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People love working remotely

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Re: People love working remotely

#111

Post by JustSomeNobody »

g051051 wrote: post #16

I was full-time WFH for 6 wonderful years. I was happy, my productivity was off the charts, I was saving tons of money because I didn't have to spend it on my car and clothes, I had extra time that I wasn't wasting on my commute, etc. Then, we had a big shake-up. A bunch of senior people left, and new "leadership" came in to "transform" our workplace. All WFH was cancelled in our division (in spite of still being off…

> The big boss said "a 15 minute fact-to-face is better than a multi-day email chain"

The big boss[0] would not like me. I follow up all conversations with an email. It eliminates the he said/he said conversations. I have an email that I can refer to as needed.

[0] Boss seems to be appropriate here as opposed to manager or something. Doesn't sound like they manage well.

Re: People love working remotely

#112

Post by wool_gather »

taneq wrote: post #6

I am astounded that the only mention of pants is a tweet regarding "working in lululemon pants" as being a perk. I thought one of the chief benefits of remote work was that pants were entirely optional!

Personally I find that getting myself (at least close to) office-presentable even when I'm working from home and nobody's going to see me is helpful to maintaining the "now I'm working" frame of mind -- avoiding distraction, that is. But that may be just me.

Re: People love working remotely

#113

Post by teddyuk »

Having millions of people regularly commuting into major cities is a disaster.

You create all this traffic, congestion on trains, sometimes people packed liked sardines for what? To sit in an office and work less than you would in the peace and quiet at home.

Much better if governments encouraged people to work from home, maybe have local hubs where people can go to if they can't work at home.

Cut down on the traffic and let people enjoy more of their lives.

When I don't WFH, I commute 4 hours a day, in and out of london - i'd rather spend that with my kids.

Re: People love working remotely

#114

Post by JustSomeNobody »

dustinmoris wrote: post #106
radlad wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you spend weeks doing backlog grooming meetings every day? We do a single one-hour backlog grooming meeting before each sprint, to plan the work for that sprint. If you're planning out much further than that, that's not agile.

True agile teams never need to do backlog grooming. If a team has a backlog which is so big that it needs grooming, then they are not agile. An agile team build something, releases it to its users, and afterwards react to the immediate feedback/next important request. Teams which constantly re-prioritise items which some fake product manager came up with a few months ago is not agile.

> Teams which constantly re-prioritise items which some fake product manager came up with a few months ago is not agile.

I don't disagree with this. However,

>True agile teams never need to do backlog grooming. If a team has a backlog which is so big that it needs grooming, then they are not agile. An agile team build something, releases it to its users, and afterwards react to the immediate feedback/next important request.

This is like saying the first test should always fail because the tested code doesn't exist. While that's a good start, it usually takes a few sprints to release anything useful; especially if you have any hardware involved. Therefore, having a number of stories in a backlog really helps, especially if you do have to re-prioritize because hardware is delayed, etc.

Re: People love working remotely

#115

Post by v77 »

radlad wrote: post #92
spurdoman77 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Videoconferencing is OK, but it is still common to have issues with it. Bad image quality, setup by lowest common denominator etc. Often you use that 15 minutes just by trying to make it work properly.

What videoconferencing software are you using? We have this issue with some software, but Zoom has been excellent.

We just use Google Hangouts now. We rarely have meeetings with people outside our team but it always works fine.

Re: People love working remotely

#117

Post by ssharp »

spurdoman77 wrote: post #43
codingdave wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a 15 minute fact-to-face is better... Good thing we have better tools for videoconferencing than ever. I can have a 15 minute face-to-face with anyone in my company, no matter where in the world they are.

Videoconferencing is OK, but it is still common to have issues with it. Bad image quality, setup by lowest common denominator etc. Often you use that 15 minutes just by trying to make it work properly.

All you need to do is standardize quality equipment so everyone on your team has a similar setup and make sure your internet connection is good.

It's a relatively simple problem to solve. The amount of conference call failures I've experienced working remotely for an all-remote team is substantially lower than when I was working in-office, despite I'm probably on 5x the number of conference calls now.

Re: People love working remotely

#118

Post by efa »

g051051 wrote: post #16

I was full-time WFH for 6 wonderful years. I was happy, my productivity was off the charts, I was saving tons of money because I didn't have to spend it on my car and clothes, I had extra time that I wasn't wasting on my commute, etc. Then, we had a big shake-up. A bunch of senior people left, and new "leadership" came in to "transform" our workplace. All WFH was cancelled in our division (in spite of still being off…

I had 10 wonderful years. You also save money on food. I'm too lazy to pack a lunch so working in the office means buying lunch every day. At home I just grab some leftovers in the fridge and heat it up. My favorite part is doing my shopping in the morning on a weekday when no one is there versus on a Saturday when its nuts. I was doing freelance work my schedule was totally flexible.

Re: People love working remotely

#119

Post by jofer »

coolvision wrote: post #29
g051051 wrote: post #16

I was full-time WFH for 6 wonderful years. I was happy, my productivity was off the charts, I was saving tons of money because I didn't have to spend it on my car and clothes, I had extra time that I wasn't wasting on my commute, etc. Then, we had a big shake-up. A bunch of senior people left, and new "leadership" came in to "transform" our workplace. All WFH was cancelled in our division (in spite of still being off…

>white noise over the speakers I'm fine with open spaces, but this would be the final straw for me

I know it seems crazy, but I've been in several offices that had this. It most cases it worked well and I never noticed it until it would occasionally quit working.

The offices where it's worked best were not open, though. They had thin doors/walls and a small speaker (also doubled for the fire alarm/etc) in the ceiling of each office. The white noise was unnoticeable until it was off or you really looked for it.

The main advantage was that you no longer heard every conversation on the floor. You'd still overhear bits of things in the adjacent rooms, but that's hard to avoid. When the white noise stopped working (happened every few months), you could hear every voice on the floor and every phone call...

All in all, it sounds like torture, but done well, it's actually a really nice way of damping distracting ambient conversations/etc.

Re: People love working remotely

#120

Post by volkk »

jriot wrote: post #103
ReptileMan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. For me commute is the most pointlessly wasted time a person could do. And I have played lineage. So as long as your commute is 10 seconds home office beats real any time. At least until we get the whole teleportation thing nailed down.

A benefit no one has mentioned, afternoon delights with the wife.

assuming your wife is also WFH or not working
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