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The Remote Manifesto

about.gitlab.com

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Re: The Remote Manifesto

#101

Post by pgeorgi »

pferde wrote: post #51
pgeorgi wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what impact it has on social development, interpersonal skills, empathy, sympathy etc. Why is work supposed to provide for that? It's not kindergarden where, in addition to "activities" (ie. job assignments), you're also told who to play with.

It's not about what it's supposed to do. Any time spent among people and communicating with them affects your interpersonal skills, whether it's work, family outings or kindergarten. And human beings have thousands of years of being predominantly among other human beings.

> And human beings have thousands of years of being predominantly among other human beings.

When working remote there's still interaction with other people (just through different channels). And then there's that time outside work, which - under normal circumstances - is the majority of the time people are awake.

The alternative to "butt in seat in the office" (which can be pretty non-communicative, for example when in an open plan office where you mustn't disturb anybody) isn't "never interact with anybody ever".

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#102

Post by emilycook »

jypepin wrote: post #93
ilikehurdles wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My remote gig has several people who are pretty much digital nomads -- they move around often, travel even more often, and work from various states. We all get paid on the same scale (north-east coast based) so there's no issue; but, how would Gitlab handle this? Change their salary every time they log work from a new location? Even with that, it seems arbitrary and unbalanced. One person's cost of living paying for…

yes "nomad" vs "remote" (implying remote but based somewhere) is one of the argument for the other school: pay same rate because what if people are nomads. Gitlab has a process for relocating, so it counter the following argument, but with that kind of location based salary that pushes people to try and game the system. Get hired while saying you live in an expensive area and finally move somewhere cheap.

> but with that kind of location based salary that pushes people to try and game the system. Get hired while saying you live in an expensive area and finally move somewhere cheap.

Doesn't this somewhat conflict with the idea that companies who pay local rates are going to discriminate against people who live in higher cost-of-living areas? Because if that's true, then yeah you could try to game the system by asking for a SF based salary, but the trade-off is that now you're less competitive. You'd have to be pretty confident that your skills were top-tier enough to offset that I guess.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#103

Post by MartianSquirrel »

neogodless wrote: post #80

While this is all about remote, and talks mostly about remote, I found the initial bullet list very interesting. In my opinion, only the very first bullet point (omitted here) is tied to remote working, and the rest are probably ideas you should take a good look at if you could stand to improve your own processes and workflow (whether or not you are or will become remote). > Flexible working hours over set working ho…

>> Work clothes not required

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#104

Post by mieseratte »

pault wrote: post #65
mieseratte wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because people aren't stupid and when they realise they're being paid less than they're worth they'll leave, and then you'll have to go through the pain of recruiting someone else. I just took a 20% pay-cut to go work somewhere I thought I might like. There is more to a position than the compensation package.

Sure, in those rare cases where you can find a company that really does interesting work (this is doubly difficult if you are limited to companies that allow remote work). For boring company A vs boring company B you are going to follow the money, I think (unless you actually work for The Boring Company).

There are a non-trivial number of factors that go into picking a job such that I sincerely doubt I would ever find myself going "Well, that one is offering 10K more per year." Off-hand:

- Size of company, size of department, size of team

- Future prospects, both in terms of company's market and my own growth

- Type of work, e.g. maintenance vs. active development, "rescue" mission vs. greenfield vs. boring brownfield.

- Composition of team, leadership, etc.

- Industry, e.g. do I find it reprehensible vs. tolerable vs. interesting

Perhaps I'm the odd man out here, but I've never been in a position where salary was the material factor in picking one job over another.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#106

Post by rolandog »

MartianSquirrel wrote: post #103
neogodless wrote: post #80

While this is all about remote, and talks mostly about remote, I found the initial bullet list very interesting. In my opinion, only the very first bullet point (omitted here) is tied to remote working, and the rest are probably ideas you should take a good look at if you could stand to improve your own processes and workflow (whether or not you are or will become remote). > Flexible working hours over set working ho…

>> Work clothes not required

> Work clothes discouraged.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#107

Post by loco5niner »

apaatsio wrote: post #71
rofo1 wrote: post #25

I've been working remotely (for companies that are not all 100% remote) for some time now and other than the occasional communication problems, there is simply no downside to it (for me). I am much more focused, I do better work, in a better health mentally and physically (I can exercise since I can organize my time), I don't waste time on commute. The people I work with are interested in results and that's what I de…

The whole "golf friends" thing doesn't make sense to me. I go to play golf to play golf, not find friends there. That seems to be unpopular opinion, but seriously, why do we mix those things up? My point being, why do we do bother to do anything with friends? If you're going to do something, whether it be work or play golf, isn't it better with friends than with strangers?

Because you choose your friends, the ones you want to spend time with.

Your coworkers are just the ones who you happen to be around a lot, for the most part.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#108

Post by loco5niner »

codegeek wrote: post #4

I feel like that whole Remote issue has become too binary. Either people advocate for complete remote option OR employers mostly don't provide any flexibility when it comes to work location or schedules. I personally believe that human interaction is a key to our well being since humans are not designed to stay in a remote room/office somewhere by themselves. I am not quite on the 100% remote thing to be honest and o…

> but I try my best to have people in office as well and ensure that we are not going crazy sitting in some room/hotel/beach/co-working space by ourselves without any interaction with other team members in person.

Funny, because I feel like I'm going crazy sitting in this loud open office (because my employer does not offer flexibility).

I agree and would LOVE to have the flexibility to work remotely sometimes.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#109

Post by lame88 »

> Remote is not a challenge to overcome. It's a clear business advantage.

It's an advantage if and only if you overcome the inherent challenges, and despite this tagline they list disadvantages in the article. However, you structure the whole organization and its operations around dispersed, remote workers (as they seem to), especially emphasizing asynchronous communication, then I can see how this can avoid the traditional pitfalls of remote workers in a synchronized, co-located environment.

Speaking of async communication, it is ironic that many traditional organizations with standard work hours and co-located offices also rely so much on email, an asynchronous communication method that is incredibly painful in an office environment, yet it seems like such a clear benefit in a remote setting. That is, it's like the two long-existing constructs - email and the combination of colocating and synchronizing work hours - are in direct conflict.

Re: The Remote Manifesto

#110

Post by tengbretson »

baroffoos wrote: post #10
jypepin wrote: post #6

My observation is that there are 2 schools of thought about remote salaries. One side will pay SF-based competitive salaries no matter where you are, are the other side will have a "cost of living" adjusted salary. Gitlab is in the latter group. I recently thought about it, and was wondering if this could create some bias / unfair preferential treatment when interviewing and competing with other candidates. If candid…

That bias already exists, if 2 candidates with the same skill apply and one is asking for a lower pay then they are likely to be picked over the other. Why pay more for the same skill? If you want to have higher chances of being accepted then lowering your costs so you can lower your required pay is a good strategy. I'm fairly sure the gitlab ceo commented before that they don't want to pay people way way over the lo…

> I'm fairly sure the gitlab ceo commented before that they don't want to pay people way way over the local average because it could cause them to have people who don't want to be working there staying because they could never find a new job thats competitive where they are.

This is a lie. They pay people that live in lower cost-of-living areas less because they have greater leverage over them and can get away with it. End of story.

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