7 ms·

We surveyed 331 remote workers and here's what they say

51 points by hrishikesh1990 7y ago

neokantian 7y ago
I can impossibly go back to an onsite job. I got married in a Southeast Asian jurisdiction where divorce rape does not exist. Going back onsite would undoubtedly mean dragging wife and kids along into a divorce-rape jurisdiction. When I look at other people who did exactly that, their private life was completely destroyed in less than five years. Thanks but no thanks.
- GhettoMaestro 7y ago
  Damn dude that’s a pretty harsh view.
- seszett 7y ago
  I have no idea what "divorce-rape" means, or why you think you would divorce (if I understood right?) within five years of going back to wherever you were before.
  - neokantian 7y ago
    Well, that is the way it seems to work out. The divorce rate here is very, very low. However, when people move back, they get caught up in the same (high) divorce rate of the place where they are moving to. In my opinion, family breakdown is very contagious. That is why married people better stay away from divorced ones. Well, that is how it works here. Divorcees are no longer accepted in the community. I think that this approach makes sense, simply, because it works.
    - seszett 7y ago
      You are basically saying that the main (only?) reason for your wife to stay with you is peer pressure because she would otherwise no longer be welcome in "the community", which sounds awfully like abuse to me. I'm still not sure what you meant by "rape" in your comment, but I'm not sure anymore I want to know.
      - neokantian 7y ago
        > You are basically saying that the main (only?) reason for your wife to stay with you is peer pressure because she would otherwise no longer be welcome in "the community" Not all of the time, but I am sure that there are occasionally times when it is like that. It is the same for me, actually. That is how a "real" marriage works. > which sounds awfully like abuse to me. Marriage only makes sense in the context of religion. Furthermore, "halal" or "haram" is decided by religious law for us. Last but not least, we never take advice concerning morality from the godless vermin.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - saiya-jin 7y ago
      You sound like you have some crappy 'family' life, but judging from your other comments, it is kind of self-explanatory. To each his own, not much can be done here. I hope you don't have kids and don't plan any, and I hope for your wife that you will indeed soon move to a place where as you say 'divorce-rape' is a thing. Its called civilized world.
      - neokantian 7y ago
        Anti-natalist remarks are the hallmark of the godless vermin. I repeat again: I do not take lessons in morality from the godless scum. We simply spit on the unbelievers.
        ars 7y ago
        Did someone hack into your account? This is obviously a troll message, but your older messages are normal.
        neokantian 7y ago
        Religious people and atheists cannot possibly get along. That is a well-known fact. Never have. Never will. We look down on godless individuals and we despise them. That is simply a non-negotiable part of our religious beliefs. So, whenever I get to deal with moral advice from the godless vermin, I just repeat the same remark all over again: We do not take lessons in morality from the godless vermin.
        dang 7y ago
        I'm not sure if you're trolling or if this is genuine religious flamewar, but either way you can't post like this here. We've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
- sequence7 7y ago
  You seem to have used the word rape repeatedly in your comment when you meant to use the word rate.
- Zenbit_UX 7y ago
  > I got married in a Southeast Asian jurisdiction where divorce rape does not exist. Going back onsite would undoubtedly mean dragging wife and kids along into a divorce-rape jurisdiction. What is divorce rape? I googled it but the only result was urban dictionary and I don't think it matches with your comment.
KMnO4 7y ago
Perhaps I just don’t grok Twitter, but this seems like an awful way to convey information. When you click the link, you’re shown a whole bunch of garbage coercing you to sign up for the platform. It’s only in a small postage stamp GIF that you’re supposed to read an article that someone captured on they’re on screen (scrolling and all). If you miss a section or want to scroll back up, you have to wait until the GIF loops. Is it really too much to post a link (or archive) of the actual article?
- seszett 7y ago
  You can get the actual article here https://remotework2020.remote.tools/2-state-of-remote-work.html#companies-are-slowly-recognising-that-having-a-100-remote-company-is-better-than-partially-remote-teams https://remotework2020.remote.tools/2-state-of-remote-work.h... in a more readable form and without the silly smileys, but with added popups.
thomascgalvin 7y ago
I just left a remote-only job for an onsite-only (or onsite four days a week, depending) job. I loved the flexibility of being remote, but I was dying from the lack of social interaction. A third of my waking hours are spent working, and most of my friendships/relationships came from the office. I've been remote for about two years, and I would go days at a time without talking to anyone besides my wife. We aren't meant to live that way.
- jherdman 7y ago
  > ... and I would go days at a time without talking to anyone besides my wife Would it be correct to assume that the majority of your time socializing is at work? I'm at a remote-only company now, and have been so for seven years. I've found the key is that I have certain unconditional social activities I do after work. Without them I tend to go a bit squirrely and cranky. At work we also make a point to spend the first 5-10 minutes of longer meetings just hanging out, and get together in person at least twice a year.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 7y ago
    We do the same. It's valuable. And we share some "useless stuff" in the chat occasionally
- lbotos 7y ago
  I've been remote for 3.5 years now, and that's the first thing I tell new team members: You currently have a community at your office that you don't realize. You will need to be intentional about building that community in other ways now. I get lunch with friends more. Visit my Grandma out of state. Played a ton of Magic the Gathering. It waxes and wanes, but it's my job to build and not just accept the "corp culture" as community.
  - inkeddeveloper 7y ago
    I'm curious how remote work correlates to playing MtG?
stuff4ben 7y ago
An atheist, a vegan, a crossfitter, and a remote worker all walk into a bar... I only know because they told everyone within two minutes.
- phaemon 7y ago
  I hadn't heard that one before, probably because I don't have a TV.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  To be fair, everybody always asks "So, what do you do?". The remote worker is being prompted to tell...
  - neonate 7y ago
    That question asks what they do, not where they do it.
    - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
      … and then "Where is that? I'm not familiar with that company" or "How is your commute?"
chapium 7y ago
I just quit my last remote job of 6 years. The benefits: 1. Live anywhere as long as the timezones are reasonable. 2. No commute. 3. Optional meetings actually stay optional. 4. If you are in a later timezone, you can work late relative to the home office hours; making you pretty valuable to clients for adhoc issues at the end of the day while your team is busy commuting home. The negatives: 1. Very lonely, I ended up spending a lot of money going to cafes to fill a social need. 2. Office meetings suck. If you are the only person dialing in to a meeting and the rest of the team is local there are tons of issues. Noise, missing out on sidebar conversations, etc. 3. You are obligated to overcommunicate to your coworkers or managers to compensate for your lack of presence, but often they leave you in the dark. 4. If your technology breaks down, you are your own support. 5. If skype is signed out without you realizing it, management gets paranoid. 6. You have to work very hard to keep from getting distracted. This gets harder if you aren't interested in your workload. 7. Lack of visibility means lack of opportunities at work. 8. Its very easy to get in a rut where the "remote guy" only works on certain specific things and can't grow their career. If I can help it, I will be 100% local from now on. In my mind, there are too many opportunities missed by not interacting with the rest of the office. I imagine this list would be different if the team was 100% remote.
- neokantian 7y ago
  > Very lonely, I ended up spending a lot of money going to cafe's to fill a social need. I usually work at the swimming pool of my condo here in SE Asia. I love taking swimming breaks. The other guys here at the pool do pretty much the same. These are the same people that I see at the gym when I work out. There are also a few retirees here who avoid cold winters in Canada. There's nothing lonely about my lifestyle. It is actually much better than working in an office.
  - chapium 7y ago
    Remote work is great for a lot of people, but in my case it doesn't. :) I think leaving a job is often an intersection of many issues. Unfortunately, the remote aspect of the job can become one of them (as can a painful commute for local workers).
_tkzm 7y ago
working full-time is retarded. its just way too much. working full-time remotely is beyond retarded. i cannot comprehend anybody that does that. i do work remotely but no way in hell i would take a full-time 8-hour-day job. no amount of money would make me do that.
- chadlavi 7y ago
  Reconsider your use of the word "retarded," friend.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
unnouinceput 7y ago
So basically remote is better then on-site for majority of people, if applicable. We kinda knew this for at least 10 years, no?
alohaandmahalo 7y ago
Thanks for including GitLab in the report, Hrishikesh! For those looking to learn more on remote, or leaders/founders considering it, here are a few resources that were used in this survey. GitLab's Guide to All-Remote: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/guide/ https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/guide/ Informal Communication: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/informal-communication/ https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/informal... People: adopting a remote lifestyle: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/people/ https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/people/ Guide for starting a remote job: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/getting-started/ https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/getting-...
dglass 7y ago
We build products for remote workers at my company[0], and we talk to a lot of remote workers to get their feedback. It's true that loneliness is a big problem that is mentioned by almost everyone we talk to. We wanted to find a way to solve this so we started hosting "Work Clubs" which are essentially small meetup groups at coffee shops during the workday. We gather 3-4 people at the same table and work for 3-4 hours. It's a great way to get out of the house, meet other people and chat for a bit, but also get your work done during the day. We're seeing a lot of repeat users coming back and it's growing into a nice community of remote workers. Friendships and professional connections are made every week. Right now we're hosting work clubs in the SF Bay Area, Portland, and San Diego. We're adding new work clubs daily or you can even host your own Work Club if you'd like. We'll be expanding to other cities soon so if you're a remote worker I'd encourage you to check it out and come work with us! [0] https://outofoffice.app/ https://outofoffice.app/
score_after_air 7y ago
A few downsides I've struggled with that aren't mentioned (remote last 5 years of a 12 year career): - Changing jobs is very difficult, and I haven't quite cracked it yet. IME, every company that advertises remote hiring comes with caveats: way below market salary/down-leveling or perfect candidate. I've been rejected by several companies after multi-round interviews with seemingly great skills match. I don't have an A-list pedigree, but maybe top 10% or so. If you're top school/FANG/excellent interview skills, you might have better results. - Anyone you haven't worked with directly will doubt your value, or at worst assume you're a complete bozo (doubly so if you live trad life in flyover country). This makes it difficult to build strong relationships up and across the org. - Remote leadership is considered an oxymoron. If you're several years into your career, you will likely be stuck in a relatively low impact "senior" position. This isn't a terrible place to be in the short term, but I worry about future prospects. - You will miss out on the Bay Area gold rush. Not the end of the world, but it's frustrating to see people getting rich and retiring early from doing the same work as you. For me the takeaway is remote is great in the short term but possibly dangerous in the long term.

I can impossibly go back to an onsite job. I got married in a Southeast Asian jurisdiction where divorce rape does not exist. Going back onsite would undoubtedly mean dragging wife and kids along into a divorce-rape jurisdiction. When I look at other people who did exactly that, their private life was completely destroyed in less than five years. Thanks but no thanks.

GhettoMaestro 7y ago
Damn dude that’s a pretty harsh view.
seszett 7y ago
I have no idea what "divorce-rape" means, or why you think you would divorce (if I understood right?) within five years of going back to wherever you were before.
- neokantian 7y ago
  Well, that is the way it seems to work out. The divorce rate here is very, very low. However, when people move back, they get caught up in the same (high) divorce rate of the place where they are moving to. In my opinion, family breakdown is very contagious. That is why married people better stay away from divorced ones. Well, that is how it works here. Divorcees are no longer accepted in the community. I think that this approach makes sense, simply, because it works.
  - seszett 7y ago
    You are basically saying that the main (only?) reason for your wife to stay with you is peer pressure because she would otherwise no longer be welcome in "the community", which sounds awfully like abuse to me. I'm still not sure what you meant by "rape" in your comment, but I'm not sure anymore I want to know.
    - neokantian 7y ago
      > You are basically saying that the main (only?) reason for your wife to stay with you is peer pressure because she would otherwise no longer be welcome in "the community" Not all of the time, but I am sure that there are occasionally times when it is like that. It is the same for me, actually. That is how a "real" marriage works. > which sounds awfully like abuse to me. Marriage only makes sense in the context of religion. Furthermore, "halal" or "haram" is decided by religious law for us. Last but not least, we never take advice concerning morality from the godless vermin.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - saiya-jin 7y ago
    You sound like you have some crappy 'family' life, but judging from your other comments, it is kind of self-explanatory. To each his own, not much can be done here. I hope you don't have kids and don't plan any, and I hope for your wife that you will indeed soon move to a place where as you say 'divorce-rape' is a thing. Its called civilized world.
    - neokantian 7y ago
      Anti-natalist remarks are the hallmark of the godless vermin. I repeat again: I do not take lessons in morality from the godless scum. We simply spit on the unbelievers.
      - ars 7y ago
        Did someone hack into your account? This is obviously a troll message, but your older messages are normal.
        neokantian 7y ago
        Religious people and atheists cannot possibly get along. That is a well-known fact. Never have. Never will. We look down on godless individuals and we despise them. That is simply a non-negotiable part of our religious beliefs. So, whenever I get to deal with moral advice from the godless vermin, I just repeat the same remark all over again: We do not take lessons in morality from the godless vermin.
        dang 7y ago
        I'm not sure if you're trolling or if this is genuine religious flamewar, but either way you can't post like this here. We've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
sequence7 7y ago
You seem to have used the word rape repeatedly in your comment when you meant to use the word rate.
Zenbit_UX 7y ago
> I got married in a Southeast Asian jurisdiction where divorce rape does not exist. Going back onsite would undoubtedly mean dragging wife and kids along into a divorce-rape jurisdiction. What is divorce rape? I googled it but the only result was urban dictionary and I don't think it matches with your comment.

KMnO4 7y ago

Perhaps I just don’t grok Twitter, but this seems like an awful way to convey information. When you click the link, you’re shown a whole bunch of garbage coercing you to sign up for the platform. It’s only in a small postage stamp GIF that you’re supposed to read an article that someone captured on they’re on screen (scrolling and all). If you miss a section or want to scroll back up, you have to wait until the GIF loops. Is it really too much to post a link (or archive) of the actual article?

seszett 7y ago
You can get the actual article here https://remotework2020.remote.tools/2-state-of-remote-work.html#companies-are-slowly-recognising-that-having-a-100-remote-company-is-better-than-partially-remote-teams https://remotework2020.remote.tools/2-state-of-remote-work.h... in a more readable form and without the silly smileys, but with added popups.

thomascgalvin 7y ago

I just left a remote-only job for an onsite-only (or onsite four days a week, depending) job. I loved the flexibility of being remote, but I was dying from the lack of social interaction. A third of my waking hours are spent working, and most of my friendships/relationships came from the office. I've been remote for about two years, and I would go days at a time without talking to anyone besides my wife. We aren't meant to live that way.

jherdman 7y ago
> ... and I would go days at a time without talking to anyone besides my wife Would it be correct to assume that the majority of your time socializing is at work? I'm at a remote-only company now, and have been so for seven years. I've found the key is that I have certain unconditional social activities I do after work. Without them I tend to go a bit squirrely and cranky. At work we also make a point to spend the first 5-10 minutes of longer meetings just hanging out, and get together in person at least twice a year.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 7y ago
  We do the same. It's valuable. And we share some "useless stuff" in the chat occasionally
lbotos 7y ago
I've been remote for 3.5 years now, and that's the first thing I tell new team members: You currently have a community at your office that you don't realize. You will need to be intentional about building that community in other ways now. I get lunch with friends more. Visit my Grandma out of state. Played a ton of Magic the Gathering. It waxes and wanes, but it's my job to build and not just accept the "corp culture" as community.
- inkeddeveloper 7y ago
  I'm curious how remote work correlates to playing MtG?

stuff4ben 7y ago

An atheist, a vegan, a crossfitter, and a remote worker all walk into a bar... I only know because they told everyone within two minutes.

phaemon 7y ago
I hadn't heard that one before, probably because I don't have a TV.
JoeAltmaier 7y ago
To be fair, everybody always asks "So, what do you do?". The remote worker is being prompted to tell...
- neonate 7y ago
  That question asks what they do, not where they do it.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    … and then "Where is that? I'm not familiar with that company" or "How is your commute?"

chapium 7y ago

I just quit my last remote job of 6 years. The benefits: 1. Live anywhere as long as the timezones are reasonable. 2. No commute. 3. Optional meetings actually stay optional. 4. If you are in a later timezone, you can work late relative to the home office hours; making you pretty valuable to clients for adhoc issues at the end of the day while your team is busy commuting home. The negatives: 1. Very lonely, I ended up spending a lot of money going to cafes to fill a social need. 2. Office meetings suck. If you are the only person dialing in to a meeting and the rest of the team is local there are tons of issues. Noise, missing out on sidebar conversations, etc. 3. You are obligated to overcommunicate to your coworkers or managers to compensate for your lack of presence, but often they leave you in the dark. 4. If your technology breaks down, you are your own support. 5. If skype is signed out without you realizing it, management gets paranoid. 6. You have to work very hard to keep from getting distracted. This gets harder if you aren't interested in your workload. 7. Lack of visibility means lack of opportunities at work. 8. Its very easy to get in a rut where the "remote guy" only works on certain specific things and can't grow their career. If I can help it, I will be 100% local from now on. In my mind, there are too many opportunities missed by not interacting with the rest of the office. I imagine this list would be different if the team was 100% remote.

neokantian 7y ago
> Very lonely, I ended up spending a lot of money going to cafe's to fill a social need. I usually work at the swimming pool of my condo here in SE Asia. I love taking swimming breaks. The other guys here at the pool do pretty much the same. These are the same people that I see at the gym when I work out. There are also a few retirees here who avoid cold winters in Canada. There's nothing lonely about my lifestyle. It is actually much better than working in an office.
- chapium 7y ago
  Remote work is great for a lot of people, but in my case it doesn't. :) I think leaving a job is often an intersection of many issues. Unfortunately, the remote aspect of the job can become one of them (as can a painful commute for local workers).

_tkzm 7y ago

working full-time is retarded. its just way too much. working full-time remotely is beyond retarded. i cannot comprehend anybody that does that. i do work remotely but no way in hell i would take a full-time 8-hour-day job. no amount of money would make me do that.

chadlavi 7y ago
Reconsider your use of the word "retarded," friend.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

unnouinceput 7y ago

So basically remote is better then on-site for majority of people, if applicable. We kinda knew this for at least 10 years, no?

alohaandmahalo 7y ago

Thanks for including GitLab in the report, Hrishikesh! For those looking to learn more on remote, or leaders/founders considering it, here are a few resources that were used in this survey. GitLab's Guide to All-Remote: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/guide/ https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/guide/ Informal Communication: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/informal-communication/ https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/informal... People: adopting a remote lifestyle: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/people/ https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/people/ Guide for starting a remote job: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/getting-started/ https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/getting-...

dglass 7y ago

We build products for remote workers at my company[0], and we talk to a lot of remote workers to get their feedback. It's true that loneliness is a big problem that is mentioned by almost everyone we talk to. We wanted to find a way to solve this so we started hosting "Work Clubs" which are essentially small meetup groups at coffee shops during the workday. We gather 3-4 people at the same table and work for 3-4 hours. It's a great way to get out of the house, meet other people and chat for a bit, but also get your work done during the day. We're seeing a lot of repeat users coming back and it's growing into a nice community of remote workers. Friendships and professional connections are made every week. Right now we're hosting work clubs in the SF Bay Area, Portland, and San Diego. We're adding new work clubs daily or you can even host your own Work Club if you'd like. We'll be expanding to other cities soon so if you're a remote worker I'd encourage you to check it out and come work with us! [0] https://outofoffice.app/ https://outofoffice.app/

score_after_air 7y ago

A few downsides I've struggled with that aren't mentioned (remote last 5 years of a 12 year career): - Changing jobs is very difficult, and I haven't quite cracked it yet. IME, every company that advertises remote hiring comes with caveats: way below market salary/down-leveling or perfect candidate. I've been rejected by several companies after multi-round interviews with seemingly great skills match. I don't have an A-list pedigree, but maybe top 10% or so. If you're top school/FANG/excellent interview skills, you might have better results. - Anyone you haven't worked with directly will doubt your value, or at worst assume you're a complete bozo (doubly so if you live trad life in flyover country). This makes it difficult to build strong relationships up and across the org. - Remote leadership is considered an oxymoron. If you're several years into your career, you will likely be stuck in a relatively low impact "senior" position. This isn't a terrible place to be in the short term, but I worry about future prospects. - You will miss out on the Bay Area gold rush. Not the end of the world, but it's frustrating to see people getting rich and retiring early from doing the same work as you. For me the takeaway is remote is great in the short term but possibly dangerous in the long term.