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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

#331

Post by citizens »

cableshaft wrote: post #277
Arizhel wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone is good at having the discipline to get work done at home and to separate home and work while they're at home. Also, people with young children are naturally going to have a big problem. Lots of people who try it complain that their spouses and kids won't leave them alone at home, thinking that popping in isn't a big deal even though it interrupts their focus. And not everyone can afford a home that give…

$500/month for a coworking cubicle? Wow. The going rate around here (Chicagoland) seems to be less than $200 a month. In some of the smaller cities I don't think it even costs more than $400/month to give yourself a (small) dedicated suite for an office around here.

I checked a few months back in Brooklyn and it cost $550/mo for a desk with a door. No windows, and not enough room for two people to stand in...at least it made me appreciate my home office more.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#332

Post by LunaSea »

sigi45 wrote: post #316
CydeWeys wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A significant proportion of the overall HN readership has access to these perks. It's not unreasonable to discuss them in the context of the pros/cons of working from home.

The linked page / disucssion is not for the small percentage of google/fb workers. You are still a minority.

If you're gluten intolerant then you're also in the minority.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#333

Post by lucidguppy »

freehunter wrote: post #100
grardb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment doesn't read like it was written by a "humbleMouse" :) I don't think this is a healthy attitude to have towards less experienced developers. Literally every experienced developer was once inexperienced, and I think for the vast majority of people, it's hard to become a senior or even intermediate developer without some mentorship along the way. I believe this is especially true for aspects outside of wri…

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…

If your responses to questions aren't well written and concise confluence/wiki pages (with an example or two) - you're doing it wrong.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#334

Post by chillacy »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #264
chillacy wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, documentation (along with device drivers and userland apps) are tremendously important. Without them, linux would have been another toy project and none of us would have heard of it. Also linux follows in the footsteps of minix and other closed source unix systems right out of Bell Labs, so it's not like he wasn't drawing on a larger body of work. Hard to say he was inventing a whole lot of new stuff as opposed…

Agreed. We all stand on the shoulders of giants. The point is one SOLO GENIUS took all of the tools available to them at that point in history and made something amazing. By your logic we have to go back and say cavemen inventing fire are key contributors to the Linux kernel because fire was an important tool to the creation of civilization which was critical for the invention of operating systems.

Well if you want to take my logic down the slippery slope of your own invention then you can make me claim anything :)

I don't doubt the importance of taking ownership for your projects and having good taste, as opposed to design-by-committee. But I think you're overstating the degree to which they worked isolated from others. I think these examples you've given involve people with good taste (or call it vision) who said no to a lot of prevailing wisdom and yes to other ideas... but it wasn't literally "I'm going to go into my house for 5-10 years and emerge out with perfection". It's usually more iterative.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#336

Post by k__ »

CydeWeys wrote: post #306
k__ wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know people have different priorities and that's okay. I see it like this: I did things to improve my quality of life and people who can't do this are missing out. I can use a computer system of my choosing, most companies admins aren't too BYOD friendly. I can bring my girlfriend to work, buy groceries, prepare my own food and eat it. I could not do this if I was at an office somewhere else. Most companies got sma…

> I know people have different priorities and that's okay. That's quite a change of tune from your previous statement: > I don't know what bothers me more. People willingly selling their souls to companies or the companies that spend humongous amounts of money to keep their employees away from their homes and lifes... If you'd said originally what you said now then I'd have had no disagreement, but instead you litera…

Yes, I'm sorry.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#337

Post by lacampbell »

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…

It is difficult to separate work and non-work with a home office.

That was not my experience at all. When I worked at home, I worked regular hours, and didn't do any non-work stuff during those hours. And after those hours were done, I didn't do any work stuff.

I basically kept to a strict 8:30-5 routine, and never had any issue.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#338

Post by pmontra »

rubicon33 wrote: post #268
pmontra wrote: post #222

Well, I'm self employed and work for customers mainly from my home (backend development, web technologies). One or two on site meetings per week and that's it. Sometimes I had to go to customers sites in my town two or three days per week, usually during design phases. Working at home (I live alone) and avoiding the office is definitely great. Zero commuting time, I worked this morning, went on a 2 hours 50 km bicycl…

For how many months, or years, have you been working from home? And, how often are you interacting in person with people? I've found WFH to be great, but, after a while I really miss human interaction.

Eleven years after thirteen as employee. I go out almost every day. Friends, family, technical meetups are the main activities. Customers, of course. I must plan to do something outside home or it would be unbearable. We're social animals after all.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#339

Post by Chaebixi »

sonthonax wrote: post #298
Chaebixi wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

We'll disrupt the market by disrupting our workers!

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#340

Post by coldtea »

pionar wrote: post #184
return0 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 think working from home is superior (for tech/programming work). I disagree with you, specifically one point. >The office does offer some perks, but they are not related to work itself, they are all about socializing / banter / feeling of being part of a team. That "banter" or "socializing" is work related. I've found that working from home (been doing it 2 years now) has one very big disadvantage - unless the wh…

>You will be excluded from meetings

Oh, the bliss.

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