Are cost of living adjustments made to the compensation packages for remote workers, or does a developer in rural Iowa get the same six figure salary that seems like nothing in Silicon Valley?
Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
51–60 of 114 posts
Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#52This 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…
> 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.
I too have been bitten by this - hearing "there is no vacation time limit", and then seeing your paycheck shrink and being told "You took too much vacation"... That's extremely negative for morale.
I wish that companies had a minimum vacation time, but no maximum besides "your work isn't getting done".
Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
Oops, my math is wrong. It's 10 hours a week. Still a chunk of time.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#54This 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…
I wasn't trying to make that assertion, actually.
Maybe I wasn't all that clear, but my first point with regards to unlimited vaca policy is that even though it seems to be giving individuals freedom (like working from home can be seen to be), it doesn't always turn out that way in practice -- people are more likely to end up working more for whatever reason (inline with what you've articulated well above). I'm all for allotted days.
My second point was a general thought. The appreciation I have for SO is undoubtedly shared across the tech community; the SE platform has changed how we (not just techies) learn. I believe that they are an exception to the rule and that their ethos teases the best out of engineers. As knowledge workers we have our greatest impact in our distraction-free flow state. If work is good, higher output is natural. With the right environment, a remote situation could possibly enable me to stay in the zone more.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#55Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#56Here'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…
Adding another Amen here. I work from home, and I can get done in an hour or two what most of my colleagues take all day or even 2 days to complete. Why? Because I'm left alone!
The only time I work is when I want to work. That means, in order for me to tackle a project, I have to be motivated. When I'm motivated, I get the task done better, more quickly and more succinctly the first time.
If I'm forced to sit and stare at a screen and made to feel guilty when I'm not working, I'll never be motivated for anything. And working on something when my brain keeps saying "Fuck This!" is damn near impossible. I'm more likely to put some sort of half-assed hack through in such a scenario.
Some people, like you and me, Aaron, can motivate themselves and make sure things get done on time without someone standing over them. The manager standing over you scenario comes from a world where work is supposed to be dull, soul-crushing and horrible. Yer not supposed to want to go to work, so we have to stand here and make sure you do everything.
Helps to be passionate about what you're doing.
But yer also very right about dividing between work and life. I often find myself replying to work emails at midnight on a Saturday night, or working on a project on Sundays, or even while on vacation. In such cases, it helps to have a spouse who can shout at you to put it down.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#57That's very good. "and Fog Creek had (at the time) a strict no-remote-workers policy. This drove me crazy. These were amazing employees, in whom the company had already invested deeply, who were now walking out the door because they couldn’t live in New York any more." "Pain" is a very good teacher. It slaps you in the face and tells you're an idiot. "Remote working isn’t for everyone. There’s a tendency to think tha…
"Pain" is a very good teacher. It slaps you in the face and tells you're an idiot.
I love this sentence.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#58Here'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).
The best code in the world is usually written faster and better by a single dood in a basement working non-stop for a couple days than it is by teams working for months.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Managers who have nothing to do love to go after people for stuff like this. When a manager's job is just to crack the whip, not to remove barriers, things get bad pretty quickly.
Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely
#60I 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.
Read the last part of this, about how RJ Mical wrote the Amiga OS:
http://www.sdtimes.com/blog/post/2013/01/24/Concentration-is...
RJ stepped up. He volunteered to write the Amiga OS from scratch, entirely by himself. Of course, he had one major stipulation: no one was to bother him for the next 18 months. No meetings, no phone calls, no "Hey RJ, wanna go get lunch?" For the first 12 of those 18 months, RJ wrote the code in the office. But then, it was decided that the 30 minutes he was driving from home to the office and back again each day was too detrimental to his progress. RJ moved into a hotel near the office with just his clothes and a computer.