synchronous communication.

> The results of work over the hours put in.

> Formal communication channels over informal communication channels.

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