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A Short Rant About Working Remotely

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Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#91

Post by byoung2 »

emp_ wrote: post #23
ZiadHilal wrote: post #5

I'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…

In my case, getting paid $110k/year in a country that pays $40k/year as the cap (and the currency is 2:1). I'm at it for six months and I have a huge family around me -- helps with the isolation. I will jump on a plane friday and work 3 weeks from the beach, and once I feel this remote thing has stabilized I will move to the countryside to about half the cost of living, so in one year going from the local national ma…

That is what appeals to me...the freedom to work from anywhere in the world, especially places with a lower cost of living. But even if I stayed local, it would be nice to just be free from a daily commute and regular hours. Most of the time I'm very productive at 5am-7am and 10pm-2am. My 3 month old daughter is most active between 9am and 5pm, so it would be nice to spend this part of the day with her. I'm still looking for a company that is open to remote work.

Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#92

Post by stephencanon »

varjag wrote: post #83
hkarthik wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I need to ask a teammate a question, I turn my head slightly to the left and ask them. They respond immediately. And then they stand the chance of losing anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour of productivity thanks to your interruption. Part of the reason remote work appeals to so many of us is because we don't deal well with the constant stream of interruptions that occur in many office environments. I don't beli…

If you can't deal with interruptions, maybe teamwork is not for you. I agree that it's distracting and irritating at times, but that's the nature of working with other people.

Most people believe they are able to deal with interruptions. Very few people are actually able to do so in an even remotely efficient manner.

Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#94

Post by moneypenny »

varjag wrote: post #83
hkarthik wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I need to ask a teammate a question, I turn my head slightly to the left and ask them. They respond immediately. And then they stand the chance of losing anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour of productivity thanks to your interruption. Part of the reason remote work appeals to so many of us is because we don't deal well with the constant stream of interruptions that occur in many office environments. I don't beli…

If you can't deal with interruptions, maybe teamwork is not for you. I agree that it's distracting and irritating at times, but that's the nature of working with other people.

Absolutely - anyone wandering into one of these opinion articles/discussions would think that developers are a self-centred bunch of arseholes whose productivity is the most important thing in the entire universe, and isolation/concentration is critical. Even brain surgeons need to collaborate and operate - literally - in conjunction with other people.

Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#95

Post by ephoz »

obviouslygreen wrote: post #34
cracell wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that depends on your process and team culture. My current team is remote and we aren't fragmented. For most remote teams all it seems to take is a daily status meeting and a chat room.

Agreed. I can definitely see how a team that's used to working in physical proximity would need time and good direction to get used to such a drastic change in methods and environment, but that's simply a matter of acclimation, not an indictment of remote engagement.

We've been experimenting with remote workers for the last two years or so. Our team was used to work in the same place (in Paris), so it took a little bit of time to get used to, as we tried different ideas. Now it works really well with phone/video conferences, trello boards, github, remote pairing, and a (few) permanent chat rooms (thank you Freenode I think the biggest complaint is that the offices sometimes feel empty to those who chose to work "on site". My take on this is "let's get smaller office space". Plus it costs less. :)

Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#96

Post by moneypenny »

varjag wrote: post #83
hkarthik wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I need to ask a teammate a question, I turn my head slightly to the left and ask them. They respond immediately. And then they stand the chance of losing anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour of productivity thanks to your interruption. Part of the reason remote work appeals to so many of us is because we don't deal well with the constant stream of interruptions that occur in many office environments. I don't beli…

If you can't deal with interruptions, maybe teamwork is not for you. I agree that it's distracting and irritating at times, but that's the nature of working with other people.

Absolutely agree - anyone wandering into one of these opinion articles/discussions would think that developers are a self-centred bunch of arseholes whose productivity is the most important thing in the entire universe, and isolation/concentration is critical. Even brain surgeons need to collaborate and operate - literally - in conjunction with other people.

Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#98

Post by ignostic »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #63
adrianhoward wrote: post #43

(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…

When it comes down to research vs. your subjective experience influenced by your personal preference and opinion, why would I put more stock in the later?

Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#99

Post by Irregardless »

jaggederest wrote: post #79
Irregardless wrote: post #33

Who 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…

> 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??? You're confusing people who are bad at communication with working remotely being bad . Maybe you've never worked in an office environment with someone who has the same issues, but they're by no means alleviated merely by having their ass in a particular chair. > Or…

> From the employee point of view: Is your business so special I should sell my house, pull my kids out of school, and move so I can work for it? Do you really want to pay me the 50% pay differential I'd need in order to live in your higher-cost-of-living and lower-quality-of-life area? Is your (presumably internet-focused) company so incompetent it can't manage to use the same systems that we use in our day to day work and life to communicate?

People make those choices knowing it limits their career options. Since when are companies expected to accomodate every lifestyle and location employees might desire? That's pretty self-centered.

> Completely laughable. Do you have closed circuit TV recordings of everywhere in the office?

Why would you need closed circuit TV for team members who are all sitting in an office together? Is there something difficult to understand about tying to create an on-site presence for a remote employee? There are companies that already do it.

Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#100

Post by darkarmani »

pc86 wrote: post #73
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Most importantly, not every project (nor startup, nor business) needs "the very best" engineers. Not every startup is changing the world, and even among the ones that are I'm sure you can pick out a few that aren't solving massively complex technical challenges that will be discussed in lecture halls for decades. The majority of good startups are just making money (sometimes not even that) until they get acquired. Se…

I don't think extroverted helps in a disruptive team war room. Most "collaboration" is someone interrupting to ask a question they could have asked in email and waited for an answer.
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