7 ms·

The single biggest problem with working remotely is that you have to be excellent at a lot of things that don't matter when you're on site. And since your energ

by edw519 14y ago

The single biggest problem with working remotely is that you have to be excellent at a lot of things that don't matter when you're on site. And since your energy is a zero sum game, being excellent at these things steals energy from building. You need to expend time and energy on: - preparing precise specs instead of explaining and interacting - interpretting imprecise specs instead of questioning and interacting - writing precise emails - interpretting imprecise emails - guessing body language and tonality from written communication - dealing with conference calls and web-based meetings - building relationships without benefit of breaks and meals - understanding the human terrain without benefit of gossip and the water cooler - being noticed and recognized for who you really are by new people - being included when you're "out of sight, out of mind" You kinda get the idea. If you can be excellent at these things, great. Otherwise, be prepared to see your work suffer.

marknutter 14y ago
So in other words, it's harder to play corporate politics when working remotely. That I would agree with. Whether or not that's a bad thing, I'm not sure. And honestly, if you're not spending time on preparing precise specs or writing and interpreting clear and precise emails while working on location then you're doing something wrong. Most of the communication and project management still happens on computers whether or not there are remote workers involved.
- webwright 14y ago
  If you're going to say, "in other words", it's an interesting exercise to wonder if the person you're paraphrasing would agree with you that you're accurately paraphrasing them. I'd say that's not remotely the case here... Though it certainly is harder to play corporate politics remotely. Written communication is lower bandwidth than oral communication. And phone conversations are lower bandwidth than face-to-face. Relationships/friendships are part of work (for most people) and can help you be more effective on a team. And work ideas often get discussed during "non-work work time" (lunches/watercoolers) -- often leaving the remote team member out of the loop.
  - marknutter 14y ago
    > Written communication is lower bandwidth than oral communication This is not necessarily true, especially if you have fast typers on your team. And typing out conversations means you have a written record of everything that was said. Important points are no longer lost to the ether. > And work ideas often get discussed during "non-work work time" (lunches/watercoolers) -- often leaving the remote team member out of the loop. It's true, you do miss out on some of these types of conversations. But if your team makes heavy use of online communication tools, you often have conversations springing up during non-work hours. Also, missing out on 30 minutes of semi-casual discussion during lunch isn't that compelling of a downside for me, especially when weighing it against the upsides of increasing your potential labor pool.
- mfringel 14y ago
  Glib dismissal of large swaths of human interaction as "playing corporate politics" isn't the most airtight of analyses of the human experience.
  - munger 14y ago
    Well crafted. =)
DigitalJack 14y ago
Having been 100% remote for the last 5 years, I feel I can comment here. I'm a little puzzled by the first few items in your list... I work at a pretty big company, so maybe that is why. Specs are a way of life where I work. I would hope that everyone would be good or learn to become good at writing useful precise specs. Accurate and concise emails goes without saying. I would agree with the body language from written communication if you never spoke with anyone on the phone, but that would be pretty unusual I think. Web-based meetings, virtual whiteboards, are fantastic. I'd much rather do web based than sit in a conference room. I don't really have work relationships anymore, but it's not a loss. More of an exchange for relationships outside of work. The water cooler comment I agree with. I don't have the "pulse" of the human terrain anymore. It bothered me when I was losing it, but I don't mind anymore. I used to worry about the "being included" part, due to the out-of-sight, out-of-mind effect. I have to be more of an advocate for myself than perhaps I otherwise would. However, my work speaks for itself, and people want me on their projects. I keep in touch with various project leads and let them know what my availability looks like. I don't feel like I'm missing out. All that said, I worked at my company for close to 10 years before going remote. That was a big help. I personally knew everyone I was working with for the first couple years. Turnover has changed that. Working remotely requires discipline, perhaps more-so than working in an office. For many people, the commute to work and being in a different environment helps them shift state of mind into a "work" mode. That is harder to manufacture working remotely. You need to be more available when you work remotely. When someone calls you in an office and you don't answer, they think "oh, maybe they were taking a break or in the restroom". When someone calls you and you work remotely and don't answer, you worry that they will think, "Is this guy really working?" For the first couple years I worked remotely, I made sure to answer the phone whether I was on lunch or break or whatever. Now that my reputation as an effective remote worker have been established, I don't worry about it so much, but I do still think about it.
- mstefanko 14y ago
  Great insight! Think you nailed everything head-on. The precise specs, I envy you on that though. I've unfortunately never worked somewhere where precise specs we're handed over. I've either had to build my own specs to the problem, or am given partially written specs and had to fill in the gaps. Which ends up in a lot of back and forth, so the point being made in the initial comment about the specs is accurate everywhere I've worked.
mikeash 14y ago
I personally find the opposite to be true with a lot of these "precise" points. Written communication is, at worst, as hard as spoken when it comes to technical matters. Done well, it's better. There are so many times I've tried to explain an idea verbally only to give up and take thirty seconds to outline the shell of it in pseudocode or whatever and suddenly everybody understands. A lot of this stuff depends on individual personality. Some people do better on site, and the stuff you write applies. But some people do better off-site, and all of those advantages you cite can turn into disadvantages. I would be extremely wary of painting remote work as something that's always a disadvantage, albeit one that can sometimes be dealt with, no matter who's doing it.
dennisgorelik 14y ago
What would stop remove worker from explaining, questioning and interacting remotely? There is Skype, there are good screen sharing tools. Being included when you're "out of sight, out of mind" -- that's cultural issue. When you are one click away in Skype - you are more reachable than on-site co-worker 2 cubicles down the hall. I agree about the advantage of breaks/meals/water cooler/gym /walks around the office etc. That could be simulated online though. I think online gaming communities are ahead in online socialization, so we can learn some tricks from them.
- nicolethenerd 14y ago
  My team does attempt to simulate this online, at least w/ one of our remote folks. We occasionally have "game break" on Fridays, where the team gets together for an hour to play a board game or video game (popular favorites have been The Resistance and Mario Kart). When one of our teammates moved to Texas (we're in NY), we started Skyping him in for games of The Resistance (it's sort of like Mafia, but with cards). Since it's a card game, we had to find some interesting workarounds - we use http://www.adoodle.org/ http://www.adoodle.org/ for anonymous votes in the game (instead of cards), and hold up his role card to the screen w/out looking at it so he knows if he's a spy or not. It's been a lot of fun, and a great way to stay connected w/ teammates outside the office. At some point, I'd like to write a Skype bot that handles all the vote-counting and card dealing, but our little hacky version of the game has worked pretty well so far.
kokey 14y ago
If your customer is not going to come visit your retail premises to experience your product, you'd better be good at all those things on the list.
grannyg00se 14y ago
So you frequently experience imprecise emails that require a face to face meeting to clarify what was just written? That doesn't seem like an advantage for working in closer proximity. As far as interpreting imprecise emails, a phone call is possible whether you are in the office or not. And if you are having to do this frequently, I think there is a staffing problem. Body language in technical specs and design documents should be irrelevant. Conference calls...yes...they happen in either case. Not sure what there is to "deal with" differently when working remotely. Being noticed by new people: I think you are suggesting something specific here that I can't relate to. "Human terrain", gossip, water cooler chats....yes, clearly you are suggesting some kind of requirement for something that is not actually required to do work. It seems you are suggesting a very heavy personal interaction with people as a general requirement but I think that in a number of positions this is not the case. If you are in an organization where shared personal time, water cooler chats, and face to face email followups are important, then obiviously remote work is not going to be effective. You've essentially built the perfect anti remote work scenario and suggested that it is going to be that way in every job so if you can't combat those things then forget it. What you have to do instead of trying to fight such a culture is to find a position where those things don't matter.
- justincormack 14y ago
  You can't relate to new people in the company? It is hard to read you here. You sound from this that you have a very specific idea of your job role where your adaption is to leave.
  - grannyg00se 14y ago
    I can't relate to a requirement for being "noticed and recognized for who you really are by new people" as a reason to work in the office. I'd be surprised if most employees really know each other anyway. I'd be even more surprised if that was somehow important to job function for most jobs.
    - calinet6 14y ago
      For most jobs maybe that's true, but many startups strive to be better than that and more than just job function and day-to-day. Personally I find a business where people know each other fairly well and understand how each other operates is preferable over one where I am only considered for my "job function;" so I can relate. But perhaps I am just idealistic.
sologoub 14y ago
Having spent 5 years working with a remote team of 30 developers (mostly west coast based, but almost never in the office), there is definitely a different side to the story. The situation you are describing arises when you try to introduce telecommuting into an organization, without making it part of the culture. When it is an exception and not the norm. As with any exceptions, it has to be properly managed, and results in extra effort being required form both sides of the fence in order to make it work. However, making it the exception is the main reason telecommuting doesn't work out for organizations. At the company where I worked, the norm was that all member of the development staff were telecommuting. Most other departments were on-site, with the exception of about 50% of sales. Pretty much everyone that came into the office did so by choice. I did about 50/50, as my job included a lot of meetings with executives. The main aspects that made this successful, were the same as in the office - there was a very specific expectation of behavior: - When the day starts (at you preferred/agreed upon time), you send an email stating you are working to the dev distro list. - When you are working, you are expected to be on IM (statuses are meaningful, if you are set to "do not disturb", you are not disturbed, unless an emergency arises). - When you leave, take a long break, etc, you let the team know by email. - A daily "stand-up" call was held at specific time. - Everyone had a published contact list. Especially, leads, managers and PMs were expected to answer the calls from devs. Essentially, when someone would IM you, it would be like dropping by someone's cube to talk. White-boarding sessions were done over gotomeetings or webex. For people not used to this, it might sound like a chatty, annoying type of environment, but in reality, being aware of the need to communicate, it made for a much more hospitable place to work. When you needed to concentrate, you could shut everything out. When you needed to collaborate, people were an IM or phone call away.
Mz 14y ago
When I worked for BigCo, the vast majority of my comunication with customers was in writing. The vast majority of my training for interacting with customers was geared towards face to face interactions. I never once had a face to face meeting with a customer. I felt strongly that more internal communication in writing (like email) would have improved the company's ability to interact with the customer -- you know, the folks paying our bills. Given how much you post on HN, it strikes me as somewhat hypocritical to talk about email as an inferior communication method. The internet and writing are increasingly critical to business success, even for local mom and pop shops. I am well aware that people routinely talk like there is something inherently superior about "IRL" interactions. It frequently makes me want to ask "So, then, why are you here?" Because, inevitably, it is someone getting enormous value from their virtual life who is dismissing remote/virtual something-or-other as "not real" or otherwise somehow inferior. Naturally, they do it a lot on the Internet, just to add to the irony.
suitabletech 14y ago
This dynamic is changing. For several of these: "guessing body language and tonality from written communication", "dealing with conference calls and web-based meetings", "building relationships without benefit of breaks and meals", "understanding the human terrain without benefit of gossip and the water cooler", "being noticed and recognized for who you really are by new people" And especially: "being included when you're "out of sight, out of mind"" A remote presence device can make a tremendous difference. We know this because we use them ourselves, with our own distributed team. We have people on three continents, in the same office, every day. One challenge we have (full disclosure, my company makes such a device) is how to explain the benefits, and how it changes life and work, without a live demo. Our research shows that it takes about 30 minutes of use before people start to see the differences. I'd be curious to know what the folks at Double Robotics, Anybots, VGo, and some of the other new companies have found as well.
podperson 14y ago
I think a lot of it comes down to the corporate culture. I worked at one company remotely for eighteen months (at the end of which I was laid off). When I started my team had two people working remotely (and we were among the only remote workers at the company). Eventually the other remote guy quit, and then I got laid off (in large part because I was the only person remaining needing special handling, such as out-of-state health cover). On the other hand, I worked for a company which employed large numbers of remote workers and it wasn't really an issue. One of our clients integrated two of our people into a team which was spread all across north america. That said, I think if you don't capture the water cooler, lunches, etc., you're not getting the full value from the person. Having worked solo/remote for five years, I'm now working in a conventional office setup, going to lunch with colleagues, shooting shit with people at the coffee machine, and so forth -- and the value that these informal encounters have for the project and organization is simply phenomenal. Serendipitous encounters with other smart, passionate people can be amazingly powerful -- I seem to recall an article citing examples such as "Building 20" at MIT where researchers constantly bumped into people working in random different fields, and Pixar's campus where all the bathrooms and snacks are in the central hub. I think that if you're working with the right people on the right project, you want to be together (until the technology for being together -- e.g. electronic "wormholes" -- when you're apart gets a whole lot better). I found the article I was thinking of: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lehrer http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_...
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

by edw519 14y ago

marknutter 14y ago

So in other words, it's harder to play corporate politics when working remotely. That I would agree with. Whether or not that's a bad thing, I'm not sure. And honestly, if you're not spending time on preparing precise specs or writing and interpreting clear and precise emails while working on location then you're doing something wrong. Most of the communication and project management still happens on computers whether or not there are remote workers involved.

webwright 14y ago
If you're going to say, "in other words", it's an interesting exercise to wonder if the person you're paraphrasing would agree with you that you're accurately paraphrasing them. I'd say that's not remotely the case here... Though it certainly is harder to play corporate politics remotely. Written communication is lower bandwidth than oral communication. And phone conversations are lower bandwidth than face-to-face. Relationships/friendships are part of work (for most people) and can help you be more effective on a team. And work ideas often get discussed during "non-work work time" (lunches/watercoolers) -- often leaving the remote team member out of the loop.
- marknutter 14y ago
  > Written communication is lower bandwidth than oral communication This is not necessarily true, especially if you have fast typers on your team. And typing out conversations means you have a written record of everything that was said. Important points are no longer lost to the ether. > And work ideas often get discussed during "non-work work time" (lunches/watercoolers) -- often leaving the remote team member out of the loop. It's true, you do miss out on some of these types of conversations. But if your team makes heavy use of online communication tools, you often have conversations springing up during non-work hours. Also, missing out on 30 minutes of semi-casual discussion during lunch isn't that compelling of a downside for me, especially when weighing it against the upsides of increasing your potential labor pool.
mfringel 14y ago
Glib dismissal of large swaths of human interaction as "playing corporate politics" isn't the most airtight of analyses of the human experience.
- munger 14y ago
  Well crafted. =)

DigitalJack 14y ago

Having been 100% remote for the last 5 years, I feel I can comment here. I'm a little puzzled by the first few items in your list... I work at a pretty big company, so maybe that is why. Specs are a way of life where I work. I would hope that everyone would be good or learn to become good at writing useful precise specs. Accurate and concise emails goes without saying. I would agree with the body language from written communication if you never spoke with anyone on the phone, but that would be pretty unusual I think. Web-based meetings, virtual whiteboards, are fantastic. I'd much rather do web based than sit in a conference room. I don't really have work relationships anymore, but it's not a loss. More of an exchange for relationships outside of work. The water cooler comment I agree with. I don't have the "pulse" of the human terrain anymore. It bothered me when I was losing it, but I don't mind anymore. I used to worry about the "being included" part, due to the out-of-sight, out-of-mind effect. I have to be more of an advocate for myself than perhaps I otherwise would. However, my work speaks for itself, and people want me on their projects. I keep in touch with various project leads and let them know what my availability looks like. I don't feel like I'm missing out. All that said, I worked at my company for close to 10 years before going remote. That was a big help. I personally knew everyone I was working with for the first couple years. Turnover has changed that. Working remotely requires discipline, perhaps more-so than working in an office. For many people, the commute to work and being in a different environment helps them shift state of mind into a "work" mode. That is harder to manufacture working remotely. You need to be more available when you work remotely. When someone calls you in an office and you don't answer, they think "oh, maybe they were taking a break or in the restroom". When someone calls you and you work remotely and don't answer, you worry that they will think, "Is this guy really working?" For the first couple years I worked remotely, I made sure to answer the phone whether I was on lunch or break or whatever. Now that my reputation as an effective remote worker have been established, I don't worry about it so much, but I do still think about it.

mstefanko 14y ago
Great insight! Think you nailed everything head-on. The precise specs, I envy you on that though. I've unfortunately never worked somewhere where precise specs we're handed over. I've either had to build my own specs to the problem, or am given partially written specs and had to fill in the gaps. Which ends up in a lot of back and forth, so the point being made in the initial comment about the specs is accurate everywhere I've worked.

mikeash 14y ago

I personally find the opposite to be true with a lot of these "precise" points. Written communication is, at worst, as hard as spoken when it comes to technical matters. Done well, it's better. There are so many times I've tried to explain an idea verbally only to give up and take thirty seconds to outline the shell of it in pseudocode or whatever and suddenly everybody understands. A lot of this stuff depends on individual personality. Some people do better on site, and the stuff you write applies. But some people do better off-site, and all of those advantages you cite can turn into disadvantages. I would be extremely wary of painting remote work as something that's always a disadvantage, albeit one that can sometimes be dealt with, no matter who's doing it.

dennisgorelik 14y ago

What would stop remove worker from explaining, questioning and interacting remotely? There is Skype, there are good screen sharing tools. Being included when you're "out of sight, out of mind" -- that's cultural issue. When you are one click away in Skype - you are more reachable than on-site co-worker 2 cubicles down the hall. I agree about the advantage of breaks/meals/water cooler/gym /walks around the office etc. That could be simulated online though. I think online gaming communities are ahead in online socialization, so we can learn some tricks from them.

nicolethenerd 14y ago
My team does attempt to simulate this online, at least w/ one of our remote folks. We occasionally have "game break" on Fridays, where the team gets together for an hour to play a board game or video game (popular favorites have been The Resistance and Mario Kart). When one of our teammates moved to Texas (we're in NY), we started Skyping him in for games of The Resistance (it's sort of like Mafia, but with cards). Since it's a card game, we had to find some interesting workarounds - we use http://www.adoodle.org/ http://www.adoodle.org/ for anonymous votes in the game (instead of cards), and hold up his role card to the screen w/out looking at it so he knows if he's a spy or not. It's been a lot of fun, and a great way to stay connected w/ teammates outside the office. At some point, I'd like to write a Skype bot that handles all the vote-counting and card dealing, but our little hacky version of the game has worked pretty well so far.

kokey 14y ago

If your customer is not going to come visit your retail premises to experience your product, you'd better be good at all those things on the list.

grannyg00se 14y ago

So you frequently experience imprecise emails that require a face to face meeting to clarify what was just written? That doesn't seem like an advantage for working in closer proximity. As far as interpreting imprecise emails, a phone call is possible whether you are in the office or not. And if you are having to do this frequently, I think there is a staffing problem. Body language in technical specs and design documents should be irrelevant. Conference calls...yes...they happen in either case. Not sure what there is to "deal with" differently when working remotely. Being noticed by new people: I think you are suggesting something specific here that I can't relate to. "Human terrain", gossip, water cooler chats....yes, clearly you are suggesting some kind of requirement for something that is not actually required to do work. It seems you are suggesting a very heavy personal interaction with people as a general requirement but I think that in a number of positions this is not the case. If you are in an organization where shared personal time, water cooler chats, and face to face email followups are important, then obiviously remote work is not going to be effective. You've essentially built the perfect anti remote work scenario and suggested that it is going to be that way in every job so if you can't combat those things then forget it. What you have to do instead of trying to fight such a culture is to find a position where those things don't matter.

justincormack 14y ago
You can't relate to new people in the company? It is hard to read you here. You sound from this that you have a very specific idea of your job role where your adaption is to leave.
- grannyg00se 14y ago
  I can't relate to a requirement for being "noticed and recognized for who you really are by new people" as a reason to work in the office. I'd be surprised if most employees really know each other anyway. I'd be even more surprised if that was somehow important to job function for most jobs.
  - calinet6 14y ago
    For most jobs maybe that's true, but many startups strive to be better than that and more than just job function and day-to-day. Personally I find a business where people know each other fairly well and understand how each other operates is preferable over one where I am only considered for my "job function;" so I can relate. But perhaps I am just idealistic.

sologoub 14y ago

Having spent 5 years working with a remote team of 30 developers (mostly west coast based, but almost never in the office), there is definitely a different side to the story. The situation you are describing arises when you try to introduce telecommuting into an organization, without making it part of the culture. When it is an exception and not the norm. As with any exceptions, it has to be properly managed, and results in extra effort being required form both sides of the fence in order to make it work. However, making it the exception is the main reason telecommuting doesn't work out for organizations. At the company where I worked, the norm was that all member of the development staff were telecommuting. Most other departments were on-site, with the exception of about 50% of sales. Pretty much everyone that came into the office did so by choice. I did about 50/50, as my job included a lot of meetings with executives. The main aspects that made this successful, were the same as in the office - there was a very specific expectation of behavior: - When the day starts (at you preferred/agreed upon time), you send an email stating you are working to the dev distro list. - When you are working, you are expected to be on IM (statuses are meaningful, if you are set to "do not disturb", you are not disturbed, unless an emergency arises). - When you leave, take a long break, etc, you let the team know by email. - A daily "stand-up" call was held at specific time. - Everyone had a published contact list. Especially, leads, managers and PMs were expected to answer the calls from devs. Essentially, when someone would IM you, it would be like dropping by someone's cube to talk. White-boarding sessions were done over gotomeetings or webex. For people not used to this, it might sound like a chatty, annoying type of environment, but in reality, being aware of the need to communicate, it made for a much more hospitable place to work. When you needed to concentrate, you could shut everything out. When you needed to collaborate, people were an IM or phone call away.

Mz 14y ago

When I worked for BigCo, the vast majority of my comunication with customers was in writing. The vast majority of my training for interacting with customers was geared towards face to face interactions. I never once had a face to face meeting with a customer. I felt strongly that more internal communication in writing (like email) would have improved the company's ability to interact with the customer -- you know, the folks paying our bills. Given how much you post on HN, it strikes me as somewhat hypocritical to talk about email as an inferior communication method. The internet and writing are increasingly critical to business success, even for local mom and pop shops. I am well aware that people routinely talk like there is something inherently superior about "IRL" interactions. It frequently makes me want to ask "So, then, why are you here?" Because, inevitably, it is someone getting enormous value from their virtual life who is dismissing remote/virtual something-or-other as "not real" or otherwise somehow inferior. Naturally, they do it a lot on the Internet, just to add to the irony.

suitabletech 14y ago

This dynamic is changing. For several of these: "guessing body language and tonality from written communication", "dealing with conference calls and web-based meetings", "building relationships without benefit of breaks and meals", "understanding the human terrain without benefit of gossip and the water cooler", "being noticed and recognized for who you really are by new people" And especially: "being included when you're "out of sight, out of mind"" A remote presence device can make a tremendous difference. We know this because we use them ourselves, with our own distributed team. We have people on three continents, in the same office, every day. One challenge we have (full disclosure, my company makes such a device) is how to explain the benefits, and how it changes life and work, without a live demo. Our research shows that it takes about 30 minutes of use before people start to see the differences. I'd be curious to know what the folks at Double Robotics, Anybots, VGo, and some of the other new companies have found as well.

podperson 14y ago

I think a lot of it comes down to the corporate culture. I worked at one company remotely for eighteen months (at the end of which I was laid off). When I started my team had two people working remotely (and we were among the only remote workers at the company). Eventually the other remote guy quit, and then I got laid off (in large part because I was the only person remaining needing special handling, such as out-of-state health cover). On the other hand, I worked for a company which employed large numbers of remote workers and it wasn't really an issue. One of our clients integrated two of our people into a team which was spread all across north america. That said, I think if you don't capture the water cooler, lunches, etc., you're not getting the full value from the person. Having worked solo/remote for five years, I'm now working in a conventional office setup, going to lunch with colleagues, shooting shit with people at the coffee machine, and so forth -- and the value that these informal encounters have for the project and organization is simply phenomenal. Serendipitous encounters with other smart, passionate people can be amazingly powerful -- I seem to recall an article citing examples such as "Building 20" at MIT where researchers constantly bumped into people working in random different fields, and Pixar's campus where all the bathrooms and snacks are in the central hub. I think that if you're working with the right people on the right project, you want to be together (until the technology for being together -- e.g. electronic "wormholes" -- when you're apart gets a whole lot better). I found the article I was thinking of: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lehrer http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_...

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]