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Working remotely, 4 years in

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Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#41

Post by sshagent »

biztos wrote: post #20

I've been working remotely for about 8 years, and I have to say it's a challenge. I have great colleagues and a great manager and we work on stuff we care about, so I am in no position to complain. However, all things being equal, I would much prefer to be in the office 3 days per week (not 5!). For all the advantages of working remotely, the social isolation is extremely unnatural and not good for you. Today, for ex…

I'm at around 8 years as well and have the sames as you really. I love working from home, but social isolation is a thing. I should have probably had those 5 to 6 1:1's. Whilst I'm in a team, my skill set is different from all theirs, so mine would be almost purely social chats.

Certainly by Friday evening I need to be outside and chatting to people. I've recently discovered a couple of friends are working from thome, so considering trying to spend a day working from their home and perhaps vice versa. Keeps the convenience of avoiding the commute into London but gets a little social time and some other people to bounce ideas off.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#42

Post by justonepost »

Bingo: "My current theory about this is – as long as I work on a team with a lot of other remotes, everything will be fine. "

reality is, if your team is 80-90% not remote, forget about career advancement. People who show up have two things, a) they want to advance their careers so will use proximity to their advantage and b) don't understand why they can't be working remotely.

Plus of course processes and culture aren't going to be tailored to remote folks.

The only time I've ever been able to make this work was when the manager was also remote.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#43

Post by randomdata »

sdoering wrote: post #37
randomdata wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you are not strictly wrong, "he" carries multiple meanings (see below). The original commenter is clearly using one of the latter definitions. 1. used to refer to a man, boy, or male animal previously mentioned or easily identified. 2. used to refer to a person or animal of unspecified sex 3. any person "They" is more modern, if a little awkward in some cases, but the english language is fluid and thus "he", al…

@randomdata: > "They" may be more modern, if a little awkward in some cases, but the english language is fluid and thus "he", alongside "they", remains a perfectly acceptable for those who wish to use it in that capacity. Well. I am not sure of your sources for your statements (1 to 3). But would love to read them, as this is a topic of great interest to me. Especially as they go against everything I did learn during…

> I am not sure of your sources for your statements (1 to 3).

The dictionary, as provided by Google in this case. Although you are likely to find similar definitions in any dictionary. The usage, even if falling out of fashion, is still common enough to be recorded.

> Well technically speaking that is true. But aren't there always human beings part of every conversation? And imho our wetware isn't a purely logic parser for information.

Which is fine. The original comment provided enough information to indicate that this person was referring to the original article, which reveals that the author is female. Even if you accidentally parsed "he" as referring to the male gender at first, the context surrounding the comment would quickly clarify that misunderstanding and highlight that the comment was written in a gender-neutral form. That "wetware" you refer to makes humans particularly great at forming these connections between disjointed sets of information.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#44

Post by kbp »

randomdata wrote: post #43
sdoering wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@randomdata: > "They" may be more modern, if a little awkward in some cases, but the english language is fluid and thus "he", alongside "they", remains a perfectly acceptable for those who wish to use it in that capacity. Well. I am not sure of your sources for your statements (1 to 3). But would love to read them, as this is a topic of great interest to me. Especially as they go against everything I did learn during…

> I am not sure of your sources for your statements (1 to 3). The dictionary, as provided by Google in this case. Although you are likely to find similar definitions in any dictionary. The usage, even if falling out of fashion, is still common enough to be recorded. > Well technically speaking that is true. But aren't there always human beings part of every conversation? And imho our wetware isn't a purely logic pars…

> Even if you accidentally parsed "he" as referring to the male gender at first, the context surrounding the comment would quickly clarify that misunderstanding and reveal that the comment was written in a gender-neutral form.

I don't see why it isn't just as likely for someone, like the person who corrected the use of "he," to decide from context simply that the poster was mistaken about the person's gender, and to treat it like they'd treat any factual mistake. Language is about conveying messages to people, and part of the message that was received was that ratsimihah believed the author to be a man. Grammatically acceptable or not, using "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun here introduced confusion.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#45

Post by chrisan »

biztos wrote: post #20

I've been working remotely for about 8 years, and I have to say it's a challenge. I have great colleagues and a great manager and we work on stuff we care about, so I am in no position to complain. However, all things being equal, I would much prefer to be in the office 3 days per week (not 5!). For all the advantages of working remotely, the social isolation is extremely unnatural and not good for you. Today, for ex…

I will be coming up on my 10 year mark for working remotely this summer.

Are you truly isolated?

At work: no 1:1/group chat or video conference? We are on chat all day and dive into video or a phone call for brainstorming. I don't have that sense of isolation. Heck, some days I feel like I've wasted too much time interacting with work mates on chat.

Off work: I understand you can't hang out with your buds every night of the week but it would be an odd day if I did not talk to at least one of my friends on the phone or Telegram or play a video game together. Kids change things and they are less available to "do stuff" but we still talk almost daily. Weekends are still there to get together or an occasional after-work dinner.

Have you tried seeking out some clubs of a hobby of yours? Sports, board games, maker/hacker spaces, volunteering?

My vacations which I look forward to are still the ones where I turn off all communication and seek isolation where its just me and the wife out in nature away from other humans.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#46

Post by bkovacev »

After working remotely for 4 years I am switching back to the office at least 3 days a week and moving back to our company HQ in the States.

Hardest challenge for me was staying in shape, because I lacked self-discipline to workout and eat healthy, but funny enough work didn't suffer and it was the most productive period in my life.

It gets extremely easy to start slacking (no pun intended) and not do your work out. You tell yourself "oh let me just push this feature, fix this bug or communicate about a new feature". Work gets prioritized and everything else is put aside. That actually damages your productivity in the long run and the chance of burning out is far bigger than if you dedicate time to do other things.

Took me a while to recognize the trap I was in - I felt obligated (no peer pressure, but just the fear of missing out) to always be online, answer emails or slack messages. Of course, my mental and physical health suffered due to this FOMO.

Since I have about six months before I get back to the office I promised myself to tackle these things by doing:

- Fix morning routine by working out, cooking and taking time to do other things (read, play video games, hobby)

- Snoozing notifications at 6pm my time.

- Learning to say "It will have to wait 'till tomorrow".

- Spend more time outside of my apartment at night.

- Dedicate more time to my SO.

- Learn Elixir/Erlang during the weekends.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#47

Post by randomdata »

kbp wrote: post #44
randomdata wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not sure of your sources for your statements (1 to 3). The dictionary, as provided by Google in this case. Although you are likely to find similar definitions in any dictionary. The usage, even if falling out of fashion, is still common enough to be recorded. > Well technically speaking that is true. But aren't there always human beings part of every conversation? And imho our wetware isn't a purely logic pars…

> Even if you accidentally parsed "he" as referring to the male gender at first, the context surrounding the comment would quickly clarify that misunderstanding and reveal that the comment was written in a gender-neutral form. I don't see why it isn't just as likely for someone, like the person who corrected the use of "he," to decide from context simply that the poster was mistaken about the person's gender, and to…

> like the person who corrected the use of "he,"

The person who corrected the original commenter seems to recognized that "he" was being used in a gender-neutral way, even offering the use of "they" in its place, most likely as gender-neutral "he" is offensive to some.

However, english does not concern itself with what is or is not offensive. That is entirely up to the user to decide.

> Grammatically acceptable or not, using "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun here introduced confusion.

That gender-neutral "they" was suggested as a suitable replacement here, I don't think that is the case. The fact that we can find another word that unambiguously removes gender from the subject means that gender is irrelevant to the comment in question entirely, leaving no room for confusion with respect to what the message is about, no matter what pronoun is used.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#48

Post by kbp »

randomdata wrote: post #47
kbp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if you accidentally parsed "he" as referring to the male gender at first, the context surrounding the comment would quickly clarify that misunderstanding and reveal that the comment was written in a gender-neutral form. I don't see why it isn't just as likely for someone, like the person who corrected the use of "he," to decide from context simply that the poster was mistaken about the person's gender, and to…

> like the person who corrected the use of "he," The person who corrected the original commenter seems to recognized that "he" was being used in a gender-neutral way, even offering the use of "they" in its place, most likely as gender-neutral "he" is offensive to some. However, english does not concern itself with what is or is not offensive. That is entirely up to the user to decide. > Grammatically acceptable or no…

> The person who corrected the original commenter seems to recognized that "he" was being used in a gender-neutral way and even offered the use of "they"

Their first suggestion was to use the correct gender-specific pronoun, and then they said that alternately a gender-neutral one could have been used. I don't think it was understood as gender-neutral.

> The fact that we can find another word that unambiguously removes gender from the subject means that gender is irrelevant to the comment in question entirely

Sure, but if it's read as gender-specific then it's still a factual mistake. Would you be so defensive about someone correcting a wrong, but not critically important, date?

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#49

Post by randomdata »

kbp wrote: post #48
randomdata wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> like the person who corrected the use of "he," The person who corrected the original commenter seems to recognized that "he" was being used in a gender-neutral way, even offering the use of "they" in its place, most likely as gender-neutral "he" is offensive to some. However, english does not concern itself with what is or is not offensive. That is entirely up to the user to decide. > Grammatically acceptable or no…

> The person who corrected the original commenter seems to recognized that "he" was being used in a gender-neutral way and even offered the use of "they" Their first suggestion was to use the correct gender-specific pronoun, and then they said that alternately a gender-neutral one could have been used. I don't think it was understood as gender-neutral. > The fact that we can find another word that unambiguously remov…

Regardless, it remains that gender-neutral "they" was considered a suitable replacement, thereby indicating that gender was irrelevant to the subject of the comment all along. The gender correction seems to be more about pedantry than confusion. "They" could not possibly work in the comment if gender was a required part of understanding it.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#50

Post by mettamage »

plekter wrote: post #34

I've also worked remotely for 4 years now, but in a company where remote workers aren't that common. I absolutely love it - I love the autonomy, the lack of office distractions, etc. I think the key things for me are - Love your work, motivation then comes for free - Communicate a lot, as the article says. Personally I'm a fan of written communication, as I find that is frequently more impactful. Easier to share, and…

Question: how does promotion work within the company you work remotely at?
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