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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

#291

Post by matwood »

edw519 wrote: post #127

After 38 years of commercial programming, 15 of them remote, here's the thing that almost no one talks about: working remotely actually benefits the company much more that the programmer. Here's why: 1. Profitability manufacturing something increases dramatically when lowering overhead and driving direct labor. Direct labor in software are the programmers. Time spent programming (usually) produces product. Time spent…

> Workingly remotely enforces discipline.

This is key, and one of the main drivers I used to convince the owners of my company to become remote friendly.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#292

Post by matwood »

CydeWeys wrote: post #204
vorpalhex wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ju…

I'm at Google, and yes, there are plenty of vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, kosher, etc., options. It's still impossible to meet everyone's needs, but at least 99% of employee's dietary preferences are taken into account.

Before responding to these sorts of threads it's important to recognize that Google/FB/etc... are so far outside the norm for any company and not just tech. Most people working do not have access to full suite of gourmet food for every meal, a private gym, labs, etc...

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#293

Post by AlwaysRock »

skizm wrote: post #124
eddieh wrote: post #12

I like working from my office. I don't understand people that like working from home. Possible confounding variable: I live exactly two blocks from my office and don't have to commute. Perhaps, in actuality, people don't like to commute?

I will name some the reasons I like to work from home and none involve a commute: - I'm in an open office situation. - Standing desk is awkward when everyone else is sitting. - If I make a loud noise eating or sneezing or something like 5 people stare at me trying to figure out what is going on. - I can't have twitch or a baseball game on in the background because nosey co-workers will walk by, see my screen, and com…

The last line stands out. I have office friends that I love but sometimes if I get to work and see a certain person hanging around I know my productivity is going to drop due to chatter. I enjoy the chats! It's just that I need to get stuff done.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#294

Post by CydeWeys »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #265
CydeWeys wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think I'm "selling my soul" just because I go into the office and eat the free food they provide? I work normal 40 hour weeks. I'm not being dragged away from my home and my life. You've got an overly cynical take on it. They're just nice perks that the company can provide cheaply at scale, e.g. I'd rather get three free meals per day than the $5,000 it costs my employer to make those meals per employee, b…

Usually when offices offer those perks it is to keep people at work and blur the line between work and home. It's not cynical to point that out. By offering really expensive perks they are filtering for people who value those perks over salary (because there really is no free lunch)

I don't think that's true. We don't have any perks that are explicitly targeted at keeping people in the office longer than the normal workday, e.g. we do have beer for various weekly events but it's from 5-6pm only. Again, I think you are being too cynical. The perks exist in order to provide a desirable workplace and be competitive in the hiring market. They help attract and retain talent in a way that simple salary does not. They also take advantage of the company's economy of scale in order to provide greater utility for the same amount of money, e.g. I'd rather my employer spend $5K per year on feeding me three meals a day than get the ~$3K after-tax and have to pay for my meals myself.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#295

Post by laughfactory »

return0 wrote: post #152
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 working from home is superior (for tech/programming work). In terms of work, it's the best way to not only avoid distractions, but also lay out your time in a way that is conducive to completing a project in the way you intended, and to let your ideas be fully implemented. This means projects finish sooner, much sooner than in a 9-5 environment. I believe that, when you know that you cannot escape the office…

I completely agree. I'm actually very much an extrovert, but I also do deep focused work (data science stuff) and really like being at home, in my locked "office" (walk-in closet with an attached bathroom) working on stuff. I get so much more done, and I love the efficiency of not having to get in my car and commute somewhere. Any kind of office environment will come with a commute, car maintenance, and a rigid workday. Wanna do a few hours, take a nap, and then do a couple more, have dinner with the family then do some more? Yeah, not happening in any kind of office I've ever worked in.

I WFH a couple days a week just so I can make up for the lack of productivity from the three days at the office.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#296

Post by kwhitefoot »

return0 wrote: post #152
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 working from home is superior (for tech/programming work). In terms of work, it's the best way to not only avoid distractions, but also lay out your time in a way that is conducive to completing a project in the way you intended, and to let your ideas be fully implemented. This means projects finish sooner, much sooner than in a 9-5 environment. I believe that, when you know that you cannot escape the office…

I prefer to work in my cubicle at the office instead of at home even though I am alone in the office for most of the time and all of my development team colleagues are in another country. The reason is that it is simply easier for me to concentrate there, fewer distractions, fewer excuses to take a break. But I'm glad I'm not in the same location as most of my colleagues in the team because they are in an open plan office so crowded that they have to leave the room to make a telephone call and need to wear closed headphones to cut out the distractions.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#297

Post by timmaah »

Taniwha wrote: post #282
timmaah wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the only one at our small company that works remotely. I miss so much of what is going on decision wise. Any talk of new clients, potential new business, larger future projects are all communicated to me once they are mostly already hashed out. This keeps me from playing a bigger part in the company and thus the work they throw my way is more on the grunt/boring side. I love working remotely though and I'm not wo…

I've mostly worked at home since my son was born (he's 26 now). I used to go in one day a week, I worked for startups for years and would start full time, drop off to 4->3->2 days a week. These days I never go in (I live 10,000km away at the moment, it's no longer a 1 hour drive in the Valley). I think there's a few things you have to realise about working at home: - you get to avoid almost all office politics - you…

> you will eventually lose at office politics

Yup. We are small enough that we all report directly to the CEO. Though anywhere I've worked remotely or not it is always me looking out for me. Never had a manager help with that.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#298

Post by sonthonax »

Chaebixi wrote: post #176
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.

That's not surprising. The dogma of open offices assumes that most disruptions are informative, when in fact they're just disruptive.

But disrupting is a good thing now?

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#299

Post by BeetleB »

matwood wrote: post #289
BeetleB wrote: post #82

I work in a big company. It's easy to see all the useful things I would have missed out on if I worked remotely. Examples: - Networking: Serendipity plays a bigger role than anything else. And you get a lot less of it the fewer people you interact with. Simply bumping into people at the cafe is quite valuable. - Career coaching: Lots of classes, talks, invited speakers, etc. Some can be done remotely, but roughly hal…

> I work in a big company. How big? Back when I worked in a big company, most of the people I dealt with were not in my office. Heck, many were not even in the same country. This was also before good, ubiquitous video chat, so most communication was over email or phone.

>How big? Back when I worked in a big company, most of the people I dealt with were not in my office. Heck, many were not even in the same country.

Fair point. It's about 100K employees across the globe, but I'm in the largest site. And you're right, it makes a difference. Even at this site there are multiple locations in the city, and there are differences even between different locations within the city (e.g. one location had a lot more talks by external speakers).

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#300

Post by [deleted] »

amorphid wrote: post #171
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…

I enjoy teaching people who like learning. The effort required to teach those who aren't that curious saps my energy, and eats into time I need to advance my own skills. I didn't work super hard to learn what I've learned just to give it away to someone who is indifferent.

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