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People love working remotely

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Re: People love working remotely

#301

Post by g051051 »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #256
g051051 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meetings? Sure. Rituals? No. We have meetings because we're supposed to have meetings, whether we need them or not.

It's practically impossible to get rid of that bit of the cargo-cult thinking. It's funny because it's not even really a part of "Agile", just Scrum. The best Scrum team I've ever worked with (and best team really, that's probably part of it) decided to drop daily meetings and it was great. We did keep the end/start of sprint stuff, because that was important to us. One thing mentioned in Sutherland's book on Scrum I…

We unfortunately have some Agile/Scrum cultists who bring everything to a grinding halt with their mindless adherence to their view of how it should be done. Completely paralyzes our team when they start bloviating.

Re: People love working remotely

#302

Post by jayd16 »

ebiester wrote: post #143
jayd16 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about the 15 minute meetings that could have been emails, however, I will say that pair programming and XP are useful tools. I'm not sure how easy that is to replicate in a fully remote office.

It's easier in a fully remote office. I've paired with people across the ocean using tools like Zoom and committing continuously. When specialty software is required, I've also worked on a common AWS instance used as a desktop with the driver connecting to the instance to type.

To be honest, that doesn't sound easier to me.

Re: People love working remotely

#303

Post by BjoernKW »

g051051 wrote: post #16

I was full-time WFH for 6 wonderful years. I was happy, my productivity was off the charts, I was saving tons of money because I didn't have to spend it on my car and clothes, I had extra time that I wasn't wasting on my commute, etc. Then, we had a big shake-up. A bunch of senior people left, and new "leadership" came in to "transform" our workplace. All WFH was cancelled in our division (in spite of still being off…

> "a 15 minute fact-to-face is better than a multi-day email chain"

This truism seems to never get old. It's carelessly tossed about but never proven. It's mostly just accepted as-is and hardly ever challenged:

Why is it better?

Do you really have be in the office every day, the whole day, just because a situation where a "15 minute face-to-face" is required might come up?

If so how often does this happen?

Why does this need arise?

If you have to clarify matters in personal conversations all the time doesn't that tell you that your company's processes and communication behaviour are lacking?

Re: People love working remotely

#304

Post by wolco »

andreasklinger wrote: post #272
turingbike wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Search "Who's Hiring?" for remote - https://hnjobs.emilburzo.com/#%22remote%22 https://weworkremotely.com https://remoteok.io/ and of course, word-of-mouth / loose social connections.

FYI: I would also add angel.co/jobs AngelList has the largest amount of remote jobs right now out there (Disclaimer: work at AngelList)

What's a good strategy for hunting on AngelList? During a recent job search for remote roles, AngelList was one places I searched.

I found a less serious crowd compared to indeed or linked-in about hiring now. Previously when working full time I connected with a founder over a two year period and ended up working on a year long project.

What's the best way of connecting through AngelList? Are most people connecting over a period of time or do you find most are using it like a job board where they try to fill a position asap?

Re: People love working remotely

#305

Post by mulmen »

shrimpx wrote: post #273
codingdave wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not me. Not most of my remote team. Most of them do have a private office, in their own home. The flexibility to work when you want, where you want, live where you want, visit family without needing to take vacation, etc. That all adds up to a great working life. One of our guys even spent the summer road tripping out of a custom camper van, and working the whole time from various parks. The problem people have with…

How do you visit family without needing to take vacation? I guess you're blurring the line between "full-time from a stable remote (home/coworking/etc.) office" and full on "digital nomad". I work full-time remote and I think there's a huge difference between working from a stable office and wandering around working from a camper van or ducking out for personal travel while on the clock? It's hard to imagine that the…

I do it by working during the day and spending time with my family and friends at night. I typically "work from home" for a week around Thanksgiving and Christmas where "home" is my home town instead of my personal residence. The day is spent working, the evenings are spent with family and friends I wouldn't otherwise get to see. I can even use my lunch hour to take my nephew to the park. I'm no less available than I would be in the office or at my apartment.

Re: People love working remotely

#306

Post by quicksilver03 »

JSavageReal wrote: post #203
g051051 wrote: post #16

I was full-time WFH for 6 wonderful years. I was happy, my productivity was off the charts, I was saving tons of money because I didn't have to spend it on my car and clothes, I had extra time that I wasn't wasting on my commute, etc. Then, we had a big shake-up. A bunch of senior people left, and new "leadership" came in to "transform" our workplace. All WFH was cancelled in our division (in spite of still being off…

This has basically been the story of every job I've had, except instead of being 100% remote I was wfh once or twice per week. I'd join a company under the condition that they allowed flexible hours and wfh. Then 6 months later managers would change and all of a sudden the way we'd been operating would no longer be acceptable. Always the person leading the charge towards eliminating wfh and remote work is some non-te…

Although that's not the attitude of the managers at my current company, the result is the same: remote work is discouraged to the point of being exceptional. Which makes me want to look for remote-only jobs, that unfortunately are relatively rare in Europe.

Re: People love working remotely

#307

Post by francisofascii »

shrimpx wrote: post #273
codingdave wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not me. Not most of my remote team. Most of them do have a private office, in their own home. The flexibility to work when you want, where you want, live where you want, visit family without needing to take vacation, etc. That all adds up to a great working life. One of our guys even spent the summer road tripping out of a custom camper van, and working the whole time from various parks. The problem people have with…

How do you visit family without needing to take vacation? I guess you're blurring the line between "full-time from a stable remote (home/coworking/etc.) office" and full on "digital nomad". I work full-time remote and I think there's a huge difference between working from a stable office and wandering around working from a camper van or ducking out for personal travel while on the clock? It's hard to imagine that the…

Depends on the role. Some dev jobs don't have a support role where one has to "quickly respond to incidents". Or if they do, those incidents are rare. Regardless, you can always call the person if something urgent arises. I have found remote workers more likely to be available than "office" employees, because the latter are in more likely to be in meetings, or at lunch off site.

Re: People love working remotely

#309

Post by donretag »

eckza wrote: post #294
thrwaway4833 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost savings to employers is so extraordinary ($0 per square foot in office space, $0 on HVAC, electricity, $0 on corporate wifi and the building's ethernet, $0 on cleaning bills, $0 on toilet paper, ink, toner, desks, etc etc - the employer literally is happy to buy all of the above), and to employees a free 5-20% reduction of work hours due to the total loss of mandatory unpaid commute, plus all transportation…

Here's my hot take: In places that I've worked, WFH is usually reserved for divisions that are expected to be intrinsically-motivated high performers. Some companies can afford to be staffed with nothing but these types of people; other companies are not so lucky. WFH only works if the people that are W-ingFH are motivated enough by their work to do it without being supervised. And for some job roles in some organiza…

> I've worked at several places where certain key roles are staffed by people that couldn't figure out how to effectively work remotely if their lives depended on it.

For me it was the opposite: I was highly productive, but the onsite managers did not know how to work effectively (if at all honestly)

Re: People love working remotely

#310

Post by blamestross »

thrwaway4833 wrote: post #277
donretag wrote: post #270

I have been working remotely for 3-4 years, and I am currently job hunting. I did not like working remotely honestly. As an extrovert, I did not like the isolation. However, the major drawback was not being able to steer any of the tech/political discussion because I was remote. I had poor managers/CTO that needed a good smack to the head because they were too scatterbrained, but I was not there to do it. Impossible…

The cost savings to employers is so extraordinary ($0 per square foot in office space, $0 on HVAC, electricity, $0 on corporate wifi and the building's ethernet, $0 on cleaning bills, $0 on toilet paper, ink, toner, desks, etc etc - the employer literally is happy to buy all of the above), and to employees a free 5-20% reduction of work hours due to the total loss of mandatory unpaid commute, plus all transportation…

Plenty of new smaller software companies (startups especially) are totally remote and distributed. "9-5 in an office" culture has been deeply ingrained. The managers with the practice and skills with managing remote teams don't exist in enough number to fill a large company. The investors, the workers, and everybody in involved would have to learn new skills and ways to function.

The thing that ruins the growth and economics is that nobody knows how to do it yet and trying is either risky (you fail) or expensive to train/experiment until you figure it out.

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