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Remote

robertgreiner.com

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Re: Remote

#31

Post by auxbuss »

aferreira wrote: post #21

I can personally attest that it is incredibly hard to land a solid remote based job, even if you're very good at it. I have worked remotely most of my career (with frequent visits to the office) but I still see a constant stream of people who prefer to have someone much less skilled and/or capable on site rather than take the chance and hire remotely. Time zones, contractual arrangements and/or agreements, distance a…

I try to insist on a week in the office at the start of a gig -- I only take remote gigs, unless very short. That's never been a problem. (International gigs are an exception, naturally, but I let the client make the call.)

That week in the office is enough to get to know everybody and vice versa. You do need to actively seek out and talk to everyone, though.

Re: Remote

#32

Post by blisterpeanuts »

skrebbel wrote: post #30
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #26

My full time job in technology morphed into work-from-home after about eighteen months. It happened for two reasons: #1, they knew me and trusted me to get the work done, and #2, I was literally the last person on my team still on site. My team's spread all over the world at this point. I kept going to the office for a while, then realized that, aside from having three monitors on my desk, there was no advantage for…

I'm completely taking this off course with a minor nitpick, but > We're kind of a start-up within a big corporation anyway, so long hours are the norm. How is that an implication? You're making a new product instead of an existing one, so you're expected to sleep less and not see your family?

It's OK to nitpick :)

I see a lot more of my family than I would working 9-to-5 in an office situation. So, if I work 8am-6pm or 7pm, I'm still coming out ahead in that department. Sometimes I'll work well into the evening, hammering on something to get it to work. Other times, I'll take half the day off just to recharge and recalibrate. Luckily my job works that way. I'm just very fortunate right now--sooner or later, I suppose I'll be back in some office somewhere, sitting in some cube farm and trying to be productive while the guy next to me yacks on his cell or chews his food loudly.

Re: Remote

#33

Post by nthj »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #26

My full time job in technology morphed into work-from-home after about eighteen months. It happened for two reasons: #1, they knew me and trusted me to get the work done, and #2, I was literally the last person on my team still on site. My team's spread all over the world at this point. I kept going to the office for a while, then realized that, aside from having three monitors on my desk, there was no advantage for…

A bit of a tangent, but am I the only one who finds texts unacceptable in professional situations? I never reply to a text from a client; if it's important, I'll reply to the text FROM an email, but never as a text. If it happens more than once or twice I explain that I don't receive text message notifications on my phone (which is true; I can see them passively but they do not "ping" me), and that to ensure a timely response they should always email or call me.

This means (a) all expectations of me are in one place (my inbox) and (b) I don't have to filter work from my free time. And in the age of smartphones, there's really no reason not to just use email.

Re: Remote

#34

Post by mahyarm »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #26

My full time job in technology morphed into work-from-home after about eighteen months. It happened for two reasons: #1, they knew me and trusted me to get the work done, and #2, I was literally the last person on my team still on site. My team's spread all over the world at this point. I kept going to the office for a while, then realized that, aside from having three monitors on my desk, there was no advantage for…

On the food part, I find the office worse than my house. At my house I can control what is in my fridge. At work, there is a cornucopia of candy, yogurts, nuts, drinks and other high calorie snacks that never, ever runs out. And there is 3 meal service which you'll never know the calorie counts of. Everyone has gained 10 to 15 lbs at my work.

At home it would be easy to make the food I want, controlled how I want.

Re: Remote

#35

Post by trustfundbaby »

The biggest challenge for me is that I'm starting to realize that people don't really get asynchronous communication as much as I thought they would.

Putting on your headphones at the office and trying to get work done is seen as antisocial and hostile (especially daring to direct people to try to get you on im or email), and you find yourself shut out of critical decision points meetings because people will say "we didn't want to bother you" (what they're really saying is "fuck you, thats what you get for isolating yourself").

People want to be able to get immediate responses and interrupt each other whenever they like, and its easy to be pegged as an "asshole" if you don't play along. If you extrapolate from there, it starts to make sense why remote work is still such a hard sell in a lot of places (last stat I saw is that only about 4% of American workers work from home, thats up from 2% last year, but still)

"Hell is other People" --- Jean Paul Sartre

Re: Remote

#36

Post by scuba7183 »

tomtheengineer wrote: post #23

At vLine ( https://vline.com ) we often work remotely (or from home) and use that as a way to dogfood our service. We just set up a "vLine link" to a TV in our office and people can jump in and out throughout the day when they want to talk. Some people stay connected all day (or just keep the audio on and enable video when they need it).

What do you mean by 'dogfood our service'?

Re: Remote

#37

Post by scott_s »

trustfundbaby wrote: post #35

The biggest challenge for me is that I'm starting to realize that people don't really get asynchronous communication as much as I thought they would. Putting on your headphones at the office and trying to get work done is seen as antisocial and hostile (especially daring to direct people to try to get you on im or email), and you find yourself shut out of critical decision points meetings because people will say "we…

(what they're really saying is "fuck you, thats what you get for isolating yourself")

I think that's not a charitable interpretation. Two alternative explanations, which are not mutually exclusive:

1. Most people don't like confrontation or rejection; they find it awkward and uncomfortable, even if it's done politely. After interrupting you a few times, they find that they are generally rebuffed, so they stop interrupting you. But that hesitancy will continue even in cases where they think maybe you would say yes.

2. They may not really understand why you're redirecting them to asynchronous communication; they don't have a good mental model of how you will respond. Without that, they're not able to assess what you will think is important enough to warrant an interruption. So they err on the side of not interrupting.

Re: Remote

#38

Post by scott_s »

Funny, I just got off the phone with someone I work remotely with. We communicate asynchronously regularly. And that's great. But sometimes there's no substitute for a 10 minute phone call to discuss a technical topic.

The amount of time it takes for two parties to draft and write responses to technical points can be quite high, and the back-and-forth required to correct misunderstandings can take several round-trips. Talking out loud, simultaneously, can allow for much higher bandwidth.

It also engenders basic empathy, which is a big deal in teams.

Our protocol is usually to ping the other person with a message to see if they can chat.

Re: Remote

#39

Post by joshyeager »

trustfundbaby wrote: post #35

The biggest challenge for me is that I'm starting to realize that people don't really get asynchronous communication as much as I thought they would. Putting on your headphones at the office and trying to get work done is seen as antisocial and hostile (especially daring to direct people to try to get you on im or email), and you find yourself shut out of critical decision points meetings because people will say "we…

Here is an alternate way to interpret the scenario in your second paragraph:

Putting on your headphones at the office and trying to get work done is seen as a signal that you need to concentrate. You find yourself shut out of critical decision points meetings because people needed to make a decision but assumed you were deep in thought and couldn't take an interruption. Balancing these two needs is hard.

Re: Remote

#40

Post by adambard »

scuba7183 wrote: post #36
tomtheengineer wrote: post #23

At vLine ( https://vline.com ) we often work remotely (or from home) and use that as a way to dogfood our service. We just set up a "vLine link" to a TV in our office and people can jump in and out throughout the day when they want to talk. Some people stay connected all day (or just keep the audio on and enable video when they need it).

What do you mean by 'dogfood our service'?

I was going to explain it myself, but the wikipedia article really covers it well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food

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