Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My experiences of working remote for a year

modess.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 67 posts

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#51

Post by joshyeager »

ensignavenger wrote: post #31
maratd wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You absolutely need to set yourself up for success. I have a home office in the basement, and it is _the_ office, not another room. This is the most important piece of advice. You need to have a space that is for work and for work only. When you enter that space, it puts you in a work mindset. If you work wherever, you will never be able to focus. > it is critical you jump on the phone a few times a week to touch b…

Why phone? What is it that the phone offers that IM doesn't?

High-bandwidth communication channels are more effective for building relationships. It is much more difficult to build relationships when you don't have face-to-face interaction. Lack of good relationships with the people you work with will put you at risk when the team or your manager are under stress.

Something like daily phone calls will help you build those relationships. It's not as good as face time, but it's a lot better than text.

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#52

Post by yoz-y »

ryandrake wrote: post #47
yoz-y wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A classic company nowadays will have their code in Github, their e-mail and documents over at Google, even more documents in office 365 cloud, critical company files in Dropbox etc. All for the sake of convenience. For me the important thing is to keep a work machine which is solely dedicated to work, which is only connected to the necessary services.

Really? That sounds very unusual to me. I've never worked at a company where critical, confidential business information was permitted to be hosted on an external service. Critical company files on Dropbox?? That sounds to me like a fire-able offense. Maybe fine for a start-up, but for a "classic" company?

Fair point about the startups, indeed that is what I was talking about. I do not see it as much of a problem, personally. (side note: I do not have access to critical company information, however I know it is hosted on Dropbox)

Our code, which is probably the most critical part, is on Github and that is definitely the case for many, many companies.

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#53

Post by unoti »

ensignavenger wrote: post #45
unoti wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why phone? What is it that the phone offers that IM doesn't? Phone is better than text because phone gives you more information in the discussion. You can judge the other person's mood to some extent, get a feel for their energy level, their enthusiasm. Also quite often when someone says something in text, it can be interpreted multiple ways, and emotion in voice gives cues which way is intended. If they have mixed…

Thanks- I can see that at least with a high quality video call- I personally don't like standard phone calls because I have trouble understanding those additional signals due to the low-quality. But if you really mean high quality voip/video, I can see that working. When it comes to business discussions, I find text a better format because then I have time to compose and re-read my messages, and re-read other partici…

For many kinds of business discussions, being able to read emotions is even more important than with interpersonal discussions. Many business discussions involve selling ideas, selling products, understanding concerns, and so on. Once someone says something, they tend to dogmatically stick to that, even in the face of clear evidence that their position was wrong[1]. This phenomenon is even more pronounced when they write something. Whenever someone needs to have their mind changed, writing is the worst way to go about it!

[1] Consider reading a book like Influence by Robert Cialdini, Ph.D. which has all kinds of fascinating studies about how people act in surprisingly illogical ways based on what they write. The book cites a number of studies on this issue of irrational consistency, and how it is routinely exploited in situations ranging from sales to indoctrination.

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#54

Post by jaawn »

tfigment wrote: post #48
jaawn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be nice if more managers agreed with the "what works for you" mindset, instead of "what works for the manager."

I try to be nice but people will take advantage even if they don't think they are. They will say that they are getting the work done so those 5 hour days are justified. I don't always agree and as a working manager I'm working 10-12 hour days cleaning up the rest and need more help and that attitude doesn't help me. If you finish early, there is usually nothing stopping you from helping out with other miscellaneous t…

You should have clear, stated goals for deliverables, each deliverable should have a group of people who is responsible for it. Anyone who is is responsible for any deliverables which are delayed should not be working 5 hour days.

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#55

Post by maratd »

joshyeager wrote: post #51
ensignavenger wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why phone? What is it that the phone offers that IM doesn't?

High-bandwidth communication channels are more effective for building relationships. It is much more difficult to build relationships when you don't have face-to-face interaction. Lack of good relationships with the people you work with will put you at risk when the team or your manager are under stress. Something like daily phone calls will help you build those relationships. It's not as good as face time, but it's…

> Lack of good relationships with the people you work with will put you at risk when the team or your manager are under stress.

Bingo.

If you just communicate in text, you don't have a relationship. You're just another fish in a sea of a ton of other emails/texts/IMs/etc. And trust me, everybody gets so many of them, they don't differentiate based on who sent it ... it's all just one massive blob of text.

Break through that. Be one of the few people who make voice contact and if possible, face to face. You then get upgraded to being an actual human being. Build a relationship.

Then when the shit hits the fan, and it always does, you won't get the axe. Also, it's not all negative ... when there's a windfall or a new project, you'll be remembered and they'll call you.

Always push for the most intimate form of communication available.

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#56

Post by jaawn »

enraged_camel wrote: post #43
jaawn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be nice if more managers agreed with the "what works for you" mindset, instead of "what works for the manager."

Both are important. Workers need to be able to work and managers need to be able to manage. Otherwise there will be friction.

I agree, but what I mean is managers trying to govern how employees work rather than how they are managed. There are cases where these are related, but I think most of the time they are separate.

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#57

Post by tbrownaw »

jaawn wrote: post #54
tfigment wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I try to be nice but people will take advantage even if they don't think they are. They will say that they are getting the work done so those 5 hour days are justified. I don't always agree and as a working manager I'm working 10-12 hour days cleaning up the rest and need more help and that attitude doesn't help me. If you finish early, there is usually nothing stopping you from helping out with other miscellaneous t…

You should have clear, stated goals for deliverables, each deliverable should have a group of people who is responsible for it. Anyone who is is responsible for any deliverables which are delayed should not be working 5 hour days.

It's delayed because one of the big dependencies is delayed, and there's not much to be done until it's ready.

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#58

Post by jlg23 »

tfigment wrote: post #48
jaawn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be nice if more managers agreed with the "what works for you" mindset, instead of "what works for the manager."

I try to be nice but people will take advantage even if they don't think they are. They will say that they are getting the work done so those 5 hour days are justified. I don't always agree and as a working manager I'm working 10-12 hour days cleaning up the rest and need more help and that attitude doesn't help me. If you finish early, there is usually nothing stopping you from helping out with other miscellaneous t…

> If you finish early, there is usually nothing stopping you from helping out with other miscellaneous things than just the big projects.

From an employees perspective: Then what is the motivation to perform better than my peers? More work than my colleagues and the hope to get a bigger bonus?

If someone is performing better and helping out in the remaining 3h, do you also pay extra for these 3h? If not, ain't it wiser for the employee to finish the work in 7h and help out for 1h? Less overall work, same money and one still stands out as a performer.

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#59

Post by jaawn »

tbrownaw wrote: post #57
jaawn wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should have clear, stated goals for deliverables, each deliverable should have a group of people who is responsible for it. Anyone who is is responsible for any deliverables which are delayed should not be working 5 hour days.

It's delayed because one of the big dependencies is delayed, and there's not much to be done until it's ready.

Then, depending on structure, people could assist on the delayed dependency, or devote time to a lower-priority project until they are able to work on the more important one.

If neither of these are possible, then it probably is okay for that employee to work shorter days in the meantime, and leadership resources should spend time solving the bottle neck issues to prevent the situation in the future.

Re: My experiences of working remote for a year

#60

Post by DaveWalk »

_benedict wrote: post #42
rizzin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what can be done if there's no easy way to separate "work" and "home" environments? Pretty soon (in less than a month) I'm going to have the following working conditions: I'm gonna have a room to myself and a powerful tower pc. I need it both to work and to do non-work related stuff like videogames. Of course I can drag it to kitchen every day to work and move it back to my room afterwards but that seems absurd t…

I manage just fine without that isolation. However I'm the opposite end of the spectrum: I have a laptop and work from wherever I happen to be. It works just fine. I don't find concentration is at all hard to come by, however switching off can be difficult.

Yes -- I think the separation for you (and me) is to see the laptop as the "separation" device. I have a home office, but the distractions are everywhere. If I can grab my laptop and head anywhere else, my productivity shoots through the roof.

Ultimately, the beauty of the GP's quote "set yourself up for success" is that you must do absolutely whatever works for you. If it's working in a bar at 2 in the afternoon, do it. With no "office" to go to, it's an ideal situation to experiment.

Post reply on HN