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Lessons from 2 months of remote working

iamnotaprogrammer.com

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Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#51

Post by erichurkman »

nicholassmith wrote: post #14
bhartzer wrote: post #3

Is it just me? Do you find that working remotely you can get more work done than being in the office with coworkers? The days that I'm in the office working I don't seem to get as much actual work done, because I'm spending most of the day in meetings.

I'll generally get more done in 2 hours working from my home office than I would in 4 hours in an office, let alone if there's a meeting as well.

Don't forget the meeting that you have to prepare for the meeting; the dreaded pre-meeting. "Hey, Eric, mind if we get together to go over the meeting this afternoon?" And the feared post-meeting. "Hey, Eric, can we chat later about that meeting?" And the email, "Hey, Eric, I missed the meeting. Can you forward me your notes?"

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#52

Post by AnIrishDuck »

Xeoncross wrote: post #43
lukethomas wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you are saying, however, I'm wondering how OP personally measures overall progress as a remote worker.

For me, it's not based on the work, it's based on the mood/mind. A "good day" is one where I was thinking clearly and solving problems and choosing good paths with ease. The amount of code written doesn't mean as much.

In fact, the amount of code written can often be inversely proportional to the quality of your work in that day.

There simply is no meaningful correlation. It usually takes the talent of another skilled professional to measure the quality of your work, which is one of many reasons why management exists.

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#53

Post by jwilliams »

2.5 billion people in the world have internet access.

But most of them can't have a reliable Skype call. We still have issues calling from Australia on a decent connection to a similarly decent connection in the states.

What we've found - Good connectivity that can hold a reliable Skype or Google Hangout conversation is essential - don't be fooled thinking you can achieve this at a random Internet cafe in Cambodia. You might be able to (!), but plan accordingly.

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#54

Post by billpaetzke »

jwilliams wrote: post #53

2.5 billion people in the world have internet access. But most of them can't have a reliable Skype call. We still have issues calling from Australia on a decent connection to a similarly decent connection in the states. What we've found - Good connectivity that can hold a reliable Skype or Google Hangout conversation is essential - don't be fooled thinking you can achieve this at a random Internet cafe in Cambodia. Y…

And what is a good strategy for this when deciding where to live (both on macro and micro scale)?

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#55

Post by elwell »

I loathe these uses of 'probability':

  "2.5 billion people in the world have internet access.
  Statistically speaking, the chances that the best person
  for us to hire for any position is among the 0.023 billion
  people in the New York metro area is unlikely."

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#57

Post by ethanhunt_ »

taurath wrote: post #46

It seems to me like whenever people talk about remote work, they always talk about having super rockstars, the top, best coders they can find, and only them. I'm not there yet, as I'm just entering the phase where I am stopping calling myself an entry level coder. Being able to do this however is the reason I got into coding. Is there anyone out there who's not an absolute genius hacker who is working remotely and do…

Disclaimer: I've never worked from home. I have thought about it a lot though.

I think WFH isn't a good idea for a junior dev (e.g., It's also important that you work on a team with smart engineers for the above to be valuable. If you have no CR process, or don't have any devs smarter than you, then there aren't any downsides to WFH, but that's only because the above upsides aren't there.

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#58

Post by sudonim »

lkrubner wrote: post #47

I had an experience this year which made me aware of some of the ways that remote work can go wrong. Although in my case my work was not "remote" in the sense of being away from the office (though sometimes I worked from home). My work was "remote" in the sense that the tech team was all in one office in London, and I was the first programmer they hired in the New York office. Before I get into the details, I'll offe…

When we looked at starting remote, a lot of I spoke with people cautioned against the "hybrid" approach. Some people on the team remote, some in the office. It sounds like your experience was the extreme. You were the _only_ person not in the office.

What tends to happen is decisions get made that remote people get left out of and they get communicated verbally rather than through the normal channels. It's really important that the company plans around the remote people. I've heard from lots of companies that they've ultimately canceled remote work when there's just one person remote. It's a bit too hard to break out of bad habits.

This is a great cautionary tale for teams who are thinking about adding one or two people remote when they're all in one place.

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#59

Post by sudonim »

elwell wrote: post #55

I loathe these uses of 'probability': "2.5 billion people in the world have internet access. Statistically speaking, the chances that the best person for us to hire for any position is among the 0.023 billion people in the New York metro area is unlikely."

Hi, OP here... I felt that sentence was a little awkward. There are other things to take in to consideration -- english speaking people. People with requisite skills etc...

At least when I was thinking about it, I wanted to convey the sheer magnitude. New York is the largest city in the US (8m), but I used the metro area (23m) as my population size. But even with all the people in New York, we'd be limiting ourselves if we say "You must be physically nearby". 2.5 bn with internet access seemed to convey the scale of things - albeit imperfectly.

What would you recommend is a better way to do it?

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#60

Post by agentultra »

lukethomas wrote: post #36
agentultra wrote: post #6

I've been working remotely more often than not over the last four years (a brief 1-year interlude when I was back in an office full-time broke up the streak). I definitely prefer it. The advantages are too awesome! I get to spend more time with my daughter (I'm a first-time father and she is just turning a year old today). There is hardly anything in this world that makes me happier than spending time with her. If I…

How do you personally measure "a good day's work?" Is it based on gut feelings or do you have specific hours that you work? Also, do you follow a strict schedule, or leave your day open for "sporadic" opportunities?

As to your first question I don't have a good answer. I cannot think of a way to quantify something that I can only intuit about. You can think of any metric by which to measure the progress of a programmer and you will find an endless debates about its usefulness. It's inherently a qualitative value in my experience.

In general though I am motivated by accomplishment. I feel good about doing a good job. It is its own reward. I feel that I've had a good day's work when I've contributed something worthwhile that has improved the code, the company or my team in some way, even if it's small.

I keep my work days structured around the traditional 9-5. At first it was out of habit but I've since embraced it as a discipline. The difference for me, I believe, is that without a long commute and being stuck in an office far from home there is very little cost associated with following "sporadic" opportunities. I don't leave time out for them because the benefits tend to out-weight the cost of being away from my desk. I can get up and take a walk down to my local café, chat with the barista about local events and pick up some flowers for my wife on the way home. This relieves stress, breaks up monotony and gives me time and space to connect the hunches together in my mind. I may come back from that outing with the solution to my problem or I may not; but at the very least I will be reinvigorated to take on the next set of tasks ahead of me and it cost the team almost nothing and gained quite a bit.

The way I see it my employer was looking for someone who was smart, experienced, creative and responsible. I do everything I can to cultivate that in myself. They're not paying me to trade hours for lines of code. They need someone with my experience, knowledge and intuition to help them solve problems and build a solid product.

If the solution to our problems as programmers could be solved by rote then I'd be out of work and in a different profession.

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