4 ms·

Don't you find it gets a bit lonely after a while? I've been working as a full-time programmer from home for about a year and a half now, and it's beginning to

by udp 16y ago

Don't you find it gets a bit lonely after a while? I've been working as a full-time programmer from home for about a year and a half now, and it's beginning to get a bit weird. Aside from not having physical coworkers, I don't leave work, go home and do something else, because work is always all around me. There's this never-ending pattern of 9-5 quickly becoming 2 PM - 8 AM, until I finally pull an all nighter and it resets. It doesn't help that I'm 100% passionate about what I do...!

steve-howard 16y ago
I almost never _have_ to go into work (though my boss has requested that I spend some time there because others tend to need me for things), but the thought of being alone for a whole day gets me out the door. I love what I do, but people are interesting too.
russell 16y ago
I worked for more than 10 years from home in the mountains above SV with a client in Chicago. I had a wife and 3 school age kids. We had rules and a discipline: when I was in my office, I was not available for chatting, discipline, or other home things. I worked mainly 8 to 5 and the personalities of the family members were such that it worked. If I wanted a hacker fix, I would go to some meeting in the valley, I was the last survivor of a 30 person development office. That in itself was eerie.
technomancy 16y ago
> Don't you find it gets a bit lonely after a while? At work we spend 80% of the day pairing over voip and SSH. It's ironic because I moved from California to Seattle because I got tired of telecommuting all by my lonesome from down there, but these days with pairing it doesn't bother me at all.
- lawnchair_larry 16y ago
  What is "pairing"?
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    my guess is 'pair programming'. descriptions online.
- jbrechtel 16y ago
  That sounds like an interesting pairing setup. Would you mind expounding on the details, both technical and logistical, if possible? Specifically, are you sharing a screen session with VIM in a terminal or what? Do you rotate pairs or is it always the same person? How would you compare your remote pairing setup with live, in-person pairing?
  - technomancy 16y ago
    We are all Emacs users, and we share tmux sessions on Vagrant VMs over SSH. (It's like GNU Screen, but a lot more convenient for sharing.) We usually stick with the same pair for about a week and rotate among our 10-man team, though each person has areas they're more proficient in. We use Skype for VoIP (though Mumble works better in some cases) and IRC for chat. I haven't done much in-person pairing, but I think the main difference is not having to share a keyboard. Each person can use a system they're comfortable with; no fuss about dvorak vs qwerty, Kinesis vs Natural 4000, standing desk vs sitting, or Ubuntu vs Macosecks. It does mean you need to use auditory cues to indicate who is in control of a given session. The biggest drawback is probably that you can't share a web browser over SSH, but since we are doing backend coding it doesn't affect us. For me it's been a huge win. We do also have week-long meetings a few times a year to bring the whole team together in-person to promote the team's cohesion. But working from home is great; as long as I'm able to switch things up occasionally by working from a coffee shop a couple times a week, I'm happy.
    - jbrechtel 16y ago
      That sounds like a really great setup. I'm going to have to try this out one day. I've never really considered the specific benefits remote pairing would have over in-person pairing...generally the only things considered are the downsides. Obviously, some of the things you mentioned with in-person pairing can be alleviated. At my current client, our setup includes multiple keyboards and mice. A friend of mine uses his own keyboard with a hardware switch to go between dvorak and qwerty. You mention not being able to share a browser which makes me think of the times where it would have been convenient to look something up for a moment while my pair experimented (two pronged problem solving approach... :). Also, what kind of pairing patterns do you use in this setup? Ping Pong TDD, driver/navigator, etc... ?
alain94040 16y ago
Agreed, same experience here. That's why (shameless plug) http://letslunch.com http://letslunch.com has saved my sanity: now I can meet peers (entrepreneurs, engineers, geeks like me) for lunch.
stoney 16y ago
I find that scheduling activities with other people that start at around the time that you want to finish work is very effective at enforcing sane working hours. I meet a friend to go climbing two nights a week, which pretty much forces me to stop working at a certain time two days a week. Having those two days anchored seems to help stop the other days drifting into other time zones.
qusiba 16y ago
That's what I feel after staying at home 11 days.
JonWood 16y ago
I've been working from home for the last 9 months, and my experience has been that you have to be disciplined about working hours. Initially my sleep cycle (and therefore working hours) shifted by a couple of hours, so I'd get out of bed about 11am, and start work somewhere around 12, which effectively meant I had an hour before I stopped for lunch at 1, and then ended up working until 9 in the evening. If I were single I could probably be quite happy with that, but it meant I only really got a couple of hours with my wife before she went to bed. That alone gave me the motivation to get back into the habit of starting work at 9, and finishing between 5 and 7. I'll also second the comment by the person who said that it helps to have something planned for the evening, if only to force you into stopping work by that time.

by udp 16y ago

steve-howard 16y ago

I almost never _have_ to go into work (though my boss has requested that I spend some time there because others tend to need me for things), but the thought of being alone for a whole day gets me out the door. I love what I do, but people are interesting too.

russell 16y ago

I worked for more than 10 years from home in the mountains above SV with a client in Chicago. I had a wife and 3 school age kids. We had rules and a discipline: when I was in my office, I was not available for chatting, discipline, or other home things. I worked mainly 8 to 5 and the personalities of the family members were such that it worked. If I wanted a hacker fix, I would go to some meeting in the valley, I was the last survivor of a 30 person development office. That in itself was eerie.

technomancy 16y ago

> Don't you find it gets a bit lonely after a while? At work we spend 80% of the day pairing over voip and SSH. It's ironic because I moved from California to Seattle because I got tired of telecommuting all by my lonesome from down there, but these days with pairing it doesn't bother me at all.

lawnchair_larry 16y ago
What is "pairing"?
- mkramlich 16y ago
  my guess is 'pair programming'. descriptions online.
jbrechtel 16y ago
That sounds like an interesting pairing setup. Would you mind expounding on the details, both technical and logistical, if possible? Specifically, are you sharing a screen session with VIM in a terminal or what? Do you rotate pairs or is it always the same person? How would you compare your remote pairing setup with live, in-person pairing?
- technomancy 16y ago
  We are all Emacs users, and we share tmux sessions on Vagrant VMs over SSH. (It's like GNU Screen, but a lot more convenient for sharing.) We usually stick with the same pair for about a week and rotate among our 10-man team, though each person has areas they're more proficient in. We use Skype for VoIP (though Mumble works better in some cases) and IRC for chat. I haven't done much in-person pairing, but I think the main difference is not having to share a keyboard. Each person can use a system they're comfortable with; no fuss about dvorak vs qwerty, Kinesis vs Natural 4000, standing desk vs sitting, or Ubuntu vs Macosecks. It does mean you need to use auditory cues to indicate who is in control of a given session. The biggest drawback is probably that you can't share a web browser over SSH, but since we are doing backend coding it doesn't affect us. For me it's been a huge win. We do also have week-long meetings a few times a year to bring the whole team together in-person to promote the team's cohesion. But working from home is great; as long as I'm able to switch things up occasionally by working from a coffee shop a couple times a week, I'm happy.
  - jbrechtel 16y ago
    That sounds like a really great setup. I'm going to have to try this out one day. I've never really considered the specific benefits remote pairing would have over in-person pairing...generally the only things considered are the downsides. Obviously, some of the things you mentioned with in-person pairing can be alleviated. At my current client, our setup includes multiple keyboards and mice. A friend of mine uses his own keyboard with a hardware switch to go between dvorak and qwerty. You mention not being able to share a browser which makes me think of the times where it would have been convenient to look something up for a moment while my pair experimented (two pronged problem solving approach... :). Also, what kind of pairing patterns do you use in this setup? Ping Pong TDD, driver/navigator, etc... ?

alain94040 16y ago

Agreed, same experience here. That's why (shameless plug) http://letslunch.com http://letslunch.com has saved my sanity: now I can meet peers (entrepreneurs, engineers, geeks like me) for lunch.

stoney 16y ago

I find that scheduling activities with other people that start at around the time that you want to finish work is very effective at enforcing sane working hours. I meet a friend to go climbing two nights a week, which pretty much forces me to stop working at a certain time two days a week. Having those two days anchored seems to help stop the other days drifting into other time zones.

qusiba 16y ago

That's what I feel after staying at home 11 days.

JonWood 16y ago

I've been working from home for the last 9 months, and my experience has been that you have to be disciplined about working hours. Initially my sleep cycle (and therefore working hours) shifted by a couple of hours, so I'd get out of bed about 11am, and start work somewhere around 12, which effectively meant I had an hour before I stopped for lunch at 1, and then ended up working until 9 in the evening. If I were single I could probably be quite happy with that, but it meant I only really got a couple of hours with my wife before she went to bed. That alone gave me the motivation to get back into the habit of starting work at 9, and finishing between 5 and 7. I'll also second the comment by the person who said that it helps to have something planned for the evening, if only to force you into stopping work by that time.