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Remote Only

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Re: Remote Only

#301

Post by IOT_Apprentice »

UlisesAC4 wrote: post #120
Shank wrote: post #105

My biggest problem is this: While there is a surplus of remote only positions, this surplus always wants the same thing: very senior developers with tons of wide experience sets. Seems like there's a lot of talent being left on the floor by only looking for senior developers. There's a lot of goodwill that can be earned by trusting in potential and helping candidates grow into a position. Even an experienced develope…

That is something bad at our industry. Managers or whoever do that decision believes that being senior automagically makes you a genious, when it can be the other way around, the more senior you are, the more averse to change you are. I doubt that senior could easily change to remote lifestyle after years of onsite. People must learn that anyone can be remote, the thing is that everyone must agree to communicate bett…

LOL. What makes someone senior? What are the advantages that being senior brings to the job at hand? Should we all be non-senior instead so that we have no experience or skills formed? Change is a part of life. You are going to get older and then die. Too often, technology firms worship youth at the expense of experience. In any case, youth ages and then it is your turn in the box, being lectured by the next generation about how averse to change YOU are. sigh.

Re: Remote Only

#302

Post by IOT_Apprentice »

JTbane wrote: post #292

Question for remote workers: how do you deal with the innate need for managers to know that you are busy?: i.e. that you're not just more or less slacking off for a salary.

Managers should just be concerned that the tasks and goals assigned to their staff are being worked on, that they will be delivered on time based on a mutually agreed upon schedule. Communication (verbal, written, predictive based on data analysis) is key. Being "busy" should never be the point, getting things done should be.

Re: Remote Only

#303

Post by peacetreefrog »

I think the key (and very appealing thing to me and a lot of people) is:

The results of work over the hours put in.

It also relates to the the idea of saying whether you're working or not. If you're producing great results, it shouldn't matter when/how/how much time it takes you to do it (provided maybe people can get ahold of you in an emergency). But I also seems like the key to this working is being willing to get rid of people that aren't meeting that high bar (whether weren't up to snuff or weren't because they weren't putting in enough time).

I think most organizations are unwilling/uncomfortable holding people to this high of standard on outputs, and so measure inputs (40 hours, at least not looking like you're slacking off) instead.

Charlie Munger tells a story about Fedex and how they needed to move all their packages around different planes every night in one central location. They had a team of workers to do it, but they were having trouble getting the work finished on time and keeping people motivated.

Eventually they decided -- instead of paying people by the hour -- to just pay them the same thing no matter how long it took (per shift), and let everyone go home when they were done. Lo and behold the night teams got their packages moved around much faster and and made just as much money and Fedex was able to deliver better and quicker everyone was happy.

Re: Remote Only

#304

Post by beat »

collyw wrote: post #265
AYBABTME wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People say that, yet in my experience it's not actually true. We just need to communicate enough to coordinate. I'm not a great communicator, I don't think most people at my work are great communicators, yet we work just fine as a remote company. I feel people exaggerate this belief. Regular chatter in public chat channels seems sufficient. What really seems to matter is work ethics.

I don't work remotely as such, but usually with distributed teams. Personally I find skype chats or similar the best way. Writing emails is quite a long winded way to get to where you want and takes me a while. Chats are more two way so you can judge where the other person is with understanding the problem, and has the benefit of being written down for future reference.

Yeah, I find Skype or Slack or some other form of IM to be absolutely invaluable in making remote work effective. But it's also semi-synchronous and interruptive, relative to email.

Re: Remote Only

#305

Post by maxxxxx »

peacetreefrog wrote: post #303

I think the key (and very appealing thing to me and a lot of people) is: The results of work over the hours put in . It also relates to the the idea of saying whether you're working or not. If you're producing great results, it shouldn't matter when/how/how much time it takes you to do it (provided maybe people can get ahold of you in an emergency). But I also seems like the key to this working is being willing to ge…

"Eventually they decided -- instead of paying people by the hour -- to just pay them per shift, and let everyone go home when they were done. Lo and behold that worked and the night teams got their packages moved around much faster and made just as much money and everyone was happy."

The problem is that such a situation is often not stable. The next boss will come in and think "these guys work only 5 hours so I either hire less people or give them more work".

Re: Remote Only

#306

Post by mandelbrotwurst »

jasode wrote: post #256
throwawaymath wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn't picking up a phone fit into your workflow?

For many, a ringing phone is much more disruptive than an email notification. Picking up a phone for voice calls is synchronous . Responding to an email is asynchronous . (The asynchronous advantage is probably why SMS texting & WhatsApp/FB messaging has overtaken voice calls.) I had a friend that didn't use email and always called my phone. Whenever I shut off the ringer, he'd eventually send me an email. But the co…

Phrasing a question in a way that ensure it will be understood by the reader is non-trivial. For tricky problems that might require several steps of back and forth, the ability to ask clarifying questions and access tone of voice that you get on a voice call is valuable.

I'm not saying that this guy was thinking this through that extensively, but IMO there are times when a voice call is more effective.

Did you attempt to explain to him why you didn't answer the phone as opposed to trying to "train" him? i.e. engage in open communication and have a conversation about what works and what doesn't for each of you about various modes of communication.

His request for you to "give him a call" moves thing for you back into the realm of the asynchronous.

I wonder whether maybe you have some other issue with voice calls?

Re: Remote Only

#307

Post by pbhjpbhj »

satsuma wrote: post #257
amorphous wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

_Always_ picking up the phone doesn't fit into my workflow. Some things are better discussed via email or chat. I think it is very difficult to work remotely if you only have direct verbal communication available.

sort of tangental, but i wonder how a drop in/drop out system like teamspeak/vent/discord/etc. would work in a professional setting. you have direct calls still, but if you just want to be available to coordinate through voice you could. similar to leaving your door open and letting people stop by.

Keeping an open channel on Teamspeak could be compared to having a person sitting at the next desk.

Re: Remote Only

#308

Post by linsomniac »

nvarsj wrote: post #207

My somewhat reductive conclusion about remote work is that it boils down to the ability to be an effective writer. If you're not good at written communication, or you work with people who are not good at it, remote work will be miserable. People who are not highly fluent in the company's written language or those with some level of dyslexia will struggle. Also some people get frustrated with the more analytic approac…

This does ring true. Years ago when I was running a remote-primary shop we hired this one guy that just struggled. I spent the next year trying to get him on track and one of the big issues was his writing was terrible; both internally and with our customers.

Right before we finally gave up, I went back and looked at all his interview communications. As part of the interview we would exchange several e-mails to see how their communication was, because we lived and died by e-mail with clients. All those communications were totally on point.

So I asked him: Why were your e-mails before we hired you so good? "Oh, my wife wrote those for me." So I'm sitting there thinking "We should have hired your wife."

Re: Remote Only

#309

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

nvarsj wrote: post #207

My somewhat reductive conclusion about remote work is that it boils down to the ability to be an effective writer. If you're not good at written communication, or you work with people who are not good at it, remote work will be miserable. People who are not highly fluent in the company's written language or those with some level of dyslexia will struggle. Also some people get frustrated with the more analytic approac…

Well Linus is a great writer, so I agree with your conclusion.

Re: Remote Only

#310

Post by mfonda »

lagadu wrote: post #246
mfonda wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As true as this is, unexpected problems happen. Kevin may be the only one that can fix it, or at least be able to fix it a lot more effectively than others. The issue might not be Kevin's fault (i.e it's really a process problem), but being able to talk to him immediately (or at least know his schedule) will go a long ways in getting the issue resolved in an acceptable time frame. Nothing against remote work, but kno…

And what happens when Kevin is on vacation or is sick or quits?

This was in response to Practical Tip #1: "People don't have to say when they are working."

I'm arguing that this tip is harmful. I should know he was on vacation, and thus have a plan in place to handle anything that might come up while he's on vacation. If I'm completely in the dark about when he's working, things are going to be a lot more difficult.

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