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Remote working – Bringing sanity to mind and lessons worth learning

• fendy3002 7y ago
  Is remote overtime that bad? I guess I'll consent to put work at 10 hours a day (1 hour break included), in exchange of 1 hour commute time. I wanna try remote working, wonder how it'll goes through.
  • bunderbunder 7y ago
    Personally, I tend to work much longer hours when I'm remote. Some of that is that the commute is shorter, so I can start work earlier and stop it later without while keeping the same amount of time at home. Some of that is that my lunch breaks are typically much shorter. I don't have to take time to go to a restaurant if I fail to pack a lunch in the morning, and I'm much less likely to spend a while after lunch just chit-chatting with my colleagues. A big part of it is that I just don't mind working longer hours when I'm remote, because the experience of working is more pleasurable - fewer distractions, I can listen to music without headphones, the lighting is much more pleasant (I made sure to give myself a window office at home), the people furnishing my home office were kind enough to buy me a chair that doesn't make my back ache, etc. etc. At an office, when the end of the day rolls around, I can't wait to get out of there. Working remotely, I'd rather finish up whatever I was in the middle of before shoving off for the day.
    • Scarblac 7y ago
      I assume you don't have a wife and kids around your home office? Because in my experience it's much harder to train them to let me concentrate than colleagues.
      • malvosenior 7y ago
        The opposite for me. You can tell your child to be quiet and respect your space. It’s a political gamble to tell the VP Sales that taking calls all day next to your desk is impacting your ability to focus. Also, get a locking door for your home office. Kids will learn that locked door == parent is working.
        • bunderbunder 7y ago
          Doesn't even have to be locking, just closing. The general convention at our house is that closed door means "send me a text message or ask the other parent", open door means, "sure, come say hi". It's been a day or two since I've had a closing door at a co-located office, so I'm not used to being able to implement such a policy in that kind of work environment. (I'd also add that there's no quicker way to recharge your batteries than to pop out of the office to spend 10 minutes building a block tower or whatever with your kids. 14/10 much more effective than bitching about work with your colleagues in the office kitchenette.)
  • gilbetron 7y ago
    It really depends on the company; the culture is a huge issue. Be wary of any company where remote workers are not a big percentage of the employees - it will be a constant, up-hill battle against negative perception. Even the best companies, against their best intentions, will tend to view equivalent remote employees as more negative than their local counterparts. It's just human nature to place people we can see and easily interact with as more important than those "others". I think a good chunk of that goes away once established, and everyone knows you, but even then I think there's a stead decay in your reputation that you need to fight against. As for the personal effects of remote work, I find them almost entirely awesome, but I have a wife and son that I can interact with, but who are also out of the house during the day. You get to schedule your day more in your liking. I'm more productive first thing in the morning, and then once again in late evening. In the afternoon, I prefer to get up and move around more, as I get sleepy. Plus, you can generally live a heathier life, as you can go for walks, exercise, do chores, etc. when you are having lulls in productivity. I'm back to a local company now, and switching from local to remote to local has definitely highlighted a lot of the differences. It's sooo much easier to maintain perception when you are local; if your manager or others have concerns you can see it and chat with them about things quickly and easily. My local boss knows why things might be taking longer, because I'm talking to him, intermittently every day. It's also easier to come up to speed when working locally, a 15 minute face-to-face talk is easily worth an hour of remote slack/video chatting. Not to mention that text chats (even with slack) tends to suffer a lot more from misreads and misunderstandings of intentions. If you and I meet in the morning and I see you are cranky because you were dealing with your upset toddler all morning, I'm probably going to commiserate with you a bit before asking you tech questions, or I might skip them for now. Over Slack, I don't know that, and so I'm likely going to accidentally bug you and you, against your best desires, are going to respond more curtly, which will rub me the wrong way, then suddenly everything is more negative. Definitely, the best way to do remote is to either know your boss ahead of time, or do local work for a while (months) and then transition to remote. Then the trust is built up, the tech transfer has largely happened, and generally everyone gets to know each other better first. But when it works, I find it awesome.
    • paulkon 7y ago
      Have any other tips on how to fight the decay in reputation while working remote? I would consider the largest risk with remote work to be "out of sight, out of mind" for consideration of promotions or even job referrals by colleagues. I very much have the personality for remote work and largely like to figure out things on my own but the drawbacks feel significant enough to keep me in the office for now...
  • C1sc0cat 7y ago
    Why? 1 your reducing your effective hourly rate - and presumably your salary is less for remote. 2 It Development is a salaried role so you in theory have no fixed hours.
    • fendy3002 7y ago
      Because I prefer it rather than commuting. On the other hand, I believe that my effective working hour shall be unchanged (ex: 4 hours a day for usual programmer). The rest (additional hour) shall be filled with analysis, discussion or chit chat beside taking short breaks during working hours. Don't know though, haven't done any remote working.
      • C1sc0cat 7y ago
        Well I work locally as opposed to commuting to London I don't work extra hours locally for free because of that.
  • maxxxxx 7y ago
    I think consenting explicitly to a 10 hour day would be a mistake. Remote work shouldn’t be a privilege you pay for with more work. When I work from home I generally set a goal to finish something that day. If it takes longer than 8 hours I’ll do overtime but if I am done at 2 pm I may also call it a day.
    • isostatic 7y ago
      I tend to take time off during the day. I find my most productive time is usually around 18-21, so I’ll work 10-15 and 19-21
      • onemoresoop 7y ago
        I agree. Enforcing on your personal productive hours can be a good thing for remote work. In the office you have to force yourself to get into the zone which sometimes could prove impossible: noise, meetings, etc.
  • no1youknowz 7y ago
    I work from home. My schedule is:- 6.50am wake up 7.00am start work 12.00pm lunch 1.00pm start work 5.00pm dinner 6.00pm start work 9.45pm get ready for bed 10.00pm sleep I don't have any distractions (except the occasional quick read of HN, when I need a short mental break), don't own a tv, no kids, wear the same clothes, I eat the same meals daily and I wear headphones and listen to music. I'll do this for 90 days and then relax on the schedule somewhat and then repeat for another 90 days. Let me tell you. It's actually quite interesting on what you can accomplish with 13 hours of work (91 hours a week) available to you. Elon has it right. In a compound interest sort of way, what you can achieve in 90 days (with this schedule) is akin to someone else taking 6 months or more to do the same. Of course it means no social life. But that's for later on.
    • SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
      How long have you been doing this? And I'm confused on what you mean by "Of course it means no social life. But that's for later on." - Do you have a spouse or significant other? Do you not think that having social interactions are important at all points in life?
      • notfromhere 7y ago
        This whole schedule is super bleak and reads like an intro to a dystopian novel
    • brutally-honest 7y ago
      Then one day you're crossing the street, someone on a car can't see you behind their A pillar, and this was all for nothing =/ Life is happening right now, not later on. Vision acuity, muscle tenacity, disposition, hell, even liver performance – these won't wait for you :-) What are you working for, actually?
    • yitchelle 7y ago
      Just curious how long you were able to maintain this routine for? Personally, I would only last for about 1 week on this type of routine, and my body and family life would just fail on me. Not something I personally wish to put at risk.
  • meheleventyone 7y ago
    I've been working remotely for about nine months now and use my kids kindergarten schedule as my hard stop so don't accidentally overwork. Other peoples experiences might be different but I think guarding my work/life balance is much easier working remotely.
• marktangotango 7y ago
  I personally haven’t experienced any of these issues with remote work, but then I had many years of experience before my first remote position, as senior and often lead. I was the type to seldom seek help, but was often the one sought out for help. My theory is the more one is accostomed to working on their own, even in an office, the easier it is to work fully remote successfully. Has anyone else experienced this?
  • danielkempe 7y ago
    I agree, I personally have no issue with working from home but both like my own company and am used to self motivating. I can imagine if you'd worked from an office for years then moved to remote work, you'd find it hard.
  • malvosenior 7y ago
    I’m the same. I much prefer working from home and don’t suffer from the issues in this post. I think aside from having a personality well suited to remote work, my experience being an entrepreneur helps a lot. Nothing is more isolating than being a sole founder in my opinion. Working remote with a team is more than enough interaction for me. When I’m working in an office a lot of my time gets eaten in meetings that more often than not didn’t need to happen. Remote work forces the whole team to be more disciplined in how the work/time is structured. I will say this advice seems highly tuned to a different generation than mine. I really don’t want my company talking to me about “self care” or playing weird slack games (slack itself is great for remote though).
  • maxxxxx 7y ago
    I agree that remote work needs a certain personality type. You need to be self sufficient but also be willing to reach out proactively when you have problems and not keep struggling in silence as I have seen before. This is a difficult balance for some people. As far as depression and anxiety goes I get that from my current job sitting in a cube with constant noise and interruption. I feel it’s starting to really impact my mental health negatively. In the end i don’t think remote work is for everybody. Some people will thrive with it and some people will thrive in an office. It’s good to know which you are.
• icxa 7y ago
  The poll asks what is most important to you, and they failed to leave out salary and other more obvious ones as one of the options. It would be a much more sound poll if it was framed as "Among these options, which one is the most important when looking for a new job"
  • sidlls 7y ago
    In the US it's generally frowned upon to acknowledge one considers salary a very important factor, unless one is at the top of the hierarchy. There's a reason "passionate" and "mission driven" are memes in the hiring landscape here.
• ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  Please tell that to the European employers. Most, especially in the German speaking part of Europe, are still run like factories, barely have flexible working hours and don't even want to hear about remote work as managers prefer having a close eye on employees at all time.
  • ElKrist 7y ago
    Same feeling here in France. I get 3-4 opportunities for freelance work per week in the Paris region. I couldn't find any proposing full remote work (not just one day per week) after searching for 2 months The funny thing is that now I work remotely for a German company from France
    • erdo 7y ago
      Slightly at a tangent, and I hope you don't mind me asking: I moved to Paris last month and the freelancing opportunities seem to be a lot less plentiful than in London (android developer), do you look anywhere specific? I'm on freelance-info.fr and linkedin only
      • ElKrist 7y ago
        I started on Malt. I get most offers through Linkedin now. I also worked with intermediaries (consultime, digital & you). They can be old-fashioned and you have to negotiate well with them but they're almost necessary if you want to work for big corps. Send them your resume or try to find a recruiter through LinkedIn. There are other platforms like Malt: Comet (I haven't worked there though) and others that I can't remember right now..
        • erdo 7y ago
          Nice one! Thanks for the tips. I've got the furthest with a company called iD.Apps who seem pretty solid (and obviously focussed on mobile apps). But I hadn't heard of Malt, I'll register tonight and send my CV to the others too, cheers.
• PopeDotNinja 7y ago
  The problem with remote work is working for a team that hasn't committed to making remote work tenable. It's too easy to miss out on whiteboard sessions & hallway conversations, and resentment by people who don't like making special accommodations for remote workers definitely happens.
  • maxxxxx 7y ago
    In general the recommendation is that it’s best to have everyone remote. Mixed teams usually don’t work well.
    • arethuza 7y ago
      I work in a company where there is a mix between people who are always in the office, some who work 2 or 3 days at home (like me) and others who are mostly remote. Seems to work pretty well - so it's certainly possible.
      • sailfast 7y ago
        It's definitely possible - I would say that to be most successful you want to behave like everyone is remote all the time, which means remote access to meetings, not whiteboarding and leaving somebody out because they're remote, etc, and bringing in remote folks when in-person really matters. Otherwise you'll eventually get silos depending on people's locations. That can work too if they're all kinda grouped in terms of work function but it's not as ideal as "treat everyone remote" for sharing information and productivity.
      • iNate2000 7y ago
        The key for my team was a "remote-first" mindset. First, check on chat or e-mail. Then, if that doesn't work, head over to their desk to see if they're there. (+1 to me for getting "their", "they're", "there" right on the first try!)
        • arethuza 7y ago
• eequah9L 7y ago
  I suspect that asking about "experiencing negative aftereffects of remote work" just means that people who think that their work life sucks and happen to be remotees are going to say "yes". I want to see the numbers for "negative aftereffects of on-site work".
• xfitm3 7y ago
  Your manager makes all the difference. Having a remote manager is the key.
• breatheoften 7y ago
  I just started a new remote position. I worked remotely in previous job as well and discovered then that working from home is not actually a good thing for me. I eventually worked exclusively from coffee shops but this isn’t exactly the best way to work everyday — expensive, drink LOTS of coffee, and coffee shops generally make it harder to find flow state, not impossible but just harder. That previous job was contract work for an enterprise — not super inspiring, lots of structural annoyances in the team that created barriers to getting things done, and team a setup that didn’t quite put remote workers on the same level as the inhouse team members. Even with all the annoyances I found when working from home I had a lot of trouble “stopping” — it felt like I was always at work. Switching to the coffee shops was definitely better, but with my role on new team (startup and fully remote team — it’s aweskme!) I decided to try out a coworking space. Got a reserved desk at a WeWork walking distance from home and really like the experience so far! Short walk to work, sort of a community feeling at the office (well haven’t made any friends Yet but it at least seems possible to), master of my own space, and whenever I want I can choose to work from a coffee shop or wherever seems convenient ... Best of all worlds so far!
  • luciaf 7y ago
    Different things work for different people, but I'm also a fan of coworking spaces. I like having the social interaction, but also the knowledge that I have a guaranteed workspace, fast WiFi, power points, etc. However, I do think a lot of big coworking chains like WeWork are in danger of morphing into the corporate offices remote working is supposed to offer an alternative to. In London, I'm seeing a lot of places spring up that are more of a hybrid between a coworking space and social space e.g. private members clubs or some restaurants and bars offering a hotdesking membership. There are also a lot of new apps where you can book a space at venues with low footfall in the day. I think it's a really exciting movement to be part of!
  • ilikehurdles 7y ago
    I want to be at a coworking space, but WeWork is pricey for my situation. A hot desk (not reserved) at my local WeWork is over $4k a year. If that cost were subsidized by my company I might use it, but it's a significant salary hit otherwise. Additionally, it's still a very loud workspace to work in. Even with daily food/drink costs, I spend well under that at the coffee shop.
• asdfman123 7y ago
  > We tend to think of mental health disorders as something that happens to others Oh, that's hilarious. I certainly don't.
• kaiju0 7y ago
  The number one request by a huge margin was put forward. Then the first thing mentioned is the dangers of remote work. Seems an odd tack to take. That being said I really like remote work. But you have to be proactive in your role to be successful. I've found the main danger to be manager changes. The previous manager accepted and worked with remote personnel. The new one does not like it so they create a situation. Then solve it by canceling the remote program. I'm pretty sure this is where most of the negativity comes from.
  • sailfast 7y ago
    Manager changes are often indicative of what I perceive to be the biggest issue: cultural attitudes towards people that are not in the office. If the organization understands that you're a full participant and they don't blink when you say you're remote, that's great and will lead to success. If, however, you're perceived to be tele-shirking or "wink wink remote working" because of the company culture it will be a big issue. I would say this could be resolved by some focused in-person time to talk about norms and how to collaborate and share success, but it takes a good manager to do this. If the manager wants butts in seats and remote is not a company-wide norm, then that may be what you're left with, unfortunately.
    • iamatworknow 7y ago
      Going through this myself right now. I joined my company as just the third developer on the team almost a decade ago, working directly under the owner. A year ago when we were up to ~15 developers I decided to move to a different state and go full remote, with the owner's blessing. Since then two more layers of management were inserted between me and the owner and communication has all but broken down. I like the company and I like working remotely, but it may be time for a change soon because of this.
  • samastur 7y ago
    I agree as I've seen this happen too many times. In future I plan to apply only for positions in companies where remote work is not optional (no offices).
  • 7y ago
• k0mmand0c0z 7y ago
  and water is wet...
• jackcosgrove 7y ago
  I know everyone is different, and noisy offices can be disruptive to some, but I can't help think that an ulterior motive with working from home is working less. Maybe work from home will be how we reduce the workweek to account for the diminishing need for work.
  • skywhopper 7y ago
    There are certainly people who don't do well working at home, and people who try to take advantage, but as you say, everyone is different. If anything I work more when I don't work out of an office. Not only do I spend more time at my computer--since my office setup is handy at all times of day and on the weekends--but I feel more productive while I'm doing it. For example, at the office, if I feel unmotivated (or stressed out/distracted by the noise/chatter/other people), my only real options for a context switch are to take a walk, or get a snack or coffee, none of which really gets me going again... But at home I can easily go downstairs and accomplish something like washing the dishes or a load of laundry, which gets my mind back in the right space of accomplishing tasks. And if I'm doing that and something comes up, I'm 10 seconds away from my desk and I can be back working much faster than if I were 10 minutes away at the coffee shop.
  • Strom 7y ago
    Eliminating dead time is definitely part of it. However if a thinking based worker doesn't feel like working, it doesn't matter if they're sitting at an office. There's no way to verify whether they're thinking about a work related problem or thinking about their vacation plans. On top of that, in a lot of cases people can get away even with just blatant non-working like reading Hacker News on their work computer. Thus it's always about trust anyway. It doesn't matter much where the worker physically is. Additionally, it's results not methods that should be managed. You want to set goals for your workers and see how they progress. Whether they achieve those goals sitting at an office or by outsouring their work to their little nephew while playing video games, it shouldn't really matter. Ultimately what matters is if the goals are achieved, as that's why you're paying the person -- not because you want them to physically be doing some specific activity.
  • rofo1 7y ago
• jmkni 7y ago
  I have learned the hard way that I am not good at remote work. I recognize that I'm in the minority here, but I actually need to get up, have a shower, leave my flat and go into an office with people for my mental health. I have zero issue with other people working remotely, in fact I envy them.
  • phatbyte 7y ago
    Have you tried a co-working space? For me it helped me a lot
  • qwerty123456aa 7y ago
    Sounds like your only social life is from work.
    • jmkni 7y ago
      It's not even that, it's like I mentally have trouble kick-starting my day without going through that routine of having a shower, brushing my teeth, leaving the flat. When WFH, some days I am no further along at 3pm than I was at 9pm, then come the deadlines. Definitely something I wish I had figured out years earlier.
      • theNJR 7y ago
        It is beyond critical that you keep your routine! Remote or not. Wake up, gym, shower, etc.
    • jzoch 7y ago
      I feel the same as op and struggle to work from home but my social life is plenty active outside work. I would describe it more like a preference to not have a TV in your bedroom. It helps to have that separation. The suggestion to try a coworking space is maybe a good one because I know many friends that are fine waking up and working in pajamas but I have to shower and leave the house to feel good about my headspace
  • beams_of_light 7y ago
• gedy 7y ago
  A lot of the comments seem to be about remote work as some preference or something; the biggest driver I’ve seen though, however, is that housing is unaffordable near the office. Remote work makes housing more affordable for many folks. It also seems like it skews towards older folks, likely due to having families and children needing more room and better schools.
  • nwalker85 7y ago
    This. Rent for an efficiency apartment within walking distance of my work is 4k a month. I rent a 3 bedroom house 40 minutes away for 1400. The ability to work remotely helps keep costs down significantly.
    • gedy 7y ago
      Yes it's insane. I save about $30k+ on housing costs working remote and am still in California.
  • luciaf 7y ago
    This is a really good point! Remote work has massive socio-political implications. Really enjoyed discussing this aspect of remote work in this podcast interview with Liam Martin, founder of Running Remote: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/s2-e10-liam-martin/id1314807564?i=1000432521999 https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/s2-e10-liam-martin/id1...
  • ilaksh 7y ago
    I work for a startup that does not have funding. I moved from socal to Tijuana and my cost of living is about 40-60% less. I could not continue working on this startup without being remote.
  • elindbe2 7y ago
    But on the other hand you have to wonder about the greater social implications down the line. The invention of the car was great at first. It allowed people to get where they wanted to go faster. But as it was adopted more and more heavily, we ended up with traffic and sprawl that mean people have to spend more of their time commuting than before. I wonder if something analogous would happen with remote work. If more companies go the remote route, wouldn't we expect them to favor employees in cheap locations that will accept less pay for the same work? And if that's the case, wouldn't more and more families be forced out of more expensive locations, even those who could afford to live there before? In other words, remote work has the possibility to exacerbate the very problems that it seeks to fix.
• burlesona 7y ago
  Both Remote work and office work can be really great for certain people at certain times. When I was younger I was full-time remote for more than five years, and at the time I enjoyed it. There was some difficulty separating work from life when it all happened in one apartment, but overall it was a good fit. Then I had kids, and that distinction became much harder. Little children have a really hard time understanding that mom or dad is right there in the other room but can’t play now. At that point moving to an office job became a really nice change. As a hiring manager, what I’ve found is that there aren’t so many people who truly want to work from home all the time. Rather, what most people want is flexibility and compromise. For example: - “I want to work from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I can easily pick my kids up from pre-school over my lunch break.” - “I want to live in (insert almost any city here) where I grew up and have roots, but there aren’t many good jobs.” Or the similar variation, “I want to live in (place that is very cheap or pretty or both)...” - “My wife and I want to be able to visit both sides of our family that live far away, and the logistics would be a lot easier if I could work remotely for a week here and there to make that work, rather than need 3 extra weeks of vacation.” The best thing about remote is that all that flexibility and freedom is just built into the job, and in my experience it’s easier to find a full-remote job than an office job with comparable flexibility. The downside is you don’t get the fun and energizing environment of working with neat, smart people in person, nor the work/life separation that many people find very helpful. I think most people’s stated preference just reflects which one of those is more important to them in their present circumstances.
  • brogrammernot 7y ago
    This times a hundred thousand percent. I’m battling this hard right now at my workplace, some of my developers live a good 45 min drive from work and that’s just insane to ask them to be in their car for 7.5 hours/week. So what did I do? I went “against” the company policy and had each of my team members work at least 1 day a week from home, now they’re up to 2-3 days depending on the week (humorous part is during the summer they’re in the office more cause it’s more quiet than home cause their kids are out for the summer lol) So we’re still a “work from office” company but I run our team how I want and surprise - zero attrition in 3 years on my team, we meet most of our commitments, developer happiness/engagement is up on my team, our time to first response for production issues is great and all because of a mutual understanding that regardless of the “rules” I’ll take care of my guys/gals.
• DanielleMolloy 7y ago
  The optimal situation for me is having the freedom to decide whether it makes sense to be at the office for meetings, technical discussions, ideas; or whether I need full uninterrupted focus which is easier to achieve at home (without building closing times, commuting, and with the choice to work late into the night). I think purely remote work would make me feel very self-centered and disconnected (even though I'm leaning towards the introvert spectrum).
• vpmpaul 7y ago
  I think there is a sort of subconscious push for this that not everyone attributes. In tech work if you are at an office you tend to get "dump trucked" work even if it is not your domain or responsibility. "I gave it to you its yours now figure it out" The reality is bad management is the rule rather than the exception in most of the world. If you are home you are "out of sight out of mind" for MBWA(management by walking around)managers. At the very least it requires a manager to stop think before just running over and screaming we need this done today type stuff.
• mattferderer 7y ago
  Working remote is great but still requires a quality company for it to be enjoyable. Meetings should be treated like everyone is remote. If people attend from their desk, these tend to work out better & you avoid unintentional things that make it difficult for remote employees to attend. Having the majority of conversations done via e-mail or a chat tool & properly documented in something like OneNote or Evernote or a project management tool goes a long way in keeping everyone on the same page as well. This is good for non-remote teams as well. Allowing flexibility in time & location goes a long way in making happy employees in my experience. It shows you trust them to get the work done. Sure, some people will abuse it but those aren't people you want on your team anyways. As stated by others, being a remote worker doesn't mean you need to be a hermit either. There are tons of ways to still go out & socialize with people. Even on remote teams, I still find a good chunk of my day is socializing via video chat meetings where someone is bound to go off topic. People also login early & chat about life.
  • pmiller2 7y ago
    Which “things that make it unintentionally difficult to attend” meetings for remote people are you referring to?
    • alistairSH 7y ago
      Tools/Tech: Poor teleconference tool. Low quality headphones/microphones. Low quality or no web cams. Process: Failure to auto-mute attendees when they join meeting Failure to actively manage mute during the meeting (some nitwit always starts eating potato chips). Failure to ensure mics are well placed in conference rooms.
      • theNJR 7y ago
        Do you have any sort of written out process for managing this? These are all spot on, and I think a literal manual for new remote employees would be helpful.
        • 7y ago
• dekhn 7y ago
  I would love to work remotely- I am already productive when working from home on a big monitor in a quiet room- but I always worry that eventually I'd become decoupled from my coworkers and isolated. Also there are many things at my startup where we really all need to be in the same place to make a decision- I don't think slack or other chat apps can really replace the high bandwidth in person discussions for important decision making.
• siffland 7y ago
  Last contract i was on everyone was remote. I ended up driving in everyday to work on the systems because i was one of 3 people who lived in the same city as the systems. I could hardly ever get ahold of anyone. They would just not be there. Come to find out most would only work the 4 core hours (10-2 CST) we were required, then "work" after hours when no one was online. We lost the contract. Remote CAN work and work well, you just need management in place to keep the ducks in line.
• cracauer 7y ago
  I wonder how much of this doesn't actually have to do with the home, but rather office conditions: - open seating and/or highly sound-reflective surfaces - unfixable A/C and/or drafts and/or allergens - all methods of transportation to the place where the office is are unsupported (e.g. Cambridge, MA) - jerks cruising the office - unwanted attention not or only pretentiously connected to work
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • kwhitefoot 7y ago
    That can all easily be fixed. I'm currently working on a short term job at Statnett in Oslo. The office is all open plan but there are loads of small sound proofed rooms of various sizes that you can use for a work conversation. It's frowned upon to have a long or loud conversation at your desk. You just pick up your laptop and go to a little conference room. Some are just big enough for three people but they all have a big screen and conferencing tools. Each floor also has an area where you can relax with a cup of tea or coffee and read the newspaper. Desks are all motorised so you can adjust the height and use them standing if you like, the desks are not personal although those who work most of the time in the office do use the same desk all the time. The environment is quiet, the temperature is pleasant, there are automatic blinds on the windows shut out the sun when it is too strong. For me it works really well. If I have a meeting then I go in early, find a desk and work, go to the meeting, back to the desk and do some work, then finish the day just as though it was an ordinary office day. But I agree, there are plenty of places (I've worked in some) where all of your negative office conditions apply.
    • joncrane 7y ago
      Sidetrack: do you know how hard/easy is it for a United Statesian to get a job in Norway? It's kind of a dream of mine to live and work in Norway for a while.
      • kwhitefoot 7y ago
• drngdds 7y ago
  I wouldn't want to work 100% remotely, mostly because of the loneliness they talk about. But I would probably take it over my current situation of working in an open office 100% of the time, because open offices are a special level of hell for anyone with attention issues or sensory sensitivities. Also, do people actually think "infinite vacation" is a perk? I like having a fixed number of vacation days that I can take without question or explanation.
  • mac01021 7y ago
    > do people actually think "infinite vacation" is a perk? I like having a fixed number of vacation days that I can take without question or explanation. It really depends on your manager and what the fixed number is going to be. At my last job, I had "infinite" and my boss let me take six weeks over the course of a year. At my current job, my boss would love to let me take 6 weeks (or more), but the giant behemoth of a company sets the limit at 3 weeks (but I get another week if I stay in my job for 10 years).
  • bluntfang 7y ago
    The loneliness is real. I've been combatting the loneliness a few ways. I think it's important that if you are working remote, you don't have 8 hours of "butt in seat" time. If the expectations are that you need a butt in a seat for 8 hour stretches, then you probably work for a company that has a bad remote work culture. 1. make lunch plans with friends and peers. 2. go to networking meetups 3. personal development unrelated to work. take a class. start a garden, build something at home. Go to the park. Take extra walks. go to the grocery store. Do things that are really annoying to do outside of normal work hours. I don't think I'm a cliche software dev. I don't like sitting in my cave all day. I don't play video games. I don't watch much TV. It's really important for me to get human interaction beyond the workplace. I find that as a possible introverted extrovert, working in an office sapped my social energies and I wasn't able to socialize outside of work. As a remote worker, all of my socialization is on my terms. I get to devote my energy into people that I desire to be around, while before my energy was getting drained by small track from folks, while nice people, were not people I wanted to spend my limited energy on.
• erdo 7y ago
  Is it that people love remote working, or that they hate commuting? I would prefer a 20 min commute on a clean train, to a nice office than remote working (and I did have that on an Amsterdam based contract). But an hour plus drive to an industrial estate in the middle of nowhere - I'd maybe push for a remote option.
  • jriot 7y ago
    I am a data scientist with little to nothing in common with my colleagues (particularly on the engineering side), outside of us working for the same company. I'd rather spend my time with my wife and kids, pursuing my hobbies, and generally being outdoors. Not having to commute or waste hours pretending to be interested in my colleague's lives outside of work is a huge benefit. Side conversations occurring at the office which are beneficial are a rare occurrence - put more specifically, I am willing to risk missing out on in office perks to benefit my own life. When I hit my financial number, I won't write code, conduct analysis or do anything near a computer screen again.
    • erdo 7y ago
      This made me chuckle, all power to you! How many of us would work in our current role if money were genuinely no object - in reality there are far more rewarding things to be doing with our limited time on this planet.
      • jriot 7y ago
        I thought our (you and me) mindset was normal, that if money weren't an issue no would work, but I have been mistaken many times. I am not sure if people don't have interests outside of their work, or their work is their interests but it seems many people would continue working if financially secure.
  • clarry 7y ago
    Introvert here. Just being around people is usually straining. I guess I also suffer some kind of social anxiety or whateverthehellitis. It's difficult to relax and focus with people around. When I commuted, the commute was the best part of the day because I got to relax and sit alone in my car. Stepping out of the car at the company parking lot was always nauseating. That said I'm still glad I needn't commute anymore. Life is short, I will die. I feel like I can do better with my life than spend it sitting in a car.
• badatshipping 7y ago
  The biggest benefit of remote work is that it directly rewards productivity. At an office if you finish your work early you can’t just go home; you’re expected to do more work. With remote work, if you finish in 2 hours what takes other people your rank 8, you can stockpile commits and just take the day off.
  • rofo1 7y ago
    I don't like your reasoning. I think it's selfish. You can always help out for the duration that you are paid for, regardless of tempo. There's almost always work to be done - cleaning up code, commenting, refactoring, documentation (api/sdk usage, help), cleaning up tasks, responding to e-mails, and so on. I don't think it's fair that you idle while someone is paying for your time. Someone, at the end, organized this so you can work remotely. Someone is taking care of you financially, at the end. The least you can do is do what you have agreed/promised/been contracted to do.
  • c0vfefe 7y ago
    This only works in a job where you have a particular definition of "done." In most knowledge work, there's always something you could be working on.
• semanticjudo 7y ago
  It appears to me that work environment is a personal preference based on an array of personality traits and motivations mostly opaque to most people until they've had a chance to try a few out. Further, it seems that the preferences fall into a few categories that are broadly represented in the population. Each has objective pros and cons but for any individual, the cons are easily outweighed by our preferences and motivations. Once you realize this, articles regarding "X environment has Y good and Z bad" stop providing any value. What I want to read about is how to effectively manage a company to allow my employees to 1) discover the environment they prefer 2) be in that environment and 3) maintain a high performing team across those environments. Given considerations around maintaining culture, communication challenges and "informal, de-facto decision makers" forming up where people to choose to work closely together, #3 is a challenge I haven't seen a good answer to. (e.g. office or co-working employees naturally have a networking advantage and can quickly form an "in group" that makes decisions while, at best, unconsciously leaving remote workers out)
• rconti 7y ago
  One enormous ad that won't go away and can't be closed. Sweet.
• stuff4ben 7y ago
  I've always hated working from home. Too much distraction, not enough verbal interaction with my team, and not enough face-time with my boss and his boss. Now that I'm a manager and manage a team that is remote to me (but colocated for everyone else including my boss) it's just terrible. I'm now a remote worker, while the rest of my team is mostly in-office. And yes that means that my boss goes directly to my team to get stuff done completely bypassing me. Sometimes he'll let me know, sometimes I find out after the fact. It's basically the worst of both worlds and I would never do this again.
• ilaksh 7y ago
  I think it's worth mentioning how remote work makes society more sustainable. The energy usage and CO2 output for commuting versus using the internet is dramatically in favor of remote work. In fact, if we are concerned with those things, I believe that commuting every day for jobs that can be done online should be illegal.
• YOU_try_it 7y ago
  Fuck remote work. It only works to marginalize people such that they're less than telemarketers in a call center. Every remote worker I have hated, and being a remote worker was just as bad. You think toxic personalities are bad in the office, where ego, pride and a sweaty penis in your face is no fun at all? Just wait until you're reduced to a tedious phone call or less, by those exact same personalities. Not in this life. Not for a cool million dollars. Not for five hot seconds.
• rdtsc 7y ago
  Been working remotely for 4 years and so far it worked really well. One of the key factors is that most of the team is remote. So remote is a default here. In the previous position, we had some people working remotely, and it was tough for them. They'd miss a lot of context for why some decisions were made and it was very frustrating. So I'd put that at the very top of the list of things to have for remote work risks. > Intentionally carve a space and routine and set up a separate remote working space Yes. It's very important to have a separate "office" space. Then get dressed in the morning, get ready as if you're heading out of the door to an actual office. In the evening at 5pm close the laptop, walk out of the office and closer the door behind you. And you're done for the day.
• ken 7y ago
  With virtually no tech companies offering private offices any more, this isn't surprising. Companies won't give employees what they need, so employees are hacking the system to find a way to get it anyway. One of the first steps given here for remote work is to "set-up or find a space that lets you stay productive", which will enable you to "Stay focused on tasks and be able to fully disconnect whenever required". Sound familiar? That's what private office advocates have been saying for years. The only difference is that companies refuse to allow this within the walls of the company. I'm surprised the companies aren't also pushing to have these people reclassified as independent contractors and not employees.
• Rapidfir3 7y ago
  One small thing I want to add is that as someone with many hobbies and goals not related to my job I love the idea of getting X amount of work done and then being done as early as 2 or 3. Those extra hours to make more progress on whatever personal project(s) I'm working on at that time keep me motivated and, more importantly, happy. Which means I'll enjoy doing my actual work more (or just tolerate it better) and you'll probably get better results from me.
• dmode 7y ago
  I wonder if the author misread the poll referenced in this article. When people choose remote work, often they are referring to the ability to work 1 or 2 days remotely in a week. Most companies in the Bay Area allow that and are quite flexible on where you work from if you are traveling. I don't think that can extrapolated to being fully remote
• blueyes 7y ago
  I have worked remotely and also managed a remote team. There are causes of remote work that I consider positive, and causes I consider negative. The positive causes are that companies have access to a much wider pool of talent all over the world, and remote workers have more jobs to choose from. The negative causes are: 1) many cities are failing to provide affordable housing, so it doesn't make financial sense for people on the same team to work in physical proximity to each other. 2) there has been a wave of xenophobia in the Western liberal economies that has made it more difficult for talent outside those economies to migrate.
• dpods 7y ago
  We're big proponents of location flexibility in the workplace at Out Of Office. Work doesn't have to be so black and white with 100% in the office or 100% remote work. We think a combination of both working in the office and offering employees one or two flexible days to work from home or a coffee shop leads to higher employee retention. I'm 100% remote but have never experienced some of the downsides mentioned in the article, but I know others who have. I'd like to see companies transition from their rigid policies to more flexibility that gives their employees greater control over their schedule.