5 ms·

I feel like I'm in the minority here, but I am chomping at the bit to get back into the office. I'm a Senior SWE. I've got ADHD. Work from home has been *catas

I feel like I'm in the minority here, but I am chomping at the bit to get back into the office. I'm a Senior SWE. I've got ADHD. Work from home has been *catastrophic* for me. I don't have the ability to focus. I have no space in my home where I can work distraction-free, and no ability to create a space separate from my family. From home I can slack off for an hour... or two... or days, and nobody notices because my projects don't have deliverables that are measured in less than weeks. So I end up spending way too much time on non-work things and then berate myself for it afterwards. And then I do the same thing the next day. Being in the office gives me an externally-imposed structure that I just don't have the capability to impose on myself. I had the freedom to pick a few days here and there to WFH as needed, so I understand and can occasionally use the benefits. I also miss out on the serendipitous conversations. I know that a lot of people discount this as hand-waviness, but my team's culture around texting is disruptive in a way that I used to avoid in person. I felt like I had a much better handle on things in the office. My spouse runs her own company, and she has a free office, so I've been using that twice a week, and I make sure to medicate these days to make the most of them. But my output is still significantly lower than when I was in office. And I don't want to move to every day medication for a variety of reasons. I've read the comments suggesting that middle management thinks that their perceived impact is threatened in a work from home environment, but I am clearly not in that demographic. My work is either writing design docs and getting approval, leading a team to build these designs, or getting my hands dirty with the code itself. I don't care if other people work from home, as long as I'm not completely alone in the office. I just need the structure back. I feel like a junky who just needs "one more" whiteboard fix.

shaftway 6y ago
More context that didn't really fit in. Like I said, I'm free to WFH as I see fit as is. I probably averaged WFH less than one day a week, but sometimes it was as many as 3 days. I've done remote work for ~3 years for a few companies. This only worked because their expectations were significantly lower than my capabilities, so I was able to coast through with ~2 hours of work per day. As my role has increased, expectations have risen to match my capabilities. But I strongly feel like I only have those capabilities in the office.
foobiekr 6y ago
You are not alone. Senior engineers in general - all of the leads I’ve talked to - feel like the current situation is completely broken. I can imagine it works for relatively low-technology low-complexity teams or very very small teams, but it is disastrous for complex and medium/large teams and projects. It’s just very challenging to impossible to keep an appropriate level of awareness.
- greedo 6y ago
  I don't understand how being in the office helps you keep an appropriate level of awareness. Because you can walk up to someone and determine how far along they are with a project? Isn't that what Jira etc are for?
  - foobiekr 6y ago
    because hallway and whiteboard conversations are visible beyond the narrow participants.
  - shaftway 6y ago
    I can't answer for others, but I'm involved in a large team inside of a large department where it can be difficult to understand who really owns a piece of code, and we're all expected to be able to slice all the way across the codebase. I can't tell you how many times I'm heard a team mate mention something that they're working on that I have direct knowledge about and I've been able to cut a week of time off their project. And vice-versa, they've helped me. I usually don't care about exactly what they're doing or how far along they are. If I need that information I join that group's regular sync, or check the bug status, or ping them and ask. It's more about knowledge that a project actually exists. I have about 5 projects that I'm actively leading and another 10 or so that have been backlogged or deferred. There are about 50 people at my level in the department, so I assume there are at least 200 active projects, and I can't handle that firehose. Actually, I'm positive that there are at least 200 projects of various sizes ongoing, and I may be low by a full order of magnitude. But when a question comes through my team, the fact that we can overhear what's going on and tune in or tune out can make or a break a project.
Simon321 6y ago
As a person that also has ADHD, it's more than that. Being around people and working and talking with them directly stimulates me and keeps me focused.
marcind 6y ago
From one fellow whiteboard junky to another: please give ShareTheBoard.com a try. It's no replacement for the real thing but it's a quick fix (ha!) and, I dare say, solves a problem or too. As for the need for structure: I can understand this quite well. Both as a PdM and as a lifelong fan of my son.

shaftway 6y ago

More context that didn't really fit in. Like I said, I'm free to WFH as I see fit as is. I probably averaged WFH less than one day a week, but sometimes it was as many as 3 days. I've done remote work for ~3 years for a few companies. This only worked because their expectations were significantly lower than my capabilities, so I was able to coast through with ~2 hours of work per day. As my role has increased, expectations have risen to match my capabilities. But I strongly feel like I only have those capabilities in the office.

foobiekr 6y ago

You are not alone. Senior engineers in general - all of the leads I’ve talked to - feel like the current situation is completely broken. I can imagine it works for relatively low-technology low-complexity teams or very very small teams, but it is disastrous for complex and medium/large teams and projects. It’s just very challenging to impossible to keep an appropriate level of awareness.

greedo 6y ago
I don't understand how being in the office helps you keep an appropriate level of awareness. Because you can walk up to someone and determine how far along they are with a project? Isn't that what Jira etc are for?
- foobiekr 6y ago
  because hallway and whiteboard conversations are visible beyond the narrow participants.
- shaftway 6y ago
  I can't answer for others, but I'm involved in a large team inside of a large department where it can be difficult to understand who really owns a piece of code, and we're all expected to be able to slice all the way across the codebase. I can't tell you how many times I'm heard a team mate mention something that they're working on that I have direct knowledge about and I've been able to cut a week of time off their project. And vice-versa, they've helped me. I usually don't care about exactly what they're doing or how far along they are. If I need that information I join that group's regular sync, or check the bug status, or ping them and ask. It's more about knowledge that a project actually exists. I have about 5 projects that I'm actively leading and another 10 or so that have been backlogged or deferred. There are about 50 people at my level in the department, so I assume there are at least 200 active projects, and I can't handle that firehose. Actually, I'm positive that there are at least 200 projects of various sizes ongoing, and I may be low by a full order of magnitude. But when a question comes through my team, the fact that we can overhear what's going on and tune in or tune out can make or a break a project.

Simon321 6y ago

As a person that also has ADHD, it's more than that. Being around people and working and talking with them directly stimulates me and keeps me focused.

marcind 6y ago

From one fellow whiteboard junky to another: please give ShareTheBoard.com a try. It's no replacement for the real thing but it's a quick fix (ha!) and, I dare say, solves a problem or too. As for the need for structure: I can understand this quite well. Both as a PdM and as a lifelong fan of my son.