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People love working remotely

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Re: People love working remotely

#91

Post by tjr225 »

throwaway242221 wrote: post #77
cheez wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Found the manager.

So it's completely unbelievable that working from home makes some people (some, not all) slacking instead of working? I believe in remote work but it's not just for everyone like so many people seem to believe. I'm a living example of a dysfunctional remote worker.

Working from home doesn't make you slack off. You make you slack off. Own up to your own decisions.

While I don't want to flame you or attack you personally, I probably wouldn't want to work with someone with your attitude on either a distributed team or in an office.

Re: People love working remotely

#92

Post by radlad »

spurdoman77 wrote: post #43
codingdave wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a 15 minute fact-to-face is better... Good thing we have better tools for videoconferencing than ever. I can have a 15 minute face-to-face with anyone in my company, no matter where in the world they are.

Videoconferencing is OK, but it is still common to have issues with it. Bad image quality, setup by lowest common denominator etc. Often you use that 15 minutes just by trying to make it work properly.

What videoconferencing software are you using? We have this issue with some software, but Zoom has been excellent.

Re: People love working remotely

#93

Post by randcraw »

raxxorrax wrote: post #83
muro wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the white (or pink?) noise. I expected to hate it and found the idea ridiculous, but it helped focus in an open space office.

Heh, painfully pinching your skin also helps at the dentist.

I prefer smacking myself in the head with a hammer.

In an open office, that is. The dentist is less painful.

Re: People love working remotely

#94

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

gexla wrote: post #67

This piece has the feeling of being written by "every Friday is Hawaiian T-shirt day" after his employer went all remote and he needed a new task. I have worked remotely more than not and it's not ideal. I suspect that if teleportation machines existed, then remote work wouldn't be a thing. Once you leave the office for the day (or leave the house to go to the office) then the logistical problems start (where do I fi…

I always find any work from home I do to be uncomfortable - my home isn't set up for work, and my house is full of distractions. And the boundaries disappear between the "home" and "work" - I can't just ignore emails if they pop up even if I'm done working, as there doesn't seem to be a discrete line anymore, I'm on call 24/7. I'm always worried about not answering the email, as I'm worried the boss will go "why isn't he working at 4 pm?".

Re: People love working remotely

#95

Post by repomies691 »

vidanay wrote: post #76
spurdoman77 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like combining my commute with workout. Cycle, run or walk to work. Especially running to work in the morning gives me very nice energy for the day.

This is only an option for most people if there are locker/shower facilities at the office (most do not have this)

Every company I have worked for has had showers. Even the lousiest office I was working in back in the days had this kind of shower installed in the cleaning room. Did the trick.

Re: People love working remotely

#96

Post by shrimp_emoji »

dustinmoris wrote: post #51
g051051 wrote: post #16

I was full-time WFH for 6 wonderful years. I was happy, my productivity was off the charts, I was saving tons of money because I didn't have to spend it on my car and clothes, I had extra time that I wasn't wasting on my commute, etc. Then, we had a big shake-up. A bunch of senior people left, and new "leadership" came in to "transform" our workplace. All WFH was cancelled in our division (in spite of still being off…

> The big boss said "a 15 minute fact-to-face is better than a multi-day email chain" I can't believe that people who are so out of touch with reality are still given so much responsibility at companies which they effectively unknowingly misuse to make everyone's life miserable. There's nothing wrong about a multi day email chain. Sometimes it's the best communication tool, because non-critical/important things can b…

I've chatted online (in text) virtually my entire life, way more than I've actually talked, face-to-face or otherwise. My reading/writing comprehension's really developed as a result. Not only do people like me (even in my age range) seem relatively rare though, but it feels like talking IRL has some... weird clarity to it.

Maybe it's because the lower info bandwidth but higher emotional bandwidth (?) forces a kind of expedience you can't get otherwise. This seems especially useful in open-ended, "planning" conversations.

Maybe you can hold on to a lot of that with video/audio conferencing, but lag and tech issues are always salient. (But I'm technologically proficient and physically lazy, so I'd still rather deal with those than going somewhere.)

Re: People love working remotely

#97

Post by radlad »

matwood wrote: post #71
peteey wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agile and stand up meetings get a bad rap when poorly performing companies adopt the practices. There's no such thing as having just half of your house on fire. If a fundamental business element like customers or leadership is missing, everything else will be bad. Waterfall and agile methods are equally damned when the something else is causing a company to under perform.

> Agile and stand up meetings get a bad rap when poorly performing companies adopt the practices. I was talking to the CTO of a large non-tech company and he was so excited how the whole development organization had adopted agile. Later he told me that after the conference he had to fly to a huge meeting where they plan and schedule out the next 6 months to a year of development work.

Are you sure he wasn't referring to roadmapping? You can plan what projects to take on in the next quarter or two with a product team while the engineering team remains agile in their operations.

Re: People love working remotely

#98

Post by squeaky-clean »

codingdave wrote: post #82
spurdoman77 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Videoconferencing is OK, but it is still common to have issues with it. Bad image quality, setup by lowest common denominator etc. Often you use that 15 minutes just by trying to make it work properly.

Not if you use it every day, like remote workers do. It is a standard mechanism for communication, and becomes reliable for the team.

I work remotely and have a minimum of 1 morning video meeting, often more in a day. Cannot agree with this comment. The only thing that's gotten reliable is when certain things fail we kind of know what it is from past experience. "Jim. Please plug in your headphones or mute yourself, this happens once a week. JIIIM. JIIIIIM. Can we kick Jim from the call? Who has permission to kick someone from a call here?"

To the conferencing software's credit, it's generally user error. But when you have 10 people in a call, and only 2 of them really understand or even care about their conferencing software setup, things break a lot. I have to explain the concept of changing your recording device more than once a week. Usually to the same people again and again.

Re: People love working remotely

#99

Post by radlad »

g051051 wrote: post #48
mpweiher wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're also "Agile" now, so we spend a ton of time in useless meetings. One of the crazier things that has happened. When the XP folk said "we do a standup", the idea was that meetings are useless and awful, you shouldn't have them, but if you're going to have them, then let's "encourage" brevity by having everyone stand. Add a few decades of agile certified consultants, sc(r)umification and now "agile" means "lots…

We recently spent weeks doing a backlog grooming meeting every day to get work lined up, only to have our priorities completely changed and all of the work discarded.

Why would you spend weeks doing backlog grooming meetings every day? We do a single one-hour backlog grooming meeting before each sprint, to plan the work for that sprint. If you're planning out much further than that, that's not agile.

Re: People love working remotely

#100

Post by repomies691 »

radlad wrote: post #92
spurdoman77 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Videoconferencing is OK, but it is still common to have issues with it. Bad image quality, setup by lowest common denominator etc. Often you use that 15 minutes just by trying to make it work properly.

What videoconferencing software are you using? We have this issue with some software, but Zoom has been excellent.

Funny coincidence because just few days ago I was using zoom for the first time long time. The image/sound quality for sure was crappy and it was lagging/spotty multiple times. On the other hand there was like 7 participants. I also don't like how you have to install separate app to use it - and I heard the OS X version had vulnerability issues.

When I'm hosting a video call I prefer google hangouts. Works OK without installing apps.

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