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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

#211

Post by apetresc »

ergothus wrote: post #160
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…

I think what people miss most often is that this is NOT a "one solution fits all" kind of thing. For some office cultures one is better, and for some people one is better. I myself am very easily distracted, and I'm far more productive at home, where I have a private office set to my preferences, including sound (this sounds ridiculous, but my ear cartilage is sensitive, so I can't wear earbuds and over-the-ear headp…

I genuinely cannot figure out what "playing the pronoun game" means in this context.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#212

Post by JimboOmega »

Having worked from home and on remote teams... I didn't like it as much as working with others, because I never felt attached to the team.

A shocking amount (to me, anyway) of my motivation comes from caring about the people involved in the organization... That attachment just doesn't form with people I hear on the occasional conference call or daily slack messages.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#213

Post by hamandcheese »

pkaye wrote: post #55
hamandcheese wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a 100% remote company and I have no trouble getting the mentorship I desire/need from more experienced folks. Maybe the key is 100% remote though. I hear remote sucks if it's not ingrained in a companies communication patterns.

How do you handle discussing complex code, data structures and such concepts over online? In such cases, I find that being in the same room and using a white board makes it easy to communicate across. Maybe some programming domains that type of issue if less common?

In some cases people literally point their camera at a whiteboard!

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#214

Post by dep_b »

chrisan wrote: post #195
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…

My problem with an office or open office is not the noise, I can put on headphones and be fine, but is the actual interruptions. In an open office it is obviously much easier for someone to just lean over or look around their monitor and grab your attention, but having a private office with a door is still prone to someone knocking (or walking in if not closed) Working from home, people can email, chat, or leave a ph…

Let me tell you from my experience as somebody that didn't see the inside of an office for so long I forgot what bad coffee tastes like that the "headphones means go away" rule is not respected by significant others at home.

Actually just playing the music loud over speakers works much better. But YMMV depending on your music taste, mine is perceived as too intrusive by most.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#215

Post by kamaal »

apathy wrote: post #154
eweise wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

perhaps you're working for the wrong boss. Every effective boss I've ever worked for wanted to see two things: 1) revenue 2) results Those who got distracted by other crap tended not to be as successful by objective metrics. Just my experience though

These kind of bosses are a rare species in any setting.

Most want to build their political cartel, protect it and build it for their own good.

I've even seen bosses who purposefully punish high performers out of fear that they might become a threat to their job.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#216

Post by Arizhel »

geebee wrote: post #132
JamesBarney wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 be…

>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.

Maybe we're doing it wrong: maybe we should be forcing kids to try to learn hard subjects in noisy environments full of distractions, and if they can't hack it, they fail. After all, if this is how the workplaces will be for them, so might as well prepare them for it now, right?

Similarly, I really think we need to change the way STEM is taught in colleges. Instead of allowing students to take their exams in quiet classrooms, they need to make they're crammed close together during exams, and that a local fraternity is required to hold a loud party in the room at the same time. All assignments should be done this way too, instead of allowing them to take them at home or in the library. If students can't handle doing hard subjects like differential equations in environments like this, then they're going to fail in the workplaces of the future, so we need to make sure to weed them out early.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#217

Post by kamaal »

apathy wrote: post #181
freehunter wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My god this sounds exactly like academia: your job as a professor at a research university is to obtain grants, publications, and donations. Pretty much everything else is incidental. "Service" to a department, to students, etc. is "emphasized" in reviews, but if push comes to shove, the asshole with a bunch of big grants is going to steamroll the "nice" junior faculty who "mentors" the asshole's students. If you're…

Just like academia the onus of learning is on the individual in all settings. The senior guy or the professor owes nothing to the junior folks or students, if they themselves don't care.

The issue in a corporate setting is you are expected to make up for other people. Same in college.

Sorry but almost all forms of failure have individual liability. Merely knowing this helps a lot of people take their situation seriously and do something about it.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#218

Post by paulcole »

humbleMouse wrote: post #15

There is a dirty secret that nobody talks about and the real reason that companies want programmers in the office. Companies want their top performers in the office so they can serve as trainers/mentors/teachers to the new college kids and the incompetent older people they hire. I think this is the real reason companies crack down on working from home. It's infuriating as a top performer - I just want to get my assig…

>It's infuriating as a top performer - I just want to get my assigned work done and leave it at that. I don't want to teach all your shitty college grads how to actually code.

Did you ever consider that "top performers" are those who do more than "get [their] assigned work done and leave it at that"?

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#219

Post by nickthemagicman »

hackermailman wrote: post #126
nickthemagicman wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linus Torvalds wrote Linux from his dorm room. John Carmack wrote the Doom engine solo. Einstein worked alone, the inventor of PCR did it alone, Wozniak, Picasso, Hendrix, Mitnick. Holy crap almost all incredible innovations were invented by solitary passionate people working alone! Then we have Cascading Style Sheets..that.. was invented by a committee...

Einstein didn't work alone http://www.nature.com/news/history-einstein-was-no-lone-geni... Torvalds didn't either https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux#Chronology note 100+ devs in 1993 working on the kernel to build a userland for it. If they didn't you'd just have another toy kernel floating around nobody uses. Edit: Apparently Hendrix didn't work alone either he claimed Foxey Lady was just something him a…

You're conflating 'influences' and 'being part of a team'.

Einstein used the tools that were available to him. He was influenced by other people sure.

But Einsteins WORK WAS HIS ALONE.

IT WAS NOT THE RESULT OF A TEAM.

By your logic... because I contributed to the Linux documentation I was part of the thousand person team that invented Linux!!!

Adding that to my resume!!! I invented Linux!!

In all seriousness, there's a difference between influences and being part of a team...

All major human innovations, at their root, have resulted from passionate smart people working alone without a team to make them compromise on any aspect of their vision.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#220

Post by antisocial »

CydeWeys wrote: post #83
qandb wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies don't want to lock their knowledge into a few good people. It is not their knowledge. It is these "few good people"'s knowledge. > I'd challenge you to take on the task of teaching others ... Never, ever. Only idiots agree to train their own competition.

You sound like a horrible person to work with. Software development is a collaborative process. I would never want to work with someone who treats all of their peers as competition and refuses to help them achieve the team's mutual goals, and were I your manager, I'd likely fire you.

It is not uncommon that the people seeking to be mentored are lazy to put any effort into learning. It is also not uncommon for a lazy manager to put an effort to see how much this senior programmer is mentoring other. It is also not uncommon that this senior person might have learnt all his/her skills from books/discussions forums etc. Some of these senior programmers put their personal time because they are passionate about their craft. Please don't make assumptions that anybody who is not so pleased about sharing his skills is not a team player. Oftentimes, a lazy manager pits team members against each others. You sound like that horrible manager to work with. If I were your team member, I would find another manager.
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