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Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

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Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#41

Post by zeroonetwothree »

codeonfire wrote: post #20
jcdavis wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has to be one of the more ridiculous things I've read on HN recently. I (or any other developer) shouldn't be care about getting raises? Why exactly? There are lots of plenty of good places to work not called Valve that don't suffer over-politicalization

I think I made it very clear why you shouldn't care. If developers don't have any power in deciding who gets raises, developers are not likely to get raises. Are you going to work 80 hour a week in the office hoping for a promotion like an idiot year after year so you can get 3% instead of 1%? No, you're going to go across town and get 15%. If you disagree that's fine, but by and large this is my experience.

Some companies give real raises (15% or more) to their developers.

Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#42

Post by paulsutter »

paulsutter wrote: post #15
fleitz wrote: post #2

Working from home reduces visibility, you don't work from home to make more and get promoted, you work from home to avoid the retardation of a commute, busy work, excessive meetings, etc. You work from home so you can put in 2 hours work, accomplish as much as anyone else did and spend the remaining 6 enjoying your life. I'm pretty sure that everyone who decides to work from home did so for quality of life reasons ra…

If these tactics work, you are working for a shitty company and need to find a better employer.

The original post got edited, so now my comment doesn't make sense - apologies.

Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#43

Post by JoshTriplett »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #16
suresk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I overwhelmingly dislike working from home, although it is nice to have the option to do so occasionally when I'm sick, waiting for something to be delivered to my house, the weather is poor, etc.. The main ways I think it is harder for you to contribute remotely are: 1) Whiteboard sessions I've spent a lot of time sitting around a whiteboard, talking out a (software) design for something and collaborativ…

Agreed so far. What's wrong with working from home? When the CEO brings guests to the office so that they can "meet the team", you're never there. When the guests ask about your project, someone else on your team will represent you. When your manager is muttering jokes to the team during the design meeting, you won't hear those jokes. Some of the jokes may involve the projects that are already being discussed in othe…

Everything you just wrote applies to working from home when other people don't. Very little of it applies to working from home along with everyone else.

If most of your company/team goes to work in person at the same site, you'll miss out on some things by not doing so. If most of your company/team works in a distributed fashion, you can do the same without missing out. Prisoner's dilemma. :)

Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#44

Post by gcp »

freshfunk wrote: post #28

This reminds me of an incident I had with a former employer. It was xmas break and I was at home the final week (xmas to new years). I spent about 75% of my time working. When I got back I was accused of taking "10 days off." He counted the Saturday I left to the Sunday before I got back. By that logic, I often took 2 days off a week. Anyway, even after I told him I was working during that time he still said "this wa…

Sounds like your boss is just an asshole, really.

Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#45

Post by rlu »

I guess it depends what sort of track you're trying to get promoted in. If you're trying to get a raise and continue to be an individual contributor (i.e. not manage anyone) then I don't think WFH should really be an issue.

However, if you do want to become a lead and have reports then I think it makes perfect sense to promote those that go into the office. I personally would never want to report to someone who consistently works from home if I'm going into the office.

There's a difference between kissing ass and having a good relationship with your boss. A human relationship flourishes with actual proximity.

Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#46

Post by gcp »

cletus wrote: post #21

Working from home is a popular topic for us engineers. Generally speaking there are two broad camps in this argument: 1. Those who want to work from home and argue largely from that position. They say they'll be just as productive, you can write code from anywhere, having a more flexible schedule will make them happier and more productive and so on; and 2. Those that think there is more to your job than the lines of…

Culture transmits largely by physical proximity. Osmosis if you will.

Culture transmits by communication, and nothing else. If you don't have a good (or equal) communication with your remotes, things are going to suck.

If you have a good communication with your remotes, they'll absorb culture faster than the most introvert people that are in the actual office.

Your post essentially lacks any base for the claims you make.

Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#47

Post by monksy »

umjames wrote: post #33
fleitz wrote: post #2

Working from home reduces visibility, you don't work from home to make more and get promoted, you work from home to avoid the retardation of a commute, busy work, excessive meetings, etc. You work from home so you can put in 2 hours work, accomplish as much as anyone else did and spend the remaining 6 enjoying your life. I'm pretty sure that everyone who decides to work from home did so for quality of life reasons ra…

Thank you, I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees the benefits. It's true, some jobs are soul-crushing enough that you'd rather not be there. You might have family and/or financial responsibilities that make you have to keep such a job. You may be bootstrapping a business on the side so you can escape from such a job, but in the meantime, you still need your regular paycheck. Not every job has you working with self-m…

That can actually turn into a good thing. When you're not facing the other person, you should become better and better at communicating what exactly is the issue. At the very worse this leaves a paper trail that can indicate "see I worked on this"

Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#49

Post by fierarul »

I guess it depends on the company.

If you telework only part of the week, I think you have a clear advantage since the telework days are when you actually get stuff done!

If you telework full-time but you still have colleagues that show-up then there may be some bias as the article shows and people need to be aware of it.

Another solution to this problem is to have the entire company work remotely. Not sure how well this scales, but for a small company such as ours it seems to be the best solution.

Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#50

Post by prof_hobart »

cletus wrote: post #21

Working from home is a popular topic for us engineers. Generally speaking there are two broad camps in this argument: 1. Those who want to work from home and argue largely from that position. They say they'll be just as productive, you can write code from anywhere, having a more flexible schedule will make them happier and more productive and so on; and 2. Those that think there is more to your job than the lines of…

>and, all other things being equal, you're better off having your organization in N locations versus N+1 locations.

All other things aren't equal, though. There can be less interuptions at home, there's less time wasted on commuting, and more flexibility - allowing (for instance) people with children to have a better work/life balance, which should hopefully make them more effective workers.

There's also things like the simple cost of the building - if 20% of your staff are typically at home on any given day, you need 20% less floorspace etc (I know it's not quite that simplisticaly linear, but you get the point).

For meetings, things like Facetime can be remarkably effective at getting someone "in the room" when they are physically at home. It's not quite as good as them actually being there, but it's remarkably close.

Obviously there's a balance. There are quite definitely upsides to having people in the building - a quick 2 minute chat at someone's desk with a piece of paper and a pencil can sometimes be as effective as a Visio diagram and an email that took an hour to write, and even more importantly having people sat right next to you can make working far more collaborative.

But depending on what your job is, having the flexibility to work for a day or more a week at home can be hugely valuable.

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