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Programmers are most likely to work from home

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Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#131

Post by vvanders »

freehunter wrote: post #100
grardb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment doesn't read like it was written by a "humbleMouse" :) I don't think this is a healthy attitude to have towards less experienced developers. Literally every experienced developer was once inexperienced, and I think for the vast majority of people, it's hard to become a senior or even intermediate developer without some mentorship along the way. I believe this is especially true for aspects outside of wri…

I completely understand where he's coming from in writing that. Sometimes it feels like my entire day is spent training new hires, repeating the same things over and over again. In jobs where being an expert is a requirement, it's very frustrating to see the company hire employees fresh out of college and expect the senior employees to feed them 10 years of experience in a matter of weeks. And then either they take t…

The solution there is direct, open communication. With each new-hire you need to train if you don't have capacity you need to raise it with your management chain and let them know that you can either on-board or ship feature X.

The important distinction is that they make the call and you've both gained visibility into your workload and they own the outcome. If it's a bottleneck that's causing pain they'll quickly become aware of it.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#132

Post by geebee »

JamesBarney wrote: post #122
NumberSix wrote: post #112

The article does not discuss the impact of the open office movement. I've worked from home, in actual offices, in cubicles both cramped and spacious, and open offices. It can be quite difficult to focus at home due to various distractions, especially if you do not have a separate room or area for work. It is difficult to separate work and non-work with a home office. There are a variety of communications issues with…

There was recently some evidence that open offices led to reduced collaboration because a real office means asking someone a question disturbs one instead of 20 people. So people end up asking less questions, and interacting with there co-workers less.

I read about that as well.

I also think that there are different work cultures based on what you have to do. Someone who works in sales may be on the phone quite often. Same for a lot of managers, tech support, people who do demos and presentations.

The problem certainly isn't that they make noise, they need to! And because of the nature of their jobs, they tend to see hallway conversations and joking around to be beneficial, a way that information is shared around the office.

The problem is when they are located with people who are trying to do focused work.

It's frustrating. If my kid is having trouble focusing on his math homework, my first thought is to make sure he is free of distractions and can work in a quiet place. I don't tell him that he should wear headphones and listen to music while he struggles with learning algebra.

At the same time, I don't think that math classrooms or discussion groups need to be quiet places, and I don't understand why some people think this is somehow a counter point to what I described above. Yet within the office context, it often is interpreted that way.

And, broken record that I am, I'll skip back to the same old point: Tech companies have shouted themselves hoarse about the shortage of software developers. Yet they won't provide them with a quiet place to work or allow the working conditions that a majority of programmers say they would like. Why does governmen keep giving these employers a crutch? Sounds to me like a market solution would emerge, if we'd only allow it to.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#133

Post by vorpalhex »

CydeWeys wrote: post #86
ahallock wrote: post #43

I've invested thousands of dollars in my home setup (which will never be done), to create an amazing working environment. Why would I want to give that up? Sure, employers may give you a little $ to customize your desk and equipment, but if I'm going to be spending so much of my life at a computer, it'd better be amazing.

My employer's work environment is worth much more to me per year than the entire cost of your home setup thanks to all of the free meals and the gym equipment alone. Just something worth thinking about.

Do those free meals meet everyone's requirements? My office gets pizza or tacos for us on a very frequent basis, which while a nice gesture doesn't fit in with my own diet at all (which often means if I'm at the office, I end up eating my carefully prepared meal while being stared at funny while everyone else chows down on junk food).

Consider other dietary options like pork free, gluten free, vegan, IF, etc. Also just the plain factor of some employees just won't like a given kind of food (not everyone likes tacos, etc).

Quite frankly, I can eat super cheaply and healthy at home, on my own weird food schedule. I don't need my office to feed me (though the gesture is a nice one).

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#134

Post by rocketlionqb »

I would rather work from home. I lose about two hours commuting to and from. I would save on gas. My home office is confortable. I can cook lunch. I can go to the gym before everyone gets off at 5. I wouldn't have to listen to co-workers who likes to eat lunch with their mouths wide open. I won't have to smell the sack of diapers my co-workers like to microwave for lunch. I wouldn't have smell the daily onion odor from co-workers that enjoy showering bi-monthly. No broken A/C at the start of summer every year. No death/suicide commute dodging idiots that can't drive. I need another job...

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#136

Post by eweise »

NumberSix wrote: post #112

The article does not discuss the impact of the open office movement. I've worked from home, in actual offices, in cubicles both cramped and spacious, and open offices. It can be quite difficult to focus at home due to various distractions, especially if you do not have a separate room or area for work. It is difficult to separate work and non-work with a home office. There are a variety of communications issues with…

Unfortunately, having your own office is costly plus it doesn't satisfy the boss's need to see a large group of people actively doing his/her bidding.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#137

Post by NateDad »

I've worked remote for about 5 years (and about 18 years total). When I lost my last job, I resolved to only look for remote work. Commuting is a giant waste of time, which is the most precious resource we all have. I could live near Boston and have a tiny house with no yard and mediocre schools, or I could live an hour outside Boston and have a huge yard and amazing schools. The choice is clear. But it means that if I were to work in the tech hub, I'd never see my kids during the week.

When done right, remote is awesome. There's no reason every programming company couldn't be remote-friendly these days.

There are two things that companies often do that screw up remote workers:

1.) Having meetings in meeting rooms. This does not work for remote people. Remote people cannot participate in a conversation from a speakerphone when the majority of people are in the same room. You just can't break into conversations between people in the room.

2.) Having an open office. This prevents the fix to #1 - which is to have meetings via hangouts or other video chat, with everyone (even people in the office) participating via headset & personal video camera. The open office makes cross talk between mics too painful (with judicious muting you can sorta fix it, but it's a hassle).

These are fixable problems, but the company has to be committed to good remote culture to do so.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#138

Post by mantas »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #115
grardb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment doesn't read like it was written by a "humbleMouse" :) I don't think this is a healthy attitude to have towards less experienced developers. Literally every experienced developer was once inexperienced, and I think for the vast majority of people, it's hard to become a senior or even intermediate developer without some mentorship along the way. I believe this is especially true for aspects outside of wri…

Healthy for who? The way you're using it, healthy is a weasel word. If someone is paid to literally write code, it's perfectly healthy for them to want to only write code and not provide free labor in a different domain. I'd go so far as to say we currently have an unhealthy culture if we're expected to provide free training to everyone. Job training used to be, and still should, be an explicit responsibility of the…

Isn't it expected that mentoring is fundamental part of being a senior worker?

Usually "employer" don't know nowhere nearly as much about code as senior devs. If somebody was hired purely to do onboarding, they wouldn't have good grasp on the code either. Seniors who have up-to-date knowledge of the is best bet, no?

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#139

Post by grardb »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #115
grardb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment doesn't read like it was written by a "humbleMouse" :) I don't think this is a healthy attitude to have towards less experienced developers. Literally every experienced developer was once inexperienced, and I think for the vast majority of people, it's hard to become a senior or even intermediate developer without some mentorship along the way. I believe this is especially true for aspects outside of wri…

Healthy for who? The way you're using it, healthy is a weasel word. If someone is paid to literally write code, it's perfectly healthy for them to want to only write code and not provide free labor in a different domain. I'd go so far as to say we currently have an unhealthy culture if we're expected to provide free training to everyone. Job training used to be, and still should, be an explicit responsibility of the…

>Healthy for who? The way you're using it, healthy is a weasel word.

"Healthy" is not a weasel word, but one half of a common term that people use[0].

>If someone is paid to literally write code, it's perfectly healthy for them to want to only write code and not provide free labor in a different domain.

It doesn't sound like humbleMouse is getting paid to literally write code. It sounds like they're getting paid to write code and mentor junior developers. It's also not free labor. If someone works 8 hours, gets paid for 8 hours, and spent half of that time mentoring others (which is incredibly generous), then I don't see the issue.

In any case, if someone finds themselves in this position and are unhappy with it, they should talk to their manager or find a new job. There's no shortage for experienced developers.

[0] https://www.quora.com/What-is-healthy-attitude

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#140

Post by NateDad »

finder83 wrote: post #53
Nursie wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that a dirty secret? Helping build the team, sharing your knowledge and expertise, it's all part of your work. Odd attitude. If you purely want technical tasks, go freelance. Of course then you need to spend time getting business so...

Maybe still not a secret, but the dirty part in some companies is that if there are layoffs, they'll lay off the people who are paid the highest and keep the people that they trained.

That has never happened in my experience, and I've been through a lot of layoffs. It's usually the exact opposite. They lay off all the peons and keep the few high level experts. They're a lot harder to replace.
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