If a developer is need on-site because of "crunch time", the timelines were clearly unrealistic. "Crunch time" is code for poor project management.
A Short Rant About Working Remotely
61–70 of 339 posts
Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely
#62Who are you to say they don't understand their own business process and culture well enough to determine that remote employees aren't a fit for them? I've worked with several remote team members, and it's always been frustrating. Why aren't you answering your phone? Why haven't you responded to that email I sent you 5 minutes ago? Are you even at your computer right now? Hello??? Communication is extremely important…
Do you require that local employees be physically visible at all times? What if they need to take a walk to clear their head and focus on the problem at hand? What if they need to go to the bathroom?
Do you require that local employees drop the task they're working on to respond immediately to any question from anyone and completely lose focus on real work just to save you from a minute of reading some documentation?
Either this is an absurd double standard, or your office is a terrible environment for doing any sort of independent focused work (which may well be just fine, if your office doesn't do that sort of thing, but that's what most people who work remotely are going to be doing).
Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely
#63(lightly edited copy of my usual plea for evidence on this topic ;-) Pretty much all the evidence (rather than anecdote) I can find shows that co-located teams in a single team room environment are the most productive - all other things being equal. (And I'm saying this as somebody who spends a lot of their time working from home, and talking to other folk over Skype, etc. There are reasons for telecommuting - person…
co-located teams in team-room like settings are much more productive
Whenever I've seen this done, the very best employees leave. I am a firm believer that you can train yourself to hop in and out of a reasonable facsimile to the "zone" in much less than 20-30 minutes (I do it all the time)[1]; but the level of distraction of the warroom type environment massively favors your more extroverted engineers. My experience has been the engineers I really want to keep, the ones who solve the really hard problems, are much less likely to be in that group.
In short, you may double your productivity for building that CRUD application, but when you have to solve that really hard problem, you may find you don't even have an engineer who is capable.
1. There is a level of concentration, the "real zone" below it that most development doesn't require. However, when it does, the interruptions become catastrophic.
Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely
#64I've been working remotely for 1 year and 3 months. The company I'm working for checks in once a week for about 20 minutes, other than that all communication is done through basecamp. I have to admit it's really hard for me and I just handed in my two weeks notice. I feel so isolated working from home and not being around other co-workers. I miss seing and interacting with other people. I'll be looking for a new job…
> Why do you guys want to work from home? Isn't the isolation during the working hours hard on you?
That depends on the person.
As you grow up, you may prefer to stay close to the ones you love, rather than to the ones you work with. Or you work better alone, with less noise and distractions. Or you realize that wasting 2 hours or more a day commuting for warming up a chair and using an Internet connection doesn't cut it. Or you may just like isolation.
Whatever reason, it's up to the person, and there are quite valid ones. You're doing no harm in leaving if remote working is not for you. In fact, you're doing the right thing.
Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely
#65As someone with Aspergers remote work has been a godsend. I am not nearly as agitated as before. My quirks do not annoy people. I am more productive and my wife says I am happier.
When I worked in an office I used head phones (not buds... big ol' ear covering things) to help and was criticized for wearing them (it made me seem unapproachable). In reality it was to help keep me calm and focused.
At home I face neither the noise issue nor the unapproachable issue.
Remote work may not be for every team but in-office work is not for every person either
Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely
#66Take a manager's perspective - what is the value of him when everyone is doing everything remotely, implying that each manager thinks of himself as a much more valuable than any coder (if not, he probably will realize his helper function, like being a secretary for a programmer) and demands much bigger compensation and bonuses.
Without daily performing his show in an office it will probably much more difficult for him to convince those who distribute money that he is that valuable.)
Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely
#67(lightly edited copy of my usual plea for evidence on this topic ;-) Pretty much all the evidence (rather than anecdote) I can find shows that co-located teams in a single team room environment are the most productive - all other things being equal. (And I'm saying this as somebody who spends a lot of their time working from home, and talking to other folk over Skype, etc. There are reasons for telecommuting - person…
While I agree that it's not as cut-and-dry "driving to an office in an anachronism!" as most on HN would like it to be, you're not going to win any converts by quoting studies from 1972 and 1977.
Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely
#68In general, I totally agree. Being able to hire the best person, anywhere, and allow them to work super-effectively is a strong moat. I share this opinion and hire accordingly. I think the "these companies are wrong" posts, though, are not attempting to see it from the other side. Try to put yourself in the shoes of these startups. In super-super early startups (e.g. pre-profitability or definitely pre-revenue) one o…
I have done and tried to do that very thing.
1. Continuous Integration (and or delivery) This is the sine qua non. Everyone should be able to check out and build a complete working eco system and run all tests on their local laptop or Rackspace cluster you rent just for them
2. Really, get the continuous integration working. Stop now and do nothing else till you have. Tell the dev's remote working is only possible after one month of a CI process that is never broken itself (although build can break). Spurred on, everyone will suddenly get that CI build working.
3. The CEO must build a complete off site copy of the entire company on his remote laptop. Is it getting boring yet.
4. Agree on one place to store all documents, all meeting notes, everything. Do not split comms over IRC and Skype and gmail and ... It will mean no one can reliably contact anyone else because "oh I left you a message on Skype", "but I live on IRC"
5. Get different people to work together on different areas. Pair programming is not ideal IMO, but having Fred write the code for task A and Bob principlaly write the first tests, means they have to talk and decide a solution, and Bob keeps a friendly competitive eye on progess. Move these pairs around a bit.
6. Stop trying to get updates for management - its either working code or not.
7. talk to people a lot. Watch thier checkin velocity - it will speak volumes. Talk if it changes.
8. Assume, perhaps commit visibly, to people as being safe in their jobs for a long time (2 years minimum). This to me seems the biggest - people need to feel safe. Maybve thats just me
Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely
#69I don't agree. Programming remotely is obviously possible. If your day to day job is receiving programming tasks and hack them as quickly as possible, sure, remote is a perfect alternative.
However, in early stage startups, first employees usually have a much wider role. Like founders, they have a bigger say in where the company should move forward, priorize what should be built, hell, even clean the office and make coffee.
Also, never underestimate a good discussion over a coffee, beer or lunch to talk about problems. There's a reason why most of the best ideas are written on a napkin!
Lastly, I might add that when working on a very early stage startup, founders and employees build such a strong relationship and it's hard to achieve that level over remote working.
Again, I'm not saying it's impossible. For instance, founders who already know each others before starting the company may feel comfortable working hard remotely together. And I'm sure there are other cases when it totally makes sense.
Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely
#70It's not always about being productive. If problems start to surface and you're not there talking to those you need to talk to or you're not there to see it for yourself and you do half of all your work by email, then chances are high you're putting everyone's job at risk.