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Working remotely, 4 years in

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Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#201

Post by nickjj »

joncrane wrote: post #186
nickjj wrote: post #165

I've been working remotely for close to 20 years, but it's all been a bunch of short contracts (days to months). I've worked with people from all over the world across many different time zones. Email, Google Hangouts / Skype, IRC and Slack are all what I use on a regular basis to communicate with clients and it works out well. I offset working alone from my place of residence by going outside a bunch of times per da…

What level of urbanization is your neighborhood?

Typical suburbs. Nothing like a big city, but houses and small businesses are all over the place.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#202

Post by blunte »

mailshanx wrote: post #195
blunte wrote: post #113

Most career stories are unique and driven by the circumstances and the person involved. So one's experiences may be very different from another's. My experience working remotely for 10 of the last 13 years is that it suits me very well and leaves me feeling _differently_ than when I worked in an office. I don't know if I can say I'm happier, but I'm generally more satisfied. I work MUCH harder and I work MANY more ho…

Care to share your career story?

My story is nothing special. It's the usual history of employee gigs, contract gigs, side projects (for paying clients) that sometimes became full-time (and were 100% remote), a year off from work to figure out what I wanted to do with the 2nd half of my life, and now a long-term engagement with a client (100% remote).

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#203

Post by paulddraper »

albertzeyer wrote: post #156
ibz wrote: post #67

5+ years here. Definitely not looking back to go to an office. After doing the DN thing in Asia for a year, I bought a farm house in my home country in Europe and moved over here. Being able to live in nature instead of in a city is an amazing, life changing experience. I often have people over visiting me - either friends or couch surfers. Planning to AirBnB the barn as well, which I converted into a nice big loft.…

Do you have a family? What is the job of your partner? Do you have a school nearby for kids? This sounds like something which would be hard to do with a family.

I assume a spouse would not be employed, or would also work remotely.

And believe it or not, even rural places have schools, at least in the US.

If anything, I think this is more appealing to families, because of the available space.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#204

Post by robgurley »

svec wrote: post #83
houqp wrote: post #2

Any recommendation for video conferencing? We are using hangout and it is not reliable at all :(

Zoom.us is GREAT! Video and audio quality are great, hiccups are rare, the screen sharing features are good, and it integrates easily into our physical offices with a decent iPad app. (I've tried hangouts, hipchat video, appear.in, and a few others, but Zoom is much better.) I also highly recommend the Owl 360 degree video camera/speaker: https://www.owllabs.com/ As a remote employee, the Owl makes it much easier to…

Thanks for mentioning this camera; it's a huge step up from the system that my company has (hardwired) in conference rooms, and I'll look into purchasing one to trial.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#205

Post by maxlamb »

kenko wrote: post #190
padobson wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or I can drive to the city whenever I feel like. Imagine how open the highways would be if this was how everyone worked/lived. Clear the highways. Save the planet. Work from home.

> Imagine how open the highways would be if this was how everyone worked/lived. What does this even mean? If everyone worked away from the city, there would be no city to drive to. And of course the people in the city, or on the outskirts of the city, don't need to drive—they can take public transit anyway, or bike, or walk, or whatever. More people living outside the city and driving into it is how the roads get con…

I think he's referring to the fact that most traffic jams occur during rush hour, and if everyone worked from home traffic would be much more spread out over the course of the day, instead of the two usual peaks around 7am-9am and 4pm-7pm where travel times double or triple in most big cities.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#206

Post by embersdev »

anthony_barker wrote: post #189
embersdev wrote: post #110

I have worked remote for the last 3 years and in the office for the 10 years before that at the same company. I can definitely say I will never work in an office again if at all possible. Remote work is definitely not for everyone, but for those of us that prefer it, its more important than pay or benefits. I won't rehash what others have said, but i do have an experience that may be different than most. I work for a…

I am suprised that at 3000 people the company doesn't have offices all over. I worked mostly remotely for one Bank - mostly because I arranged to have 2 desks and then slowly moved home and worked from the different offices. I love face to face sometimes and remote (full concentration) other times. Again I find that a lot of people can't handle it. Like a basic rule should be that you should respond within 1-30 min t…

We have 1 primary office and then a couple of smaller offices in different states.

I generally live by your basic rule. I actually respond better than the majority of the people in the office.

There are two types of people i have noticed that are challenged the most with working remote. Those that need lots of social interaction and those with smaller kids at home. One simply hates the isolation and the other is usually too distracted.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#207

Post by bproven »

Buttons840 wrote: post #183
bproven wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comfort level would be: are you completing your projects on time? Good. You are not? (b/c goofing off at home instead of working) Goodbye! That would do it.

That's something employers have been able to do for thousands of years, and yet working remotely remains fairly rare. So I don't agree that "that would do it".

I don't know, I really think at its core it is that simple. I worked remote for 12 years as a developer, sysadmin/devops (multi-hat deal with a small company) with no issues whatsoever. I got my projects done. It does require discipline, good communication skills and a bit of organization, but if you don't have those skills already you are bound to fail in any endeavour IMO. But you are correct it is not common. Probably b/c historically: 1) there is the belief if we can't see you you are screwing around 2) Employers do take a chance that they are getting someone who does not have the skills to thrive in that type of environment (who wants to spend all the resources hiring/training to find out)

EDIT: Also if you have the skills to work remote (or partial remote) you will never want to go back to the old "must be in the office every day" job again ;)

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#208

Post by galfarragem »

ganzolo wrote: post #78

I had a totally different experience from the author of this article. Maybe, this was due to the fact that I was working remotely for 4 years with different startups maniacs. Biggest issues were : - Nobody sees how much you are invested into your day to day work. They just see bunch of commits / builds and the little gray or green presence indicator on your messenger app. But if you are struggling for 3 days x 10 hou…

After experiencing daily commutes ranging from 0 to 4:30h, I would say that the commute time sweet spot is not zero (remote work) but 25-30 minutes of daily biking/walking.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#209

Post by acct1771 »

ahtu123 wrote: post #153
sotojuan wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being in the same place where you live and work makes it very challenging to not think of job in your private time or vice-versa. Can you expand on this? I do not work remotely right now but as programmers, we're problem solvers. Often times I leave the office after 8 hours but the problem I was solving is still in my head through the night. However, I do not open work stuff over the weekend or in the evening unles…

Imagine it's 8pm and you try to work 9-5. You get an email or slack message, you just quickly glance at it and it sounds like there's a tiny fire somewhere in the system that you know how to fix/respond to. It's very easy to sit down on the computer since it's literally a few feet away and get sucked into an 30-90min debacle multiple times per week. I use the same computer for games/internet time and work so that def…

KVM. VMs.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#210

Post by therealdrag0 »

blunte wrote: post #113

Most career stories are unique and driven by the circumstances and the person involved. So one's experiences may be very different from another's. My experience working remotely for 10 of the last 13 years is that it suits me very well and leaves me feeling _differently_ than when I worked in an office. I don't know if I can say I'm happier, but I'm generally more satisfied. I work MUCH harder and I work MANY more ho…

How much of what you describes is there mere fact of being remote VS having different types of jobs/engagements?
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