37 ms·

Am I the exception? I think Remote work sucks. I'd rather have proximity to co-workers so we can easily share ideas in informal ways. Sometimes you don't want

Am I the exception? I think Remote work sucks. I'd rather have proximity to co-workers so we can easily share ideas in informal ways. Sometimes you don't want to formally disperse some information but are happy to let people overhear what you think. An environment where people can find meeting rooms when they need them, can find peace and quiet when they need them but also generally have co-location means good team cohesion. If developers are remote, you will find that your code-base becomes the same. That critical FooBarAdapter becomes something that only Naimh can work on because without co-location if another developer is stuck on it, rather than grabbing her for a "Can you look at this?" over the shoulder, it gets slung over the fence in an issue or pull request. Yes, when working face to face too many (formal) meetings can be a problem, but don't abolish co-location just abolish the meetings. And don't be a cubicle farm. Yes, if you think the alternative to remote work is an anonymous grey cubicle on the 5th floor of an anonymous office block (or just as bad, the 'trendy' exposed ducts open plan office), then remote work will look like nirvana. Of course I'd also recommend being somewhere with good public transport and have flexible working hours so people aren't forced into long commutes in poluting personal transport. Also offer and allow occassional remote work to further ease that demand without losing the benefits of co-location. But whole-team remote work? No thanks!

WhompingWindows 7y ago
If remote is the alternative to the open-office, chit-chat hellscape of non-cubicles and non-offices, I'll take remote 100%. If I have to choose between destroying my hearing long term with loud music to drown coworker's conversations and working from home, the decision is simple.
- Raidion 7y ago
  This is far too reductionist. Of course there is a middle ground, from open work spaces that emphasize quiet (library style), to small "pods" that hold 6-10 people in a team, there are a lot of options that companies provide. You also do not have to "destroy your hearing with loud music" to avoid coworkers conversations. Earplugs are cheap and available, and industrial grade noise protection (25db+) is available for <50 bucks. Unless you're opposed to wearing any sort of headphone/earplug at all, then you have to heavily screen your potential employers to get the environment you want.
baxtr 7y ago
No your not. We’re building products with remote teams and I’ve to tell you compared to co-located teams it’s just pure hell. My conclusion is: either everybody is remote or the team needs to be co-located entirely. The middle ground results in entrenched warfare between the 2+ parts of the team.
- cuu508 7y ago
  Why do you think that happens?
  - baxtr 7y ago
    Good question. My feeling is that distance creates emotional separation and vice versa. Maybe because remote communication is abstract and misunderstood quickly. BTW: The best I’ve read about this so far is: “The Culture Code”
- unoti 7y ago
  > either everybody is remote or the team needs to be co-located entirely. The middle ground results in entrenched warfare between the 2+ parts of the team. Are you sure? I’ve worked remote and worked not remote, and trench warfare between team factions can happen in both situations. It’s leadership and culture issues that leads to that kind of collaboration breakdown, and can happen even with locally collocated teams. In a large company many of your collaborators are going to be in other cities anyway.
  - baxtr 7y ago
    I agree it can happen in both cases. I think the likelihood is just way greater and efforts to build a strong team thus way higher in the remote situation.
    - m0zg 7y ago
      Having been remote to a much larger team (at Google) in the past, I know where you're coming from, but I'd also like to point out that this is a question of balance and communication structure. In my case the team was about 20 people, and myself and another guy were remote, but in the same time zone. The co-located team made no effort whatsoever to disseminate information or seek my input. As a result, I sometimes had to undo or re-work other people's changes because they _thought_ they understood the gnarlier bits of the system, but they really didn't. As you can imagine, sometimes this led to confrontation. I lasted about a year and a half, but I was extremely productive during that time, communication notwithstanding, mostly thanks to the constant communication with my TL. The point I would like to make is, in that team of 20 not sharing information and not seeking input was a problem, even though people sat right next to each other. And that problem could have been solved very easily by putting most of the decision making into one pagers, Google Docs and bug tracker, as well well as by defining the goals more clearly. That is a cultural problem which remote team members did not create, but merely magnified. It existed before we joined and after we left. It resulted in a project which you need to have a PhD in computer science to figure out how to use, and as a result few teams inside Google use it. Which is a long-winded way of suggesting, that if introducing remote workers shows some cracks in your team structure, perhaps there's a deeper reason why, and things aren't 100% ideal to begin with.
lowken10 7y ago
I agree! I love being work remove work a day here and there. But the idea of completely remote gets a thumbs down from me.
notafrog 7y ago
I think that the issue is not whether remote work sucks, or working in an office is superior, but it's more about hiring the right people. This gets a lot harder when hiring for remote work, which is why many remote companies require previous remote experience.
marcinzm 7y ago
Those are issues of culture and communication. I'm not saying it's easy to solve but it is possible given enough effort and push from management. Although generally you have to do so from day 1 since retro-fitting it after the fact is much more difficult. >That critical FooBarAdapter becomes something that only Naimh can work on because without co-location if another developer is stuck on it, rather than grabbing her for a "Can you look at this?" over the shoulder, it gets slung over the fence in an issue or pull request. For example, with something like USE Together it's possible to have the equivalent of over the shoulder looks complete with easy input sharing.
- calcifer 7y ago
  > something like USE Together it's possible to have the equivalent of over the shoulder looks complete with easy input sharing. That sounds neither as effective nor as fast as pointing at my screen with my finger.
  - marcinzm 7y ago
    I find it more effective. To looked over a screen you need to talk to me (or IM me), I then need to walk to your computer, squint at the screen and then ask you to move over if I need to dig into something (which then results in you squinting at the screen). The last one may involve me asking you to come over to my computer since your setup may be harder for me to navigate. With screen sharing I don't have to move, don't have to squint, we both get to have a perfect view of what is going on and I can pull things up on my own computer concurrently (and show it to you if I want to). edit: In fact, I find it so useful that even when we're in the same room the approach is to screen share.
mft_ 7y ago
Your argument seems to be that optimal/ideal office working is better than remote: "An environment where people can find meeting rooms when they need them, can find peace and quiet when they need... and don't be a cubicle farm. Yes, if you think the alternative to remote work is an anonymous grey cubicle on the 5th floor of an anonymous office block (or just as bad, the 'trendy' exposed ducts open plan office)... I'd also recommend being somewhere with good public transport and have flexible working hours so people aren't forced into long commutes..." Of course this ideal would be great! But this also totally misses the point that in reality, the reason that people are often attracted to remote-working is precisely because their experience and environment fail on some or many of the ideals you list. As such, you've not constructed an argument against remote working - just a (valid) argument against most office writing environments.
- moorhosj 7y ago
  What percentage of those remote work setups are “ideal”?
  - jessemillar 7y ago
    I would argue that if a remote worker is dissatisfied with the physical setup of their remote office, that's on them, not the employer. Having a team that does not prioritize remote-first-style communication is another situation entirely.
  - hnal943 7y ago
    If the variance is tighter, it doesn't matter.
- fnord77 7y ago
  > the reason that people are often attracted to remote-working is precisely because their experience and environment fail on some or many of the ideals you list. Disagree. They want to live someplace that doesn't have the highly paid jobs that, say a city or tech center would have. A San Francisco salary with a Modesto cost of living. Or they want to do the digital nomad thing. Companies these days bend over backwards to make the office experience as optimal as possible.
jherdman 7y ago
> Am I the exception? I think Remote work sucks. Not at all. I think that some folks just don't work well in such circumstances. A close friend of mine was much like you: he craved the social environment, and the immediate collaboration with peers. Personally, I'm the opposite. I hate drive-bys, I crave the flexibility to work when I want and how I want, and the social interactions offer no real value to me. I think it's great that you know how you best work. It's a key to happiness. > If developers are remote, you will find that your code-base becomes the same. That critical FooBarAdapter becomes something that only Naimh can work on because without co-location if another developer is stuck on it, rather than grabbing her for a "Can you look at this?" over the shoulder, it gets slung over the fence in an issue or pull request. That's just patently false. Not only can this happen in co-located work environments, but is often symptomatic of a poorly functioning team rather than how they're located on the planet.
redleggedfrog 7y ago
No, I think remote work sucks, too. Once you've worked in a environment with healthy technical interaction on an organic basis it's qualitatively and quantitatively better than a group of remote workers. There is so much shared information that is lost when you can't just strike up a conversation.
- twa927 7y ago
  But even for fully on-site teams the preferred format of a "knowledge base" is digital (wiki, Google Docs, etc.), because it's something that lasts, can be improved over time and is always accessible. And having the discussions stored digitally (Github issues, emails) is also usually preferred because it's "asynchronous" and it's something that can be looked up in the future. So on-site teams also use Wikis/issue trackers/emails a lot. The difference is that instead of a face-to-face chat remote teams have to use Slack. Which is also largely used in on-site teams... So my point is that some of the modern IT offices already resemble a "co-working" space because all the tools are already digital, and all meaningful knowledge sharing already happens in the digital space.
- chrshawkes 7y ago
  I'm assuming you don't have children? Regardless of personal interruptions with having kids, it's way more convenient for the modern parent.
iamthepieman 7y ago
our entire company (not just developers) clicks video chat almost before thinking about an issue. I get a lot of calls that are just one of our technicians saying something looks odd in a config file and asking me for a 30 second sanity check. It can be annoying because email communication is (it feels like) avoided even when it would be a better medium or force someone to actually think through an issue. However, it does mean that we have good team cohesion.
tdb7893 7y ago
Actually I liked cubicle farms. I had my own space and could have meetings at my desk if I needed to and would go over and chat with my colleagues a lot. I mean it wasn't visually exciting but as a work space for a order company it had a lot of good qualities.
raiflip 7y ago
Also the complete social isolation for at least 8 hours a day (sounds) like it would be awful. Honestly confused as to why anyone thinks they would like that. Everyone I know who have tried working remotely complains bitterly about it.
- chillfox 7y ago
  People are different.
  - raiflip 7y ago
    Yes, people by and large are different. I'm sure there are some people who would enjoy social isolation. That said, in my experience most people who claim to be special and enjoy social isolation deeply regret it.
    - xfitm3 7y ago
      You're really against the idea of remote work, aren't you? I've been remote for almost 10 years. No regrets.
      - raiflip 7y ago
        Well, personally I am. I also think it's the sort of thing where a lot of people like it until they actually experience it. That said, if you do enjoy it, all the best.
- xfitm3 7y ago
  I crave isolation - remote work is perfect for me. I detest offices: stinky lunches, music, mastication noises, and too many snacks. Not everyone is the same.
- twa927 7y ago
  You must be more active when working remotely wrt. seeking social interactions. When working on-site, you get some of the interactions for free. When working remotely, you must actively organize them by yourself. I know people who get MORE social interactions from working remotely because they have more energy/time for things like meeting with friends, clubs meetings etc.
asadkn 7y ago
There are several type of people of course and there's no correct answer. And for good personal reasons usually. A lot of asocial introverts are likely to have an issue with open plan offices but might do just fine in a private office - yet some of them would prefer only working remote. Developing personal rapport with the colleagues is often another factor. I have seen remote-only people join the "office" camp and consider it more productive and motivating, simply because they found a workplace that they liked more than working remote, with one of the factors being relationships they developed. Some even prefer the synched schedule over flexible hours. Personally I am remote-only but I appreciate everyone's different and not everyone work the same way.
dejaime 7y ago
Personally, I prefer remote work, but have had a hard time finding it lately. Half of my opportunities require me to go to an office to work. I don't complain much, as I increase my hour by ~40% when it is not possible to do it remotely. That also comes to compensate for the time lost in commute, the extra money spent (e.g. transportation, food), and the fact that I can't really choose the hours I work. This last point is always funny, because my employers always tell me I have a completely flexible schedule. Their faces when I ask if I can come to work from 10pm~4am is priceless though. "Oh, your hours are 100% flexible given that you come anywhere between 8am and 6pm", heard this so many times it got funny. PS: writing this at the office, feeling sleepy... they won't allow remote work... and this computer takes a while to build, 23x more than my personal workstation, I timed it.
- Leherenn 7y ago
  To be fair, in a lot of place it is probably illegal to work those hours. Where I am from, 11pm to 6am are night hours and you need a special contract to be be able to work during those times. This contract is subject to restrictions (i.e. the employer needs to prove you need to work those hours, e.g. you work in healthcare, retail, ...) and they would need to compensate you more per the law. Same thing for Sundays.
  - 0xffff2 7y ago
    Where are your from? AFAIK in the US most developers are paid as salaried exempt employees, which means they never got overtime pay and can work any hours. I don't think the restrictions you state are generally true anywhere in the US either, even for hourly employees.
  - dejaime 7y ago
    This. That's one of the reasons. Here anything between 22 and 5h is also considered night work. If your work is nocturnal (e.g. a security guard) you receive a "night time bonus" on top of your hourly rate. If it isn't though (e.g. a programmer), in theory one would need to receive double hourly rate to work those hours. This does not apply to contractors here, but is an issue when hiring someone as a formal employee.
chillfox 7y ago
This ideal environment is impossible. If person A needs “peace and quiet” and Person B needs to grab Person A to “look at something” then it will only be ideal for one of them.
parthdesai 7y ago
I'm with you. I currently WFH 1 day/week and i actually look forward to going in the next day. I guess it helps that i'm a single guy in my mid-20's living 15 mins bike ride away from my work.
iamaziz 7y ago
I, too, think remote work sucks. Remote work misses the most crucial parts of working as a team: interactive learning and collective progress.
- menckenjr 7y ago
  This is a cultural thing more than a remote work thing. At my company we're remote 2-3 days a week but can chat on Skype as needed. Our team (3 people supporting a major app on Android and iOS) talks several times a day to go over things and our team cohesion is good.
maxsilver 7y ago
So, the secret to a good office, is to be enormously wealthy? Because to have a nice high-quality office (not cube farm, not open-plan exposed-ducts) that's also a large office ('where people can find meeting rooms when they need them and also peace and quiet') in the pricey core of downtown ('somewhere with good public transport'), and to also have your employees afford to live downtown too ('so people aren't forced into long commutes') It's all true, I agree with all of it, but it's super expensive. Even to do just one of those things is pricey, to do all of these things is enormously expensive.
- LaGrange 7y ago
  "and to also have your employees afford to live downtown too ('so people aren't forced into long commutes')" ...it also has to be in the countryside at the same time, because so many people find it exhausting to live in the city centers for sensory reasons.
- geekbird 7y ago
  I've worked in profitable companies that had that, but then Wall Street started demanding more profit, so the work environment (and headcount) was easiest to cut, but has the worst long term impact on the company.
- frobozz 7y ago
  Good public transport exists where people live, as well as in the priciest parts of the city. A suburban office, or one in a medium-sized town would be walkable for a large portion of your staff.
ryanmercer 7y ago
>I'd rather have proximity to co-workers so we can easily share ideas in informal ways. In my office talking is EXTREMELY discouraged, only certain people have messenger, email is for specific uses only, dress code, in the winters it easily gets into the low 60Fs in the office and in the spring we start seeing upper 70Fs and even 80Fs in the summer, we get 30 minutes for lunch and the closest fast food is 10-15 minutes in traffic, been here 13 years and we just got the right to wear jeans last fall, no office phones, open office with team leads effectively in the back of every row to watch everything you are doing, shared desks with other shifts, not supposed to even look your personal phone, can't go microwave your food on the clock but only 3 microwaves for 100~ people, 1 drink vending machine that wouldn't take cash or coin for the past 3 weeks and is often empty for most choices, parked off of active runways so our cars get coated in unburnt jet fuel/deicer/bird mess, parking lot is cratered nearly as bad as the moon (not exaggerating), photo ID has to always be visible, cameras on every entrance and exit, have to sign in at your desk but it can often take 2-3 minutes to even get a browser open which means realistically you need to be here 5 minutes early, minimum, every day, have to fully log out AFTER clocking out before you leave --- as you don't have admin privs software hangs and you have to force close it every single time you log out because it wants to update (mostly looking at you adobe), even if there is a county travel ban for snow/ice we're supposed to work our full shift... Yeah man, I'd love to be able to work from home given there is nothing I have to do here that I can't do from anywhere with a computer, a web browser, an internet connection and a few BlueZone mainframe displays open.
- unicornfinder 7y ago
  Honestly that just sounds like an awful place to work in general.
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    Welcome to life outside of tech companies. :/
    - perfect_wave 7y ago
      Umm no. This is a terrible work environment. I don't work in a tech company and we have exactly 0 of the issues that you brought up.
86carr 7y ago
Well articulated.
notacoward 7y ago
> rather than grabbing her for a "Can you look at this?" over the shoulder, it gets slung over the fence Is that experience, or speculation? Having worked remotely on large teams for a decade myself, I've had just about the opposite experience. The unavailability of a component's main developer can be a powerful spur to dive in and take matters into one's own hands, vs. the short-term convenience but long-term bottleneck of always walking over to your hypothetical Naimh for assistance. This effect is seen all the time in large open source projects, even for challenging code e.g. in the Linux kernel. If your experience has been otherwise, that suggests more about your team than about remote teams in general.
skizm 7y ago
I got to say, I disagree with nearly every point here. Taps on the shoulder are the worst, anonymous cubical farms would be way better than the current situation (all open offices), skype/zoom/etc. are all immediately available for impromptu meetings, I'm not sure why working on code independently would lead to more silos? Does everyone always pair program in offices? Do you theorize less design meetings or something? Plus remote you can not play the butts-in-seats game, get non-work related life things done at your leisure, wear whatever clothes you like, shit in your own bathroom, don't have to worry about anyone tapping you on the shoulder, eat what you want when you want, the list goes on. Theses are just the immediate things that come to mind.
- auggierose 7y ago
  Shit in your own bathroom. I second this.
  - cpursley 7y ago
    I'm not sure why you're getting downvotes. This is actually huge for me at least.
  - potta_coffee 7y ago
    The bathroom in my office is nasty. Nobody has a gallbladder and they all eat greasy food. It's a shit factory and I hate being here for that reason alone.
    - c0vfefe 7y ago
      xD Thanks for the laugh!
- dkersten 7y ago
  Regarding pair programming, some of my best work was done “remote pair programming” with voice chat and screen sharing.
  - pelasaco 7y ago
LaGrange 7y ago
Jesus, you're describing a hellscape, as far as I'm concerned. A noisy place where people can interrupt me whenever, where no work ends up documented because you can just "look at this," and people are motivated by the beer and parties, not by actually working on something worthwhile. I mean, yes, especially in the eCommerce world the "worthwhile" is rare to come by, but you're not going to disguise that by trying to replace your employees social life. Finally, my experience tells me that if "only Naimh can owrk on FooBarAdapter," then Naimh left the company three years ago and moved into the Ural mountains to live off the land. And good grief, if my choice is between a cubicle farm and an open office, cubicle farm every day. Thankfully, my choice is no longer that limited. Oh, and working with people who document their work and read team message board, turning your "only Naimh can work on" into some forgotten memory of past nightmares.
dkersten 7y ago
> but are happy to let people overhear what you think. In my experience, most engineers in offices spend their days with headphones on because they’re trying to drown out the office noises. They’re not going to overhear anything. Also, again, in my own experience, even if you don’t and are listening to what’s going on around you, you still can only overhear what’s said by those relatively close to you. That is, the probability of overhearing something useful has been, for me, incredibly low to the point that it hasn’t been worth it. > rather than grabbing her for a “Can you look at this?” When I’ve worked remotely, we’ve often sent each other messages asking to explain some code or hopped on a quick screenshare to go over it. Bonus: due to the asynchronous nature of text chat, I don’t accidentally interrupt the other person. Also, the more that is done in text chat, the more of a record of it you have when you inevitably forget. Its much better to be able to do a quick search in your chat logs than to re-interrupt the person to explain the thing again. > But whole-team remote work? No thanks! I’d rather have everyone remote, because it means you can optimise the company around it. If only some people are remote, or people are remote only some of the time, then companies tend to treat them as second-class citizens and optimise for in-person.
linuxftw 7y ago
Remote work is the solution to specific problems. For me, that problem is commuting. Office buildings are not where people live. I can't have a house right next door to the office for an amount that the company is willing to pay me. Since the company is cheap, hires the bare minimum of people to do a specific job, those people either have to come from a large local area, or support remote work.
pelasaco 7y ago
first post ever where i disagree with all points. I work in a team, of 10, 9 are remote, and the manager is partially remote. We spend however a lot of time in gotomeetings and pair programming sessions and meet each other, 4 or 5 times per year. It works great. Near enough to work as a team and enjoy to work with the colleagues, far enough to don't have any interpersonal conflicts. It's just awesome. Said that, we are always able to drive to our headquarter if we feel that's necessary.
donretag 7y ago
I have been working remote for 4 years, both full-time at two different companies. I also do not like the experience. My issues stem from working at non-remote-first companies and my personality. Being one of the few people that is remote, I will have no visibility. My pull requests will linger, no room for advancement, no learning from others. And as an incredibly social person, I find the isolation to be too much. I also detest people that work from cafes. They are not offices!
- loco5niner 7y ago
  > And as an incredibly social person I think this is the key. I am an incredibly NOT social person and LOVE isolation when trying to get work done.
- mariojv 7y ago
  Why would you detest people that work from cafes just because you don't like it? For me working remotely full time, it's a good break from working from a home office all the time. Coworking spaces are few and far between where I live so it's really one of the only alternatives.
  - donretag 7y ago
    Simply because I want to grab something to eat or drink, but I cannot because there is no place to sit.
kashyapc 7y ago
The boring answer is, there are range of preferences; some prefer offices, others prefer remote-only, yet others prefer a combination of remote and office. To each unto their own. On "But whole-team remote work? No thanks!": One of the cardinal rules for "remote-first" to work as intended is that either the whole team is remote, or not. Otherwise, information asymmetry can affect team dynamics and morale in non-trivial ways and the product suffers.
ehnto 7y ago
> If developers are remote, you will find that your code-base becomes the same. That critical FooBarAdapter becomes something that only Naimh can work on because without co-location if another developer is stuck on it, rather than grabbing her for a "Can you look at this?" over the shoulder, it gets slung over the fence in an issue or pull request. I have not found that at all. With good engineering practices and mature developers, no one should be gatekeeper of any functionality in any environment, remote or co-located. Inside a good piece of software should be idioms that work across the whole platform, so that no matter what the code does, anyone in your team can pick it up. If you have a bad mix of junior and senior developers, and either of those groups are left to go on programming tangents that are outside of the idioms of the software then yeah, you're going to find yourself with code no one else understands, or tools no one asked for in the codebase. But that was a failure of the software's architecture, and the way you trained and managed your team to work within it. I'm not saying it can't happen on a remote team, just that it's not a problem caused by remote work. A remote team is not any less competent just for being remote.
bytematic 7y ago
Agreed. I'm a remote employee with even a better setup at home than at my office, but I go in nearly every day. I don't have the long time experience to maybe be burned out of office work but I still enjoy the "separation of concerns".
momokoko 7y ago
I think its just that non-remote work is considerably more common so you are much less likely to find people openly complaining about it because their needs are mostly met. Online discussions always amplify the decent of the minority because the majority tends to get its way. And because the majority is satisfied, it remains largely silent.
fourseventy 7y ago
I agree. Everyone seems to have a hard on for remote work but I don't understand it.
blocked_again 7y ago
Okay. Remote work sucks according to you. Have you ever worked in a remote company? Remote work has its pros and cons. So does working from a office.
markbnj 7y ago
> Sometimes you don't want to formally disperse some information but are happy to let people overhear what you think. I'm not disagreeing with your main point because remote work is not for everyone, and who am I to tell you what to prefer? But I wanted to note that I've been working fully remote for more than ten years, and I'd say 95% of my contact with team members is informal, and along the lines of just sharing thoughts and ideas exactly as you describe. The only difference is that we share them on slack and via emails rather than having that tap on the shoulder as you describe it. Which is "better" is a matter of personal preference.
sam0x17 7y ago
> rather than grabbing her for a "Can you look at this?" over the shoulder, it gets slung over the fence in an issue or pull request. I mean, what about grabbing her for a "Can you look at this?" over a quick video call.
chrisg3 7y ago
Perhaps small office spaces in areas with many employees could be a solution. For example, you have the opportunity to go to a local workspace for your company on a weekday, but have no obligation to do so.
bphogan 7y ago
One thing that always gets lost is this: Some humans do not think on their feet. They often need time to digest thoughts and new ideas. If you start observing this behavior, you will notice that an impromptu brain-storming session often results in a couple of people talking and many others observing. It ends up being highly productive to the people talking, and very frustrating to those who are observing. If you don't see this trend, your hiring practices may be optimized for finding only one type of person - extroverted people who can say things quickly. Consider that you may be missing out on some very good ideas from people who aren't comfortable with quick context switches and immediate requests for feedback on ideas.
dmode 7y ago
I am with you. I personally hate remote work and companies who actively use remote workers as a strategy. I was a remote worker for 6 months and was borderline depressed due to limited human contacts. My next employer had a very distributed team in different time zone. And it was incredibly inefficient. It was difficult to find a common time overlap. Every meeting was disrupted due to webex and network issues. Quick casual meetings were not possible. My current employer is 100% onsite and I love it. Ability to just walk over and white board is good for my soul
thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
Working at the office is a Luxury, a very very high priced luxury that the employee pays for entirely with the price differential in your Home Rent/House she/he pays. In SF for example, you pay 1000$/sq ft vs the 130$/sq ft the national median.
JackFr 7y ago
I couldn't agree more.
m0zg 7y ago
I've been working mostly remotely for my clients (in office part of 1 day every 2 weeks; I do charge my billing rate for commute), and I enjoy remote work tremendously. I wake up at 11AM (without an alarm), and all I need to "get to the office" is go downstairs to my work desk (I don't do work anywhere else as a way of enforcing the separation and creating the routine). "Can you look at this" at random points in time would ruin my productivity. Open plans ruin my productivity. Constant bullshitting at the office that has nothing to do with work ruins my productivity. Not being able to do my work between 7PM and 2AM (when I'm the most productive) ruins my productivity. Commute for 1.5 hours a day ruins my productivity, too. I actually have my own company now, and while it's just me so far, when it's time to hire people I will structure it such that it's remote-first, and I will hire from all over the US, and possibly all over the globe when the company size allows. You don't need an office for team cohesion. You don't need a bunch of meetings for that either. You just need reasonably clear goals and responsibilities (this is the hard part, but only when you have no clue what to do), the rest can be handled pretty easily via email and GitHub. Have a weekly Zoom meeting you want, to sync up.
kemiller 7y ago
It is absolutely possible to get all of those benefits while working remotely, provided you have some Tim wine overlap with at least part of your team. You just have to be explicit about it and not rely on the shoulder tap.
Spooky23 7y ago
I'm in a technical director role, and have been in IT, DBA and development roles in the past. Today, I work remote approximately 1 day per week. It's great for creative/heads down activities, which for me are writing, reading and tasks like spreadsheet work or ideation. I do it more when I'm on call-driven projects. It's not great for coordination with "close teams" and not great for operations team dynamics.
makeszerosense3 7y ago
Remote work is the new open office. Such a bad idea that takes some companies years to realize it.
- gregd 7y ago
  I've been working remotely for 8 years now. I'm truly interested in understanding why you think it's such a bad idea. I mean I used to have to commute through downtown Portland, Oregon at rush hour. Just being able to leave that out of EVERY day has tremendously improved my quality of life.
aytekin 7y ago
In most development work team productivity is more important than individual productivity. I have found that the best approach is to have co-located team rooms. (And the team members should be working on the same project. Putting people together does not make it a team. If everyone has a different project, that’s not a team) If the work has to be done individually, then there is no point in being co-located. Remote works well. Co-located teams communicate well, decide and move quickly, and has much higher trust between team members. Work that does not require too much communication, speed and collaboration is more suitable to remote. This hybrid approach worked well for us.
mo1ok 7y ago
100% agreement. It's continuing the trend of offloading management onto the burden of the individual worker. It's the responsibility of the company to create a solid, quiet, accessible work environment - by enabling "remote work", they can effectively write off this responsibility.
gregd 7y ago
I've been working remotely for 8 years now for a couple of companies. Currently work in an environment where I'm one of the few devs working remotely, where the rest share an office. I'm trying to figure out if you've actually worked remotely or not. It does take a much more concerted effort on everyone's part to be more inclusive of remote workers, especially if only a handful of devs are remote and the rest share an office. Meetings aren't usually a problem. We primarily rely on Skype for Business and all meetings are generally held online. We've even managed to move scheduled meetings (which I loathe) into Microsoft Teams channels. The written words manage to keep everyone on the same page, much better than just hearing it. Microsoft Teams and Slack facilitates the sharing of cubicle conversations and informal ideas but it takes effort to get everyone onboard with using these as their primary ways of sharing convos. I mean, I don't get interrupted very often. I can be as out of site/out of mind as I want and need. And I'm way more productive working from home, than I am where I can be interrupted constantly. I don't know about you, but it usually takes me about two hours to recover from an interruption to get back to where I was. Not always, but usually. All of the above is pertinent to being a mixed bag of remote and office sharers. I would imagine that an all remote team, would have an even easier time with communications and inclusivity.
MarkMc 7y ago
> I'd rather have proximity to co-workers so we can easily share ideas in informal ways. Yes I agree. This informal communication is an under-appreciated aspect of an open-plan office. I wonder whether remote teams can be structured to mimic the 'closeness' of co-located team members. Here's what I'm thinking: 1. Two colleagues work similar timezones 2. Each colleague has a dedicated TV screen with webcam 45 degrees to the left of their main computer screen 3. The TV screen displays an always-on Zoom meeting showing the webcam video and screencast of the remote colleague 4. At any time, communication is as simple as turning to the TV and saying, "Hey Bill, did you see the Cowboys game last night?"
- 13rac1 7y ago
  I've done many multi-hour video calls switching between pairing and unrelated tasks with 1-2 co-workers on my primarily remote team. We talk both shop and not shop. It works well, plus any of us can exit the call to focus. I find it vastly more productive than an open-office.
sharadov 7y ago
Depends on the role, I am a DBA and work totally -remote, and I find it better than getting stuck in an open-plan office with people interrupting me constantly. There are enough collaboration tools (slack, zoom) to collaborate when I need to. May not work for developers, but our entire team has a choice between coming to work or being remote and they're doing great. Depends on the company culture and will only work with seniors folks.
vast 7y ago
I think neither extreme is perfect. I very much enjoy working closely with my peers. After a while you build a small family. Social factors are a big plus for office workers and a big risk for remote workers. But in an office I cannot work at full potential. For me it would be good enough to have occasional zero disturbance times. Sadly the occasional mode is usually harder to integrate and realise then the full mode. On top of that I highly despise communicating remotely.
alexbanks 7y ago
> And don't be a cubicle farm. Yes, if you think the alternative to remote work is an anonymous grey cubicle on the 5th floor of an anonymous office block (or just as bad, the 'trendy' exposed ducts open plan office), then remote work will look like nirvana. What is the alternative to "not a cubicle farm and not and open office"?
mikorym 7y ago
A common topic, and not without controversy for sure, I can see both arguments for and against remote working. The only addition I would like to make is that an employer should try to take into account the personal situations of their employees. For example, a blanket ban on remote working at a big tech company [1] to me is rediculous. Some people are exceedingly efficient working on their own and on their own terms. At the same time, some employees can become demotivated if left to their own devices. I would say that in the capacity of the employer and their inherent responsibility towards their employees it sounds natural to me that some would work from home and others not. An all remote team would presuppose that (all) the employee(s) would like that kind of thing. [1] I see from time to time this happening (or people trying this). A google search some of those that tried: Yahoo, IBM. Top-to-bottom decisions are sometimes rather disruptive and maybe unnecessary in this case.
liveoneggs 7y ago
~all tech jobs are anonymous cube farms or open offices in the US (and probably other places)
mrfusion 7y ago
Remote is the worst way to work except for all the others.
_betty_ 7y ago
Menlo Innovations are pretty anti remote-work. You might enjoy their book Joy Inc.
RickJWagner 7y ago
I have friends who couldn't work remote. But for me, it's the greatest perk of my current job. I love working remote. No gas to buy, no wear on the car. No commute time. Instantly at work, instantly back home after. Video conferencing keeps me close (enough) to my co-workers. I can't say enough good things about it.
whateveracct 7y ago
> I'd rather have proximity to co-workers so we can easily share ideas in informal ways. I can't tell you how many ideas I've come up with & worked through and problems I've solved while remote. When you have a culture of DMing and chatting in interest channels (#haskell has been a fun place in multiple companies), ideas flow wonderfully. And then you can add to it with Zoom chats and tmate pairing. The next thing I want to try is collaborative distributed whiteboarding using drawing tablets.
GuB-42 7y ago
From a purely personal point of view, I don't really want remote work. At least not full time. Work is a distinct social environment. You meet different people, do different things, etc... It has value. It helps see things from different perspectives. If things get hard at work, going back home gives you an escape, and vice-versa. You don't need for commute for that but it helps.

WhompingWindows 7y ago

If remote is the alternative to the open-office, chit-chat hellscape of non-cubicles and non-offices, I'll take remote 100%. If I have to choose between destroying my hearing long term with loud music to drown coworker's conversations and working from home, the decision is simple.

Raidion 7y ago
This is far too reductionist. Of course there is a middle ground, from open work spaces that emphasize quiet (library style), to small "pods" that hold 6-10 people in a team, there are a lot of options that companies provide. You also do not have to "destroy your hearing with loud music" to avoid coworkers conversations. Earplugs are cheap and available, and industrial grade noise protection (25db+) is available for <50 bucks. Unless you're opposed to wearing any sort of headphone/earplug at all, then you have to heavily screen your potential employers to get the environment you want.

baxtr 7y ago

No your not. We’re building products with remote teams and I’ve to tell you compared to co-located teams it’s just pure hell. My conclusion is: either everybody is remote or the team needs to be co-located entirely. The middle ground results in entrenched warfare between the 2+ parts of the team.

cuu508 7y ago
Why do you think that happens?
- baxtr 7y ago
  Good question. My feeling is that distance creates emotional separation and vice versa. Maybe because remote communication is abstract and misunderstood quickly. BTW: The best I’ve read about this so far is: “The Culture Code”
unoti 7y ago
> either everybody is remote or the team needs to be co-located entirely. The middle ground results in entrenched warfare between the 2+ parts of the team. Are you sure? I’ve worked remote and worked not remote, and trench warfare between team factions can happen in both situations. It’s leadership and culture issues that leads to that kind of collaboration breakdown, and can happen even with locally collocated teams. In a large company many of your collaborators are going to be in other cities anyway.
- baxtr 7y ago
  I agree it can happen in both cases. I think the likelihood is just way greater and efforts to build a strong team thus way higher in the remote situation.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    Having been remote to a much larger team (at Google) in the past, I know where you're coming from, but I'd also like to point out that this is a question of balance and communication structure. In my case the team was about 20 people, and myself and another guy were remote, but in the same time zone. The co-located team made no effort whatsoever to disseminate information or seek my input. As a result, I sometimes had to undo or re-work other people's changes because they _thought_ they understood the gnarlier bits of the system, but they really didn't. As you can imagine, sometimes this led to confrontation. I lasted about a year and a half, but I was extremely productive during that time, communication notwithstanding, mostly thanks to the constant communication with my TL. The point I would like to make is, in that team of 20 not sharing information and not seeking input was a problem, even though people sat right next to each other. And that problem could have been solved very easily by putting most of the decision making into one pagers, Google Docs and bug tracker, as well well as by defining the goals more clearly. That is a cultural problem which remote team members did not create, but merely magnified. It existed before we joined and after we left. It resulted in a project which you need to have a PhD in computer science to figure out how to use, and as a result few teams inside Google use it. Which is a long-winded way of suggesting, that if introducing remote workers shows some cracks in your team structure, perhaps there's a deeper reason why, and things aren't 100% ideal to begin with.

lowken10 7y ago

I agree! I love being work remove work a day here and there. But the idea of completely remote gets a thumbs down from me.

notafrog 7y ago

I think that the issue is not whether remote work sucks, or working in an office is superior, but it's more about hiring the right people. This gets a lot harder when hiring for remote work, which is why many remote companies require previous remote experience.

marcinzm 7y ago

Those are issues of culture and communication. I'm not saying it's easy to solve but it is possible given enough effort and push from management. Although generally you have to do so from day 1 since retro-fitting it after the fact is much more difficult. >That critical FooBarAdapter becomes something that only Naimh can work on because without co-location if another developer is stuck on it, rather than grabbing her for a "Can you look at this?" over the shoulder, it gets slung over the fence in an issue or pull request. For example, with something like USE Together it's possible to have the equivalent of over the shoulder looks complete with easy input sharing.

calcifer 7y ago
> something like USE Together it's possible to have the equivalent of over the shoulder looks complete with easy input sharing. That sounds neither as effective nor as fast as pointing at my screen with my finger.
- marcinzm 7y ago
  I find it more effective. To looked over a screen you need to talk to me (or IM me), I then need to walk to your computer, squint at the screen and then ask you to move over if I need to dig into something (which then results in you squinting at the screen). The last one may involve me asking you to come over to my computer since your setup may be harder for me to navigate. With screen sharing I don't have to move, don't have to squint, we both get to have a perfect view of what is going on and I can pull things up on my own computer concurrently (and show it to you if I want to). edit: In fact, I find it so useful that even when we're in the same room the approach is to screen share.

mft_ 7y ago

Your argument seems to be that optimal/ideal office working is better than remote: "An environment where people can find meeting rooms when they need them, can find peace and quiet when they need... and don't be a cubicle farm. Yes, if you think the alternative to remote work is an anonymous grey cubicle on the 5th floor of an anonymous office block (or just as bad, the 'trendy' exposed ducts open plan office)... I'd also recommend being somewhere with good public transport and have flexible working hours so people aren't forced into long commutes..." Of course this ideal would be great! But this also totally misses the point that in reality, the reason that people are often attracted to remote-working is precisely because their experience and environment fail on some or many of the ideals you list. As such, you've not constructed an argument against remote working - just a (valid) argument against most office writing environments.

moorhosj 7y ago
What percentage of those remote work setups are “ideal”?
- jessemillar 7y ago
  I would argue that if a remote worker is dissatisfied with the physical setup of their remote office, that's on them, not the employer. Having a team that does not prioritize remote-first-style communication is another situation entirely.
- hnal943 7y ago
  If the variance is tighter, it doesn't matter.
fnord77 7y ago
> the reason that people are often attracted to remote-working is precisely because their experience and environment fail on some or many of the ideals you list. Disagree. They want to live someplace that doesn't have the highly paid jobs that, say a city or tech center would have. A San Francisco salary with a Modesto cost of living. Or they want to do the digital nomad thing. Companies these days bend over backwards to make the office experience as optimal as possible.

jherdman 7y ago

> Am I the exception? I think Remote work sucks. Not at all. I think that some folks just don't work well in such circumstances. A close friend of mine was much like you: he craved the social environment, and the immediate collaboration with peers. Personally, I'm the opposite. I hate drive-bys, I crave the flexibility to work when I want and how I want, and the social interactions offer no real value to me. I think it's great that you know how you best work. It's a key to happiness. > If developers are remote, you will find that your code-base becomes the same. That critical FooBarAdapter becomes something that only Naimh can work on because without co-location if another developer is stuck on it, rather than grabbing her for a "Can you look at this?" over the shoulder, it gets slung over the fence in an issue or pull request. That's just patently false. Not only can this happen in co-located work environments, but is often symptomatic of a poorly functioning team rather than how they're located on the planet.

redleggedfrog 7y ago

No, I think remote work sucks, too. Once you've worked in a environment with healthy technical interaction on an organic basis it's qualitatively and quantitatively better than a group of remote workers. There is so much shared information that is lost when you can't just strike up a conversation.

twa927 7y ago
But even for fully on-site teams the preferred format of a "knowledge base" is digital (wiki, Google Docs, etc.), because it's something that lasts, can be improved over time and is always accessible. And having the discussions stored digitally (Github issues, emails) is also usually preferred because it's "asynchronous" and it's something that can be looked up in the future. So on-site teams also use Wikis/issue trackers/emails a lot. The difference is that instead of a face-to-face chat remote teams have to use Slack. Which is also largely used in on-site teams... So my point is that some of the modern IT offices already resemble a "co-working" space because all the tools are already digital, and all meaningful knowledge sharing already happens in the digital space.
chrshawkes 7y ago
I'm assuming you don't have children? Regardless of personal interruptions with having kids, it's way more convenient for the modern parent.

iamthepieman 7y ago

our entire company (not just developers) clicks video chat almost before thinking about an issue. I get a lot of calls that are just one of our technicians saying something looks odd in a config file and asking me for a 30 second sanity check. It can be annoying because email communication is (it feels like) avoided even when it would be a better medium or force someone to actually think through an issue. However, it does mean that we have good team cohesion.

tdb7893 7y ago

Actually I liked cubicle farms. I had my own space and could have meetings at my desk if I needed to and would go over and chat with my colleagues a lot. I mean it wasn't visually exciting but as a work space for a order company it had a lot of good qualities.

raiflip 7y ago

Also the complete social isolation for at least 8 hours a day (sounds) like it would be awful. Honestly confused as to why anyone thinks they would like that. Everyone I know who have tried working remotely complains bitterly about it.

chillfox 7y ago
People are different.
- raiflip 7y ago
  Yes, people by and large are different. I'm sure there are some people who would enjoy social isolation. That said, in my experience most people who claim to be special and enjoy social isolation deeply regret it.
  - xfitm3 7y ago
    You're really against the idea of remote work, aren't you? I've been remote for almost 10 years. No regrets.
    - raiflip 7y ago
      Well, personally I am. I also think it's the sort of thing where a lot of people like it until they actually experience it. That said, if you do enjoy it, all the best.
xfitm3 7y ago
I crave isolation - remote work is perfect for me. I detest offices: stinky lunches, music, mastication noises, and too many snacks. Not everyone is the same.
twa927 7y ago
You must be more active when working remotely wrt. seeking social interactions. When working on-site, you get some of the interactions for free. When working remotely, you must actively organize them by yourself. I know people who get MORE social interactions from working remotely because they have more energy/time for things like meeting with friends, clubs meetings etc.

asadkn 7y ago

There are several type of people of course and there's no correct answer. And for good personal reasons usually. A lot of asocial introverts are likely to have an issue with open plan offices but might do just fine in a private office - yet some of them would prefer only working remote. Developing personal rapport with the colleagues is often another factor. I have seen remote-only people join the "office" camp and consider it more productive and motivating, simply because they found a workplace that they liked more than working remote, with one of the factors being relationships they developed. Some even prefer the synched schedule over flexible hours. Personally I am remote-only but I appreciate everyone's different and not everyone work the same way.

dejaime 7y ago

Personally, I prefer remote work, but have had a hard time finding it lately. Half of my opportunities require me to go to an office to work. I don't complain much, as I increase my hour by ~40% when it is not possible to do it remotely. That also comes to compensate for the time lost in commute, the extra money spent (e.g. transportation, food), and the fact that I can't really choose the hours I work. This last point is always funny, because my employers always tell me I have a completely flexible schedule. Their faces when I ask if I can come to work from 10pm~4am is priceless though. "Oh, your hours are 100% flexible given that you come anywhere between 8am and 6pm", heard this so many times it got funny. PS: writing this at the office, feeling sleepy... they won't allow remote work... and this computer takes a while to build, 23x more than my personal workstation, I timed it.

Leherenn 7y ago
To be fair, in a lot of place it is probably illegal to work those hours. Where I am from, 11pm to 6am are night hours and you need a special contract to be be able to work during those times. This contract is subject to restrictions (i.e. the employer needs to prove you need to work those hours, e.g. you work in healthcare, retail, ...) and they would need to compensate you more per the law. Same thing for Sundays.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  Where are your from? AFAIK in the US most developers are paid as salaried exempt employees, which means they never got overtime pay and can work any hours. I don't think the restrictions you state are generally true anywhere in the US either, even for hourly employees.
- dejaime 7y ago
  This. That's one of the reasons. Here anything between 22 and 5h is also considered night work. If your work is nocturnal (e.g. a security guard) you receive a "night time bonus" on top of your hourly rate. If it isn't though (e.g. a programmer), in theory one would need to receive double hourly rate to work those hours. This does not apply to contractors here, but is an issue when hiring someone as a formal employee.

chillfox 7y ago

This ideal environment is impossible. If person A needs “peace and quiet” and Person B needs to grab Person A to “look at something” then it will only be ideal for one of them.

parthdesai 7y ago

I'm with you. I currently WFH 1 day/week and i actually look forward to going in the next day. I guess it helps that i'm a single guy in my mid-20's living 15 mins bike ride away from my work.

iamaziz 7y ago

I, too, think remote work sucks. Remote work misses the most crucial parts of working as a team: interactive learning and collective progress.

menckenjr 7y ago
This is a cultural thing more than a remote work thing. At my company we're remote 2-3 days a week but can chat on Skype as needed. Our team (3 people supporting a major app on Android and iOS) talks several times a day to go over things and our team cohesion is good.

maxsilver 7y ago

So, the secret to a good office, is to be enormously wealthy? Because to have a nice high-quality office (not cube farm, not open-plan exposed-ducts) that's also a large office ('where people can find meeting rooms when they need them and also peace and quiet') in the pricey core of downtown ('somewhere with good public transport'), and to also have your employees afford to live downtown too ('so people aren't forced into long commutes') It's all true, I agree with all of it, but it's super expensive. Even to do just one of those things is pricey, to do all of these things is enormously expensive.

LaGrange 7y ago
"and to also have your employees afford to live downtown too ('so people aren't forced into long commutes')" ...it also has to be in the countryside at the same time, because so many people find it exhausting to live in the city centers for sensory reasons.
geekbird 7y ago
I've worked in profitable companies that had that, but then Wall Street started demanding more profit, so the work environment (and headcount) was easiest to cut, but has the worst long term impact on the company.
frobozz 7y ago
Good public transport exists where people live, as well as in the priciest parts of the city. A suburban office, or one in a medium-sized town would be walkable for a large portion of your staff.

ryanmercer 7y ago

>I'd rather have proximity to co-workers so we can easily share ideas in informal ways. In my office talking is EXTREMELY discouraged, only certain people have messenger, email is for specific uses only, dress code, in the winters it easily gets into the low 60Fs in the office and in the spring we start seeing upper 70Fs and even 80Fs in the summer, we get 30 minutes for lunch and the closest fast food is 10-15 minutes in traffic, been here 13 years and we just got the right to wear jeans last fall, no office phones, open office with team leads effectively in the back of every row to watch everything you are doing, shared desks with other shifts, not supposed to even look your personal phone, can't go microwave your food on the clock but only 3 microwaves for 100~ people, 1 drink vending machine that wouldn't take cash or coin for the past 3 weeks and is often empty for most choices, parked off of active runways so our cars get coated in unburnt jet fuel/deicer/bird mess, parking lot is cratered nearly as bad as the moon (not exaggerating), photo ID has to always be visible, cameras on every entrance and exit, have to sign in at your desk but it can often take 2-3 minutes to even get a browser open which means realistically you need to be here 5 minutes early, minimum, every day, have to fully log out AFTER clocking out before you leave --- as you don't have admin privs software hangs and you have to force close it every single time you log out because it wants to update (mostly looking at you adobe), even if there is a county travel ban for snow/ice we're supposed to work our full shift... Yeah man, I'd love to be able to work from home given there is nothing I have to do here that I can't do from anywhere with a computer, a web browser, an internet connection and a few BlueZone mainframe displays open.

unicornfinder 7y ago
Honestly that just sounds like an awful place to work in general.
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  Welcome to life outside of tech companies. :/
  - perfect_wave 7y ago
    Umm no. This is a terrible work environment. I don't work in a tech company and we have exactly 0 of the issues that you brought up.

86carr 7y ago

Well articulated.

notacoward 7y ago

> rather than grabbing her for a "Can you look at this?" over the shoulder, it gets slung over the fence Is that experience, or speculation? Having worked remotely on large teams for a decade myself, I've had just about the opposite experience. The unavailability of a component's main developer can be a powerful spur to dive in and take matters into one's own hands, vs. the short-term convenience but long-term bottleneck of always walking over to your hypothetical Naimh for assistance. This effect is seen all the time in large open source projects, even for challenging code e.g. in the Linux kernel. If your experience has been otherwise, that suggests more about your team than about remote teams in general.

skizm 7y ago

I got to say, I disagree with nearly every point here. Taps on the shoulder are the worst, anonymous cubical farms would be way better than the current situation (all open offices), skype/zoom/etc. are all immediately available for impromptu meetings, I'm not sure why working on code independently would lead to more silos? Does everyone always pair program in offices? Do you theorize less design meetings or something? Plus remote you can not play the butts-in-seats game, get non-work related life things done at your leisure, wear whatever clothes you like, shit in your own bathroom, don't have to worry about anyone tapping you on the shoulder, eat what you want when you want, the list goes on. Theses are just the immediate things that come to mind.

auggierose 7y ago
Shit in your own bathroom. I second this.
- cpursley 7y ago
  I'm not sure why you're getting downvotes. This is actually huge for me at least.
- potta_coffee 7y ago
  The bathroom in my office is nasty. Nobody has a gallbladder and they all eat greasy food. It's a shit factory and I hate being here for that reason alone.
  - c0vfefe 7y ago
    xD Thanks for the laugh!
dkersten 7y ago
Regarding pair programming, some of my best work was done “remote pair programming” with voice chat and screen sharing.
- pelasaco 7y ago

LaGrange 7y ago

Jesus, you're describing a hellscape, as far as I'm concerned. A noisy place where people can interrupt me whenever, where no work ends up documented because you can just "look at this," and people are motivated by the beer and parties, not by actually working on something worthwhile. I mean, yes, especially in the eCommerce world the "worthwhile" is rare to come by, but you're not going to disguise that by trying to replace your employees social life. Finally, my experience tells me that if "only Naimh can owrk on FooBarAdapter," then Naimh left the company three years ago and moved into the Ural mountains to live off the land. And good grief, if my choice is between a cubicle farm and an open office, cubicle farm every day. Thankfully, my choice is no longer that limited. Oh, and working with people who document their work and read team message board, turning your "only Naimh can work on" into some forgotten memory of past nightmares.

dkersten 7y ago

> but are happy to let people overhear what you think. In my experience, most engineers in offices spend their days with headphones on because they’re trying to drown out the office noises. They’re not going to overhear anything. Also, again, in my own experience, even if you don’t and are listening to what’s going on around you, you still can only overhear what’s said by those relatively close to you. That is, the probability of overhearing something useful has been, for me, incredibly low to the point that it hasn’t been worth it. > rather than grabbing her for a “Can you look at this?” When I’ve worked remotely, we’ve often sent each other messages asking to explain some code or hopped on a quick screenshare to go over it. Bonus: due to the asynchronous nature of text chat, I don’t accidentally interrupt the other person. Also, the more that is done in text chat, the more of a record of it you have when you inevitably forget. Its much better to be able to do a quick search in your chat logs than to re-interrupt the person to explain the thing again. > But whole-team remote work? No thanks! I’d rather have everyone remote, because it means you can optimise the company around it. If only some people are remote, or people are remote only some of the time, then companies tend to treat them as second-class citizens and optimise for in-person.

linuxftw 7y ago

Remote work is the solution to specific problems. For me, that problem is commuting. Office buildings are not where people live. I can't have a house right next door to the office for an amount that the company is willing to pay me. Since the company is cheap, hires the bare minimum of people to do a specific job, those people either have to come from a large local area, or support remote work.

pelasaco 7y ago

first post ever where i disagree with all points. I work in a team, of 10, 9 are remote, and the manager is partially remote. We spend however a lot of time in gotomeetings and pair programming sessions and meet each other, 4 or 5 times per year. It works great. Near enough to work as a team and enjoy to work with the colleagues, far enough to don't have any interpersonal conflicts. It's just awesome. Said that, we are always able to drive to our headquarter if we feel that's necessary.

donretag 7y ago

I have been working remote for 4 years, both full-time at two different companies. I also do not like the experience. My issues stem from working at non-remote-first companies and my personality. Being one of the few people that is remote, I will have no visibility. My pull requests will linger, no room for advancement, no learning from others. And as an incredibly social person, I find the isolation to be too much. I also detest people that work from cafes. They are not offices!

loco5niner 7y ago
> And as an incredibly social person I think this is the key. I am an incredibly NOT social person and LOVE isolation when trying to get work done.
mariojv 7y ago
Why would you detest people that work from cafes just because you don't like it? For me working remotely full time, it's a good break from working from a home office all the time. Coworking spaces are few and far between where I live so it's really one of the only alternatives.
- donretag 7y ago
  Simply because I want to grab something to eat or drink, but I cannot because there is no place to sit.

kashyapc 7y ago

The boring answer is, there are range of preferences; some prefer offices, others prefer remote-only, yet others prefer a combination of remote and office. To each unto their own. On "But whole-team remote work? No thanks!": One of the cardinal rules for "remote-first" to work as intended is that either the whole team is remote, or not. Otherwise, information asymmetry can affect team dynamics and morale in non-trivial ways and the product suffers.

ehnto 7y ago

> If developers are remote, you will find that your code-base becomes the same. That critical FooBarAdapter becomes something that only Naimh can work on because without co-location if another developer is stuck on it, rather than grabbing her for a "Can you look at this?" over the shoulder, it gets slung over the fence in an issue or pull request. I have not found that at all. With good engineering practices and mature developers, no one should be gatekeeper of any functionality in any environment, remote or co-located. Inside a good piece of software should be idioms that work across the whole platform, so that no matter what the code does, anyone in your team can pick it up. If you have a bad mix of junior and senior developers, and either of those groups are left to go on programming tangents that are outside of the idioms of the software then yeah, you're going to find yourself with code no one else understands, or tools no one asked for in the codebase. But that was a failure of the software's architecture, and the way you trained and managed your team to work within it. I'm not saying it can't happen on a remote team, just that it's not a problem caused by remote work. A remote team is not any less competent just for being remote.

bytematic 7y ago

Agreed. I'm a remote employee with even a better setup at home than at my office, but I go in nearly every day. I don't have the long time experience to maybe be burned out of office work but I still enjoy the "separation of concerns".

momokoko 7y ago

I think its just that non-remote work is considerably more common so you are much less likely to find people openly complaining about it because their needs are mostly met. Online discussions always amplify the decent of the minority because the majority tends to get its way. And because the majority is satisfied, it remains largely silent.

fourseventy 7y ago

I agree. Everyone seems to have a hard on for remote work but I don't understand it.

blocked_again 7y ago

Okay. Remote work sucks according to you. Have you ever worked in a remote company? Remote work has its pros and cons. So does working from a office.

markbnj 7y ago

> Sometimes you don't want to formally disperse some information but are happy to let people overhear what you think. I'm not disagreeing with your main point because remote work is not for everyone, and who am I to tell you what to prefer? But I wanted to note that I've been working fully remote for more than ten years, and I'd say 95% of my contact with team members is informal, and along the lines of just sharing thoughts and ideas exactly as you describe. The only difference is that we share them on slack and via emails rather than having that tap on the shoulder as you describe it. Which is "better" is a matter of personal preference.

sam0x17 7y ago

> rather than grabbing her for a "Can you look at this?" over the shoulder, it gets slung over the fence in an issue or pull request. I mean, what about grabbing her for a "Can you look at this?" over a quick video call.

chrisg3 7y ago

Perhaps small office spaces in areas with many employees could be a solution. For example, you have the opportunity to go to a local workspace for your company on a weekday, but have no obligation to do so.

bphogan 7y ago

One thing that always gets lost is this: Some humans do not think on their feet. They often need time to digest thoughts and new ideas. If you start observing this behavior, you will notice that an impromptu brain-storming session often results in a couple of people talking and many others observing. It ends up being highly productive to the people talking, and very frustrating to those who are observing. If you don't see this trend, your hiring practices may be optimized for finding only one type of person - extroverted people who can say things quickly. Consider that you may be missing out on some very good ideas from people who aren't comfortable with quick context switches and immediate requests for feedback on ideas.

dmode 7y ago

I am with you. I personally hate remote work and companies who actively use remote workers as a strategy. I was a remote worker for 6 months and was borderline depressed due to limited human contacts. My next employer had a very distributed team in different time zone. And it was incredibly inefficient. It was difficult to find a common time overlap. Every meeting was disrupted due to webex and network issues. Quick casual meetings were not possible. My current employer is 100% onsite and I love it. Ability to just walk over and white board is good for my soul

thorwasdfasdf 7y ago

Working at the office is a Luxury, a very very high priced luxury that the employee pays for entirely with the price differential in your Home Rent/House she/he pays. In SF for example, you pay 1000$/sq ft vs the 130$/sq ft the national median.

JackFr 7y ago

I couldn't agree more.

m0zg 7y ago

I've been working mostly remotely for my clients (in office part of 1 day every 2 weeks; I do charge my billing rate for commute), and I enjoy remote work tremendously. I wake up at 11AM (without an alarm), and all I need to "get to the office" is go downstairs to my work desk (I don't do work anywhere else as a way of enforcing the separation and creating the routine). "Can you look at this" at random points in time would ruin my productivity. Open plans ruin my productivity. Constant bullshitting at the office that has nothing to do with work ruins my productivity. Not being able to do my work between 7PM and 2AM (when I'm the most productive) ruins my productivity. Commute for 1.5 hours a day ruins my productivity, too. I actually have my own company now, and while it's just me so far, when it's time to hire people I will structure it such that it's remote-first, and I will hire from all over the US, and possibly all over the globe when the company size allows. You don't need an office for team cohesion. You don't need a bunch of meetings for that either. You just need reasonably clear goals and responsibilities (this is the hard part, but only when you have no clue what to do), the rest can be handled pretty easily via email and GitHub. Have a weekly Zoom meeting you want, to sync up.

kemiller 7y ago

It is absolutely possible to get all of those benefits while working remotely, provided you have some Tim wine overlap with at least part of your team. You just have to be explicit about it and not rely on the shoulder tap.

Spooky23 7y ago

I'm in a technical director role, and have been in IT, DBA and development roles in the past. Today, I work remote approximately 1 day per week. It's great for creative/heads down activities, which for me are writing, reading and tasks like spreadsheet work or ideation. I do it more when I'm on call-driven projects. It's not great for coordination with "close teams" and not great for operations team dynamics.

makeszerosense3 7y ago

Remote work is the new open office. Such a bad idea that takes some companies years to realize it.

gregd 7y ago
I've been working remotely for 8 years now. I'm truly interested in understanding why you think it's such a bad idea. I mean I used to have to commute through downtown Portland, Oregon at rush hour. Just being able to leave that out of EVERY day has tremendously improved my quality of life.

aytekin 7y ago

In most development work team productivity is more important than individual productivity. I have found that the best approach is to have co-located team rooms. (And the team members should be working on the same project. Putting people together does not make it a team. If everyone has a different project, that’s not a team) If the work has to be done individually, then there is no point in being co-located. Remote works well. Co-located teams communicate well, decide and move quickly, and has much higher trust between team members. Work that does not require too much communication, speed and collaboration is more suitable to remote. This hybrid approach worked well for us.

mo1ok 7y ago

100% agreement. It's continuing the trend of offloading management onto the burden of the individual worker. It's the responsibility of the company to create a solid, quiet, accessible work environment - by enabling "remote work", they can effectively write off this responsibility.

gregd 7y ago

I've been working remotely for 8 years now for a couple of companies. Currently work in an environment where I'm one of the few devs working remotely, where the rest share an office. I'm trying to figure out if you've actually worked remotely or not. It does take a much more concerted effort on everyone's part to be more inclusive of remote workers, especially if only a handful of devs are remote and the rest share an office. Meetings aren't usually a problem. We primarily rely on Skype for Business and all meetings are generally held online. We've even managed to move scheduled meetings (which I loathe) into Microsoft Teams channels. The written words manage to keep everyone on the same page, much better than just hearing it. Microsoft Teams and Slack facilitates the sharing of cubicle conversations and informal ideas but it takes effort to get everyone onboard with using these as their primary ways of sharing convos. I mean, I don't get interrupted very often. I can be as out of site/out of mind as I want and need. And I'm way more productive working from home, than I am where I can be interrupted constantly. I don't know about you, but it usually takes me about two hours to recover from an interruption to get back to where I was. Not always, but usually. All of the above is pertinent to being a mixed bag of remote and office sharers. I would imagine that an all remote team, would have an even easier time with communications and inclusivity.

MarkMc 7y ago

> I'd rather have proximity to co-workers so we can easily share ideas in informal ways. Yes I agree. This informal communication is an under-appreciated aspect of an open-plan office. I wonder whether remote teams can be structured to mimic the 'closeness' of co-located team members. Here's what I'm thinking: 1. Two colleagues work similar timezones 2. Each colleague has a dedicated TV screen with webcam 45 degrees to the left of their main computer screen 3. The TV screen displays an always-on Zoom meeting showing the webcam video and screencast of the remote colleague 4. At any time, communication is as simple as turning to the TV and saying, "Hey Bill, did you see the Cowboys game last night?"

13rac1 7y ago
I've done many multi-hour video calls switching between pairing and unrelated tasks with 1-2 co-workers on my primarily remote team. We talk both shop and not shop. It works well, plus any of us can exit the call to focus. I find it vastly more productive than an open-office.

sharadov 7y ago

Depends on the role, I am a DBA and work totally -remote, and I find it better than getting stuck in an open-plan office with people interrupting me constantly. There are enough collaboration tools (slack, zoom) to collaborate when I need to. May not work for developers, but our entire team has a choice between coming to work or being remote and they're doing great. Depends on the company culture and will only work with seniors folks.

vast 7y ago

I think neither extreme is perfect. I very much enjoy working closely with my peers. After a while you build a small family. Social factors are a big plus for office workers and a big risk for remote workers. But in an office I cannot work at full potential. For me it would be good enough to have occasional zero disturbance times. Sadly the occasional mode is usually harder to integrate and realise then the full mode. On top of that I highly despise communicating remotely.

alexbanks 7y ago

> And don't be a cubicle farm. Yes, if you think the alternative to remote work is an anonymous grey cubicle on the 5th floor of an anonymous office block (or just as bad, the 'trendy' exposed ducts open plan office), then remote work will look like nirvana. What is the alternative to "not a cubicle farm and not and open office"?

mikorym 7y ago

A common topic, and not without controversy for sure, I can see both arguments for and against remote working. The only addition I would like to make is that an employer should try to take into account the personal situations of their employees. For example, a blanket ban on remote working at a big tech company [1] to me is rediculous. Some people are exceedingly efficient working on their own and on their own terms. At the same time, some employees can become demotivated if left to their own devices. I would say that in the capacity of the employer and their inherent responsibility towards their employees it sounds natural to me that some would work from home and others not. An all remote team would presuppose that (all) the employee(s) would like that kind of thing. [1] I see from time to time this happening (or people trying this). A google search some of those that tried: Yahoo, IBM. Top-to-bottom decisions are sometimes rather disruptive and maybe unnecessary in this case.

liveoneggs 7y ago

~all tech jobs are anonymous cube farms or open offices in the US (and probably other places)

mrfusion 7y ago

Remote is the worst way to work except for all the others.

_betty_ 7y ago

Menlo Innovations are pretty anti remote-work. You might enjoy their book Joy Inc.

RickJWagner 7y ago

I have friends who couldn't work remote. But for me, it's the greatest perk of my current job. I love working remote. No gas to buy, no wear on the car. No commute time. Instantly at work, instantly back home after. Video conferencing keeps me close (enough) to my co-workers. I can't say enough good things about it.

whateveracct 7y ago

> I'd rather have proximity to co-workers so we can easily share ideas in informal ways. I can't tell you how many ideas I've come up with & worked through and problems I've solved while remote. When you have a culture of DMing and chatting in interest channels (#haskell has been a fun place in multiple companies), ideas flow wonderfully. And then you can add to it with Zoom chats and tmate pairing. The next thing I want to try is collaborative distributed whiteboarding using drawing tablets.

GuB-42 7y ago

From a purely personal point of view, I don't really want remote work. At least not full time. Work is a distinct social environment. You meet different people, do different things, etc... It has value. It helps see things from different perspectives. If things get hard at work, going back home gives you an escape, and vice-versa. You don't need for commute for that but it helps.