Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy

Post by x0x0 » Fri, Sep 13, 2013, 7:52 AM UTC

parennoob wrote: post #49

calinet6 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like these rules are direct results of frustrations experienced in real life and trying to put them down in a shared manner. I know, because I've experienced about 70% of these frustrations. I usually ignored them, and thought "whatever, I'm sure things are fine," and then I realized my views of remote work are impacted negatively by these slight annoyances. Maybe if people had that slightly better headset, or…

They aren't a bad set of suggestions (although apart from the headset bit, the rest are fairly obvious and I try to implement them anyway while working remotely. Yeah, I need a decent up bandwidth for Google Hangout. Where do I sign up for the newsletter?) What I don't like is making them into a "remote work policy" rather than "here are some things which might make your remote work more smooth for your team". That b…

Post by ibstudios » Fri, Sep 13, 2013, 9:45 AM UTC

Post by seivan » Fri, Sep 13, 2013, 10:39 AM UTC

tghw wrote: post #85

seiji wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wit…

Video chat seems trivial, but we found out the hard way it's pretty important for team communication.[0] Think of all the impromptu meetings you have on site, just popping into someone's office to ask them about something, pulling someone else in, and ending up having an important design discussion. It's much harder to do in a chat room. [0] As mentioned elsewhere, I was Fog Creek's first full-time remote dev.

Post by rmc » Fri, Sep 13, 2013, 1:00 PM UTC

vacri wrote: post #105

tghw wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Fog Creek's first full time remote employee[0], I fully disagree with your assumption. Coming from Fog Creek, that statement has no weasel words in it, it's a genuine sentiment. Back when I was working for the company on site, my father had his leg broken by an out of control snow boarder right before Thanksgiving. When I was home for the holiday, I realized he needed help around the house, so I asked to work remo…

It's also important to remember, in most industries, trust like this is totally unheard of. We are very fortunate to work in an industry where it is a more common practice. You should probably work in more industries. There are plenty of industries where workers have to roam (like high end sales or service) and have to be able to manage their own time effectively.

Post by nilkn » Fri, Sep 13, 2013, 1:49 PM UTC

vacri wrote: post #105

tghw wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Fog Creek's first full time remote employee[0], I fully disagree with your assumption. Coming from Fog Creek, that statement has no weasel words in it, it's a genuine sentiment. Back when I was working for the company on site, my father had his leg broken by an out of control snow boarder right before Thanksgiving. When I was home for the holiday, I realized he needed help around the house, so I asked to work remo…

It's also important to remember, in most industries, trust like this is totally unheard of. We are very fortunate to work in an industry where it is a more common practice. You should probably work in more industries. There are plenty of industries where workers have to roam (like high end sales or service) and have to be able to manage their own time effectively.