Can anyone recommend a good wireless headset for this?
Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy
121–128 of 128 posts
Re: Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you ever own a company and you find yourself writing a salary check to somebody who you suspect did jack-shit all week - it's kinda amazing how difficult it is to not go into Ebeneezer Scrooge mode. Even if you know that people are not "on" 24/7. It can be tough to walk by somebody's desk and see them screwing around on Facebook instead of working - when you are the guy writing the checks. It takes a lot of faith.…
Somebody not actually working at work could be due to many different factors. Yes one could be that they are lazy and half-assing their job, but it also could be that they just aren't motivated. Maybe they don't feel connected with their job. Ideally, an employee is motivated to to a good job for reasons other than its a daily grind and its what they have to do. The HR industry terms this "Employee Engagement." If I…
Absolutely a great manager will inspire and motivate the team,. But, it is called "work" for a reason. Its a two way street. The employee has to put forth some effort as well. Your manager is not there to entertain you. At the end of the day you are there to work.
Re: Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy
#123Earlier 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.
Both sales and service completely lack the trust I'm talking about. There's even more oversight and micromanagement. Are you making your numbers? Are you doing the required number of cold calls per day? Do we need to take away some of your territory?
Re: Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy
#124Earlier 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…
Thanks for a better perspective on the situation. Your case does sound like a fairly decent work-at-home case, which would have turned out around the same at the place I work. And you working half as often, but a lot harder also tallies with the things I said. I guess the only things I had a problem with from my original comment are: a) Putting it into policy that workers have such-and-such a setup. People who work i…
a) Fog Creek doesn't have an HR department. At most, it's been the two office managers dealing with incoming resumes, booking travel for candidates, and scheduling interviews.
b) If you step back and imagine taking a non-cynical view of this, it really is just a simple suggestion. "We've found everyone's happier if you try to do this." Add to that the fact that it is under the huge header that begins with "Suggestions..." and you might actually believe it is a suggestion, not a policy.
Re: Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy
#125This seems like a lot of rules... and kind of unfriendly. Especially for just a short stint working remotely. Whats the worst that could happen if one of the workers has a less than ideal setup while temporarily working remotely for a few days? Would it really affect company outcomes? If not, I think developer happiness would be improved by having a more laissez-faire attitude from management.
How is this a lot of rules? As far as I can see, it boils down to three: 1. Be able to communicate with your team. 2. Have a place where you can work, distraction free. 3. Get approval from your team lead. (This one barely counts, since the answer would never be no.)
#3 then becomes the worst kind of rule, one that is no only under unanticipated circumstances which are not going to be covered by rules, by definition.
Re: Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy
#126"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…
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…
> Maybe if people had that slightly better headset, or a connection that doesn't piss you off due to choppiness
As a remote worker: I wish my main office wouldn't use shitty conference speaker phones and actually had an internet connection half as fast as I do. :-)
(Seriously, just today I sat through a WebEx conference call with six people in the room and six people online--all our devs are remote--and ghhhhh mumble mumble mumble ghhhh was the order of the day.)
Re: Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy
#127This seems like a lot of rules... and kind of unfriendly. Especially for just a short stint working remotely. Whats the worst that could happen if one of the workers has a less than ideal setup while temporarily working remotely for a few days? Would it really affect company outcomes? If not, I think developer happiness would be improved by having a more laissez-faire attitude from management.
How is this a lot of rules? As far as I can see, it boils down to three: 1. Be able to communicate with your team. 2. Have a place where you can work, distraction free. 3. Get approval from your team lead. (This one barely counts, since the answer would never be no.)
> 2. Have a place where you can work, distraction free.
From working remotely for the last year, I've found that basically any table is a fine remote work spot for me. Kitchen table, Starbucks, whatever. I have learned that I don't get appreciably distracted by ambience or even really by light conversation[1] (unless doing something particularly out-of-the-ordinary in terms of difficulty, in which case it's lock-the-doors time); if I did have concentration issues, don't you--y'know--think that I wouldn't do the things that triggered them. Because I'm an adult and I'm competent? The assumption that people aren't is why, to me, these edicts read as kind of wacky.
[1] - Hell, I'm getting a coworking space because I find that that ambience and that light social friction makes me better at what I do. =)
Re: Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy
#128"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…
> I bet he enjoyed his time there
We call this "vacation". Our leave policy is plenty generous to take things like this into account (unlimited sick, unlimited unpaid, and 4-5 weeks paid).
This policy is about long-term remote work. For short-term things like that, it's not worth the hassle of working at all.