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Working remotely, 4 years in

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Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#51

Post by kbp »

randomdata wrote: post #49
kbp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Sorry, I just edited in a second quote to my previous comment that addresses that part of your point.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#52

Post by fyfy18 »

bkovacev wrote: post #46

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.…

Could you elaborate a bit more on your morning routine plans? I’d like to get up earlier and do more productive things before I start work (I’m remote and flexible), but as it doesn’t get light here until 8am at this time of year, I find it really hard to get up early.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#53

Post by badpun »

rwmj wrote: post #16
houqp wrote: post #2

Any recommendation for video conferencing? We are using hangout and it is not reliable at all :(

Others have recommended a bunch of services. I'm going to recommend that you also take a look at your conferencing hardware. A good speaker/microphone/camera set up can really make a difference. You need to spend at least $200 (but can spend upwards of $1000). I'd recommend looking at the Logitech BCC950 (about $200) or one of the Jabra Speak table conference mics (about $100 but you also need a camera). Polycom IP p…

> Jabra Speak table conference mics

My experience with them is that they are not that great - you need to be wary of being close to them and speaking in their direction or they'll have trouble picking up your voice.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#54

Post by randomdata »

kbp wrote: post #51
randomdata wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry, I just edited in a second quote to my previous comment that addresses that part of your point.

No worries. To your edit:

> Would you be so defensive about someone correcting a wrong, but not critically important, date?

First of all, the usage of "he" is not technically wrong.

I do not know if there is a great date analogy here, but perhaps "tomorrow" carries enough ambiguity across timezones that we can work with it. If I say tomorrow is Tuesday, but you are in a timezone where tomorrow is Wednesday, then you're fine to say that tomorrow is Wednesday, and I'll chime in to say that tomorrow is also technically Tuesday. To continue to argue that the original comment shouldn't have used "tomorrow" as it is too ambiguous to understand is fine, but given that you say it is not critically important, I'm not sure what there is to gain?

If, by "tomorrow", I mean Tuesday and you think I'm talking about Wednesday, does it really matter when it is just a passing fact and not something particularly relevant to the overall message?

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#55

Post by masklinn »

randomdata wrote: post #49
kbp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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.

Of course it was, as specifically noted in said corrective comment. Your comment could either use the author's actual gender or not involve gender at all./

> The gender correction seems to be more about pedantry than confusion.

No, the gender correction was about getting the author's gender wrong.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#57

Post by masklinn »

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

No, the person who corrected the original comment (that would be me) assumed the comment's writer (that would be you) had gotten TFA's gender wrong.

Hence 1. providing the author's correct gender, and 2. noting that gender-agnostic comments avoid this sort of issues when gender isn't specifically required for understanding.

> most likely as gender-neutral "he" is offensive to some.

No, because "he" isn't any more gender-neutral than "she" and may be a mistake of the commenter with respect to the author's gender. Following which you decided to blow a gasket.

> That gender-neutral "they" was suggested as a suitable replacement here, I don't think that is the case.

You think wrong.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#58

Post by randomdata »

masklinn wrote: post #55
randomdata wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. Of course it was, as specifically noted in said corrective comment. Your comment could either use the author's actual gender or not involve gender at all./ > The gender correction seems to be more about pedantry than confusion. No, the gender…

> Your comment could either use the author's actual gender or not involve gender at all.

To be clear, I was not the one who originally used gender-neutral "he" over "she".

> No, the gender correction was about getting the author's gender wrong.

Due to overzealous pedantry, or a misunderstanding of what "he" means in english? Understandably not everyone comes here with english as their first language, so I can appreciate that the word may be not fully understood by some.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#59

Post by microcolonel »

bkovacev wrote: post #46

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.…

These last couple weeks, and my first two years of work, I think I've hit my best groove by waking up at 06:00, optionally going for ~20-30 minutes in the gym, and jumping straight into work. When I delay eating until at least noon (so fasting for at least the eight hours I spend in bed, plus six or more waking hours in the morning), I tend to maintain a healthy body weight and feel little or no gnawing hunger.

I'm currently working from home, and it seems to work even better at home than it did full time with an office commute, and I clock out more or less whenever I feel like it (which is less often than I would've guessed). I've spent the last year at home, and these last two weeks have been literally an integer factor more productive and enjoyable. I've enjoyed it so much that I currently work somewhat on weekends as well, by choice.

Re: Working remotely, 4 years in

#60

Post by g051051 »

5 years for me, and counting. I'm so much happier and more productive, especially since where I work went to an open plan office: bright, noisy, visual distractions everywhere, speakerphones on every desk, little "huddle" tables in between developer desks in each 4-or-5 person "cube".

I have no problems connecting with people on Lync (or more recently HipChat). Interactions are via phone, email, Confluence and Jira.

I get to have a home-cooked lunch with my wife every day. I save all the time I'd spend commuting and dealing with interruptions. No money spent on gas. No getting sick from people coming in and spreading germs (something of an epidemic right now at my office).

I'm pretty sure at some point I'll be forced to give this up, but man, it's been a fantastic ride so far.

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