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Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

blog.stackoverflow.com

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Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

#41

Post by Macsenour »

Shog9 wrote: post #39
AaronBBrown wrote: post #30

Here's my big secret about remote working... I sit at my desk a lot less, but work a lot more. I'm one of those people that simply cannot solve complex problems while sitting at a desk. Because I'm not beholden to butt-in-the-chair syndrome, I am free to spend an hour or more going for a walk, visiting a local coffee shop, or taking a bath so I can think and problem solve before typing into a console. As a result, my…

Amen, brother. Heck, I use a wireless headset so that even when I'm in a hangout I can walk around, go outside, etc. Don't ask me to think about something and then sit still while doing so; you'll get whatever lazy answer I can come up with quickest - or no answer at all.

When I was at Broderbund I got a rep for walking around a lot. My boss wrote me up saying that there was no way I could solve a problem when not sitting at my computer.

When I quit he hinted that with his contacts I'd never get another job in games, I was working 5 days later.

Myopic views, such as "must be sitting at a desk in an office", will never be the path to creative solutions to problems.

Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

#42

Post by [deleted] »

Shog9 wrote: post #39
AaronBBrown wrote: post #30

Here's my big secret about remote working... I sit at my desk a lot less, but work a lot more. I'm one of those people that simply cannot solve complex problems while sitting at a desk. Because I'm not beholden to butt-in-the-chair syndrome, I am free to spend an hour or more going for a walk, visiting a local coffee shop, or taking a bath so I can think and problem solve before typing into a console. As a result, my…

Amen, brother. Heck, I use a wireless headset so that even when I'm in a hangout I can walk around, go outside, etc. Don't ask me to think about something and then sit still while doing so; you'll get whatever lazy answer I can come up with quickest - or no answer at all.

[deleted]

Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

#43

Post by hnwh »

hosh wrote: post #36
simonsarris wrote: post #20

Thanks to StackOverflow I'm relatively reputed(?) in one teeny niche of the programming world. This leads to a few recruiter emails per week, and almost all of them I reply to with a cheeky way of saying that I'm not going to move[1]. One company to date has said that not-relocating my entire life is OK with them. The rest can be summed up with the reply that ended an email exchange with an SV angel: > sorry to hear…

I'm with you man. That's how I feel. SV is good ... if you want to live in SV. Not because you want to go there for a job, not when jobs need you more than you need the jobs.

> not when jobs need you more than you need the jobs.

THIS!!!!

Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

#44

Post by bartonfink »

hosh wrote: post #37
jmspring wrote: post #21

I currently work at home 3-4 days a week with the others being in the office, usually for meetings and collaborating on things. The office is an open floor plan with very poor noise reduction. When not in meetings in that environment, it is hard to get work done even with headphones. Visual and audio distractions persist. That said, there are times where getting together is helpful. When contacted by companies, I ask…

Time spent in the car/traffic is life lost, something you will never get back again. A 1 hour commute one-way is about 20 hours a week. That's a part-time job for some people. Commuting is simply not that interesting of an activity.

20 hours a week? I think your math is wrong (1 hour * 2 ways * 5 weekdays = 10 hours).

Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

#45

Post by overgryphon »

nirvanatikku wrote: post #25

This blog post is wonderfully written; it succinctly outlines the benefits and the caveats from both the employer and the employee's perspective. "I’ll let you in on a secret: most of our remote developers work longer hours than our in-office devs." This reminds me of the 'unlimited vacation' policy, which, if I'm not mistaken has effectively showed that employees don't end up taking as many days off as they would if…

I'm not sure "unlimited" vacation time is empowering. It makes who goes on vacation more or less than whoever else something that may be silently judged. Bob went abroad for five weeks- is that excessive? Bob has no way of knowing what others will think, and may not go abroad at all to avoid the potential fallout. This judgment is also very difficult to uncover- if one person discourages his team from taking vacation, how would you tell? With allotted vacation times, HR tracks whether a specific manager's employee's are taking vacation.

More importantly the lack of vacation time accounting provides less protection for the employee in terms of job loss. Unused vacation time is often added to severance pay.

In actual practice, "unlimited vacation" seems to be a nice term for the company to minimize potential severance pay, bookkeeping, and potentially create a work environment that silently discourages taking vacation time while publicizing the opposite.

Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

#46

Post by 46Bit »

kintamanimatt wrote: post #17
balpha wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a regular employee (of the UK presence; it's all EU, so I assume that makes things a bit easier). There's a German tax office that does the wage accounting to make sure that it follows all the rules. The only difference to a standard German employee is this: While in Germany legally the employee owes the wage taxes, they're usually collected by the employer and passed on to the authorities. But the German tax aut…

I never knew that was possible! I'd have imagined it could have been possible as a contractor, but not with this arrangement. Is there any particular benefit to being an employee in this case as opposed to a contractor?

I expect some aspects of EU working law apply, which gives you a lot more protection than a simple contracting relationship.

Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

#47

Post by orangethirty »

AaronBBrown wrote: post #30

Here's my big secret about remote working... I sit at my desk a lot less, but work a lot more. I'm one of those people that simply cannot solve complex problems while sitting at a desk. Because I'm not beholden to butt-in-the-chair syndrome, I am free to spend an hour or more going for a walk, visiting a local coffee shop, or taking a bath so I can think and problem solve before typing into a console. As a result, my…

Yes! I work three times as hard from home, and love it. I'm much more productive, to the point of doing projects that would take 2-3 people alone myself. I'm currently looking for a remote full-time position (email in profile).

Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

#48

Post by aantix »

tunesmith wrote: post #33

I love working remotely. My current arrangement has a gotomeeting standup every day, jira for tickets, hipchat for persistent chat (I had to recommend persistent chat to them but now they love it), and frequent code pairing through screen sharing. They all go home at five so I can stop then, too. I wonder sometimes if there are other similar arrangements out there - java, spring, etc - but it seems like a pretty high…

What do you use for screen sharing? Most of the products I have utilized feel laggy..

Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

#50

Post by jaggederest »

AaronBBrown wrote: post #30

Here's my big secret about remote working... I sit at my desk a lot less, but work a lot more. I'm one of those people that simply cannot solve complex problems while sitting at a desk. Because I'm not beholden to butt-in-the-chair syndrome, I am free to spend an hour or more going for a walk, visiting a local coffee shop, or taking a bath so I can think and problem solve before typing into a console. As a result, my…

> I'm one of those people that simply cannot solve complex problems while sitting at a desk.

My best ideas? In the shower.

Number of businesses I've worked at where it was possible to take a shower during the day at the office to solve hard problems? Zero.

Working remotely with washable crayons on a shelf in my shower means I get about 3x the concept creation time. I figure a number of businesses I've worked at (in the office) have lost out on more than a million dollars of creative output due to not having a shower available.

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