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Jason Fried reminds me of Ken Lay of Enron. He needs to be grounded. I work from home. Coming into the office: after weeks and weeks, I develop a pattern. It's

Jason Fried reminds me of Ken Lay of Enron. He needs to be grounded. I work from home. Coming into the office: after weeks and weeks, I develop a pattern. It's extremely different than my first week at work. My first week coming in to the office, I'm extremely punctual: I clock in at 10, and out at 6. I spend a good amount of my day interfacing with my Project Manager, talking to my fellow programmers, taking smoke breaks with them. Call of Duty, and NERF fights break out irregularly Working from home: after weeks and weeks, I develop a pattern. I wake up early, 6 or 7, and start in on work or go to the gym. I may have four hours of uninterrupted work time before work "officially" starts. Maximum efficiency without interruption. I can "come in to work early" - 3-4 hours early - without feeling like I'm being taken advantage of, because I may stop working earlier than normal work hours. I usually don't, though -- my typical work weeks clock in at over 50 hours, and I'm the better for it. I'm learning when other people are sleeping. I always ask my project manager and my director what's going on for the rest of the day to ensure I'm working when everyone else expects me to be. I have some flexibility in my schedule, and I try really hard to not abuse it. I give as much warning as I can that I'll be away from my computer. I took no days off from work last year except when I had to travel to SXSW because I was nominated for a web award and for when I had to have surgery/recovery for cancer. iChat or Skype with video can easily solve the body language issue. "Emoticons" as horrid as they are, are invaluable in communication. Exclamation points, too. As outside my comfortability zone as it is, this statement: "No problem kicking it out before Monday! :)" communicates my situation far better than "I can deliver by Monday" does. Really, I don't mind putting in a few more hours over the weekend to ensure the project launches, but there's no way to communicate that without facial expressions or emoticons, so abuse the shit out of both.

deleted 17y ago
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andrewcooke 17y ago
Yeah. I think the difference here (you are similar to me, in some ways, but I prefer working "normal" hours at home) is that you (we) appreciate being able to work from home and invest the time and energy into making it work as well as possible for the client / company. That the employees in this post aren't doing that - or aren't perceived to be doing that - is worrying. But then isn't the author the same control freak guy who was micro-managaging in a previous post? I suspect there's a company culture centred around following the letter of his instructions rather than actually thinking.
bmj 17y ago
My schedule is very similar to yours. I go to the office 3-4 days a week (and work 7-8 hours there each day), and work from home 1-2 days (I've done stretches of several weeks out of the office because of extenuating circumstances, however). When working from home, I start early, work a few hours before my kids wake up, spend an hour or so with them, then go to our home office for the remainder of the work day. Those early hours are the most productive by far. Communication is key. Of course, my team is split between two offices, one in PA and the other in California, so we're used to communicating on the phone or via Skype. My desk phone is also forwarded on days I work from home, so if I'm keeping early hours, a team member can get in touch with me if necessary. In three years, however, I've never been called after 5:00 PM.

deleted 17y ago

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andrewcooke 17y ago

Yeah. I think the difference here (you are similar to me, in some ways, but I prefer working "normal" hours at home) is that you (we) appreciate being able to work from home and invest the time and energy into making it work as well as possible for the client / company. That the employees in this post aren't doing that - or aren't perceived to be doing that - is worrying. But then isn't the author the same control freak guy who was micro-managaging in a previous post? I suspect there's a company culture centred around following the letter of his instructions rather than actually thinking.

bmj 17y ago

My schedule is very similar to yours. I go to the office 3-4 days a week (and work 7-8 hours there each day), and work from home 1-2 days (I've done stretches of several weeks out of the office because of extenuating circumstances, however). When working from home, I start early, work a few hours before my kids wake up, spend an hour or so with them, then go to our home office for the remainder of the work day. Those early hours are the most productive by far. Communication is key. Of course, my team is split between two offices, one in PA and the other in California, so we're used to communicating on the phone or via Skype. My desk phone is also forwarded on days I work from home, so if I'm keeping early hours, a team member can get in touch with me if necessary. In three years, however, I've never been called after 5:00 PM.