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Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy

blog.fogcreek.com

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Re: Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy

#31

Post by seiji »

kevinconroy wrote: post #12

Seem like too many rules for you? Use this as a reminder about why it's important to ask probing questions whenever you interview for a job. Find out what the culture is like and if it is a good fit for you. I know several developers who thrive with the environmental conditions listed here and would love having the company have rules to enforce these conditions. I also know several developers who would burn out. It's…

After looking at it again, it isn't a crazy number of rules (some are overly demanding, like video chat), but the rules seem to exist because they are trying to codify behavior of people not completely gelled into their teams.

When I've worked with teams where everybody gets along, there's always updates or chats flying around with everybody telling everybody else when and where they'll be doing what for how long without any guidelines, prompting, or pompousness.

Re: Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy

#32

Post by LordHumungous »

>at Fog Creek, it’s sort of assumed that everyone’s working steadily and diligently. In the absence of new information, the assumption is that you’re producing.

Well that's a dumb assumption. The managers at Fog Creek don't do code reviews, don't look at commit logs, don't look at the features that developers have built? They just assume that everyone is being productive because they are in the office.

>When you step outside the HQ work environment, you should flip that burden of proof. The burden is on you to show that you’re being productive.

At my job productivity is shown by the code I commit and the features I build, not the time that I visibly appear to be typing away at my keyboard. Apparently Fog Creek does it a little differently. I'm glad I don't work there.

Re: Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy

#33

Post by bliti »

I think these are reasonable expectations. Working remotely does not imply that you get to set the boundaries and rules of employment. It merely allows you to work from another place. I have been working remotely for the past 4+ years, and actually do so in the way they describe. I have an office with a door, do not babysit or have people around during work hours, let people know (family included) that I am at work, and make sure to communicate a lot with the team.

You can't take your child to a non-remote job, you can't have your friends or parents dropping by, and and can't isolate yourself from others. It is strange that working remotely would allow for those things. Not really. Less so when the work is programming. Which requires a good amount of concentration and quietness.

Re: Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy

#34

Post by Iftheshoefits »

jacques_chester wrote: post #21
seiji wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's an insane number of rules. (is video chat required? why video chat?) Down the page they mention The burden is on you to show that you’re being productive. -- that just sounds outright authoritarian and demeaning. Strict policies calling people out as "do this ... or else" don't exactly engender trust. I think they cover most of our complaints in the poorly worded Known availability and overlap with your te…

> Yeah, it's an insane number of rules. I think this is hyperbole. They all basically boil down to: if you work from home, please work from home. And keep in touch. I work from home. As a rule, the best-running projects are those with daily video meetings. The 2nd best involve phone calls. The worst involve emails. Faces have enormous bandwidth. Voices a bit less. Email has bugger all for the things that matter .

As a rule...for you and your team. Companies like this don't pay developers for face-time, BS meetings just to "check in" (which is the vast majority of all face-to-face meetings), and so on. They pay us for our expertise in writing software or doing other similar technical work.

If a company offered me the choice between working from home under the conditions listed for Fog Creek or not working from home at all, I'd choose the latter and consider option c) quitting to obtain employment with a company that recognizes I'm not in kindergarten anymore, and don't care to be treated like I am.

Re: Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy

#35

Post by mistermann »

parennoob wrote: post #20

"You still have stuff like chat, commit messages, code reviews, cases, Trello boards, etc. Be a little paranoid for this time about showing your work. It will help you feel good about your time, and us feel good about granting it." Run through a de-weaselizer, this reads: "Be a good little pet, and do an extra set of tricks when we take you out to the park, so you feel good about running around in the park and we fee…

In your opinion would it be safe to assume employee morale at Fog Creek is low due to working in such an obviously tyrannical environment?

Re: Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy

#36

Post by parennoob »

mistermann wrote: post #35
parennoob wrote: post #20

"You still have stuff like chat, commit messages, code reviews, cases, Trello boards, etc. Be a little paranoid for this time about showing your work. It will help you feel good about your time, and us feel good about granting it." Run through a de-weaselizer, this reads: "Be a good little pet, and do an extra set of tricks when we take you out to the park, so you feel good about running around in the park and we fee…

In your opinion would it be safe to assume employee morale at Fog Creek is low due to working in such an obviously tyrannical environment?

Employee morale at my local McDonald's is tremendous. They also have tons of these micro-managey rules. Does that mean you would instantly want to work there?

Re: Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy

#37

Post by jacques_chester »

parennoob wrote: post #26
jacques_chester wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Have a room with a door that shuts." Seriously? Yes. Seriously: http://www.dorsethouse.com/books/pw.html > How about this: hire smart people you trust, give them whatever tools and support they need to do their jobs most productively, then get out of the way. Good idea: http://www.dorsethouse.com/books/pw.html

I don't understand -- if you could give some rational, reasoned argument or study that shows that smart people are very less productive on an average if they are working remotely instead of repeatedly chanting the link to a book whose reviews read "Bill Gates has built a company full of managers who read Peopleware " (that is supposed to be a plus?), your argument might make more sense.

Firstly I was pointing to the origin of "a door that shuts". It's not an example of micromanagement, it's an example of a finding from a study performed by IBM that programmers in private offices were more productive on any measure.

Secondly I was pointing out that the same book also tells managers to recruit bright people, give them goals, enable their work, and then go away.

I suspect Peopleware is the most widely not-actually-read book in this industry.

Re: Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy

#39

Post by mistermann »

mberning wrote: post #25

This is true old school thinking at its worst. If my employer is going to put up all these rules and barriers maybe I should put up a few of my own. I bet the managers or whatever they fancy themselves to be at Fog Creek have very little appreciation for all of the small yet tangible things that employees go out of their way to do for them. Things like answering important emails in the evening, especially when it is…

I'm just picking your comment at random out of this thread...do you know Joel Spolsky who runs Fog Creek? I'm reading all these critical comments in this thread and reconciling it in my head with what I know of him (from his extensive blogging and podcasting) and I'm thinking, have so many years passed that no one knows who this person is they're criticizing?

For example:

> I bet the managers or whatever they fancy themselves to be at Fog Creek have very little appreciation for all of the small yet tangible things that employees go out of their way to do for them.

I simply can't imagine any reasonable person who is familiar with Joel writing such a thing.

Re: Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy

#40

Post by sergiotapia »

I work remotely exclusive and the list present here doesn't seem that bad to me. I do feel it's a slight bugger to have to constantly ping someone that 'I'm here!'. The submitted commits and code reviews should be plenty for that.

The place I work has similar guidelines and we communicate via Skype instead of Google Hangouts - and it works very well. There has to be _some_ interaction between team members, otherwise you're just a code-spitting robot, no? I enjoy the daily meetings as it lets me see what everyone is up to and let's me share what I've been doing as well.

I guess I like working in a team that talks.

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