8 ms·

Who are you to say they don't understand their own business process and culture well enough to determine that remote employees aren't a fit for them? I've worke

Who are you to say they don't understand their own business process and culture well enough to determine that remote employees aren't a fit for them? I've worked with several remote team members, and it's always been frustrating. Why aren't you answering your phone? Why haven't you responded to that email I sent you 5 minutes ago? Are you even at your computer right now? Hello??? Communication is extremely important when working in teams, and you'd have to be pretty ignorant to claim remote workers are able to communicate as well as on-site workers. If I need to ask a teammate a question, I turn my head slightly to the left and ask them. They respond immediately. Sure, you can set up some sort of always-on video or teleconferencing, but do all new, growing companies have the know-how and resources to implement that for multiple remote workers? Or are you just so special that you deserve all that extra effort? Small, early stage companies also seem to be focusing a lot on developing a company culture these days. Remote workers don't fit into that strategy very well, if at all. I'd welcome a remote employee under one condition: They're required to be on a constant video call so their on-site team members can see and talk to them at any time.

hkarthik 14y ago
> If I need to ask a teammate a question, I turn my head slightly to the left and ask them. They respond immediately. And then they stand the chance of losing anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour of productivity thanks to your interruption. Part of the reason remote work appeals to so many of us is because we don't deal well with the constant stream of interruptions that occur in many office environments. I don't believe this is the case for everyone. There are some individuals capable of working productively in a noisy environment all day while sleeping only 3-4 hours per day. But I think such individuals are rare, and you're doing yourself and your organization a disservice if you think all developers can work this way effectively.
- mlwarren 14y ago
  My main drivers for working remotely are what you just described and eliminating commuting time. I find I'm much more productive and happy without those inconveniences in my life.
  - Irregardless 14y ago
    Yeah, I get that. You are more productive. You are interrupted less. You can focus more easily. You are happier at home. Now, where's the consideration for everyone else on your team? That seems to be the one thing missing from all these counter arguments, yet it's the crux of the matter.
    - mlwarren 14y ago
      They can reach me via IM, phone, webex, etc. Initiating communication this way (maybe excluding IM) is somewhat more formal than face to face chatting. This gives the initiator more incentive try to work out their own problems first without bugging me (and that's great). If they truly need me for something, I'm happy to oblige. The casual face-to-face "do you have a minute" interruptions are the ones that really kill productivity. I'd like to respond to some of your other comments: If I had to endure a culture where this was acceptable: > Why aren't you answering your phone? Why haven't you responded to that email I sent you 5 minutes ago? Are you even at your computer right now? Hello??? I wouldn't work there for very long. This mentality of "butts must be in chairs" flies against the notion that software engineers are professionals and should be treated as such. This nagging is a great way to lead to a broken, angry engineer. That said, I agree with your premise: > Team productiviy > your individual productivity. It's that simple. Do you think your team members interrupt you just for the fun of it? No, they interrupt you because they need your help to accomplish something. But there is a fine line between nagging and actual necessary interruptions that is deepened by remote work. Asking a professional why haven't they responded to the email you sent 5 minutes ago, to me, is crossing the line and if everyone on the team has to endure that kind of behavior then individual and team productivity will both suffer. I've experienced being micromanaged and it's terrible and it's definitely not conducive to my productivity. The rest of the team seemed the same way and thus the team productivity suffered as well. Creative thinkers need uninterrupted time to plan, think, and execute.
- varjag 14y ago
  If you can't deal with interruptions, maybe teamwork is not for you. I agree that it's distracting and irritating at times, but that's the nature of working with other people.
  - stephencanon 14y ago
    Most people believe they are able to deal with interruptions. Very few people are actually able to do so in an even remotely efficient manner.
    - varjag 14y ago
      Still teams of gifted individuals tend to achieve more than sum of gifted individuals working alone, distractions notwithstanding. Anyway I'm reserved about the very thesis that office life is particularly full of distractions. At home office you might have spouse and kids who are even less understanding of your "zone" than your coworkers. If you are single it might be neighbors driving their renovation project with hammer drills at work hours. You probably have a TV, game console, your guitar, your pet, and basically have to rely on self-discipline with that.
      - emperorcezar 14y ago
        Remember there is a distinction between remote working and working from home.
  - moneypenny 14y ago
    Absolutely - anyone wandering into one of these opinion articles/discussions would think that developers are a self-centred bunch of arseholes whose productivity is the most important thing in the entire universe, and isolation/concentration is critical. Even brain surgeons need to collaborate and operate - literally - in conjunction with other people.
  - moneypenny 14y ago
    Absolutely agree - anyone wandering into one of these opinion articles/discussions would think that developers are a self-centred bunch of arseholes whose productivity is the most important thing in the entire universe, and isolation/concentration is critical. Even brain surgeons need to collaborate and operate - literally - in conjunction with other people.
- Irregardless 14y ago
  Oh, really? Because researchers disagree with you: > Another field study compared interruptions in paired, radically-collocated and traditional, cube-dwelling software development teams, and found that in the former interruptions were greater in number but shorter in duration and more on-task (Chong and Siino 2006). Close proximity improves productivity in all cases." -- http://conway.isri.cmu.edu/~jdh/VRC-2008 http://conway.isri.cmu.edu/~jdh/VRC-2008 From adrianhoward's post above.
  - marknutter 14y ago
    Have you even read the study, or are you just quoting it blindly? Your link provides a very brief summary but mentions no details about what tools and workflows remote workers were using. It also doesn't mention anything about the type of project that was being delivered and the various constraints that it had. Maybe you're just taking this stuff on faith.
    - Irregardless 14y ago
      The referenced study answers all of that: http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~sillito/cpsc-601.23/readings/chong-2006.pdf http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~sillito/cpsc-601.23/readings/...
      - marknutter 14y ago
        So reading through that study it appears as though that the remote test group ("Team Solo"): - was actually working in cubicles in the same room and could overhear each others conversations. - used email and a very basic text-based chatroom built in 2002 as their primary means of communication, as well as the telephone. Doesn't sound like a sophisticated setup to me. - did not use any screen sharing software or VOIP software like google hangouts or skype and no mention was made about version control software, wikis, project management software ala Asana or Basecamp, or any other of the modern tools we developers use today. They mention that "Team Pair" benefited greatly from pair programming, which any remote worker (including myself) can tell you is more than just possible using the tools of today, but perhaps even better than hovering over someone's shoulder in the instances where the software allows you to take control of the other person's screen. From the study: "On Team Solo, by contrast, intrusions were both functional and social in nature. Intrusions were longer and generally involved movement – team members physically visited another team member’s cubicle." Again, their "remote" team is actually just a team in the same room but separated by cubicles. They state that the reason the interruptions were lengthier for Team Solo was because of the physical distance between the team members. In my experience, when team members are truly remote, the interruptions drop significantly in both length and frequency. You have linked to a very old study that determined that working in an open-plan office is better than working in a cubicle-based office. You either didn't read the study, or are not understanding how this clearly does not apply to truly remote workers and the topic at hand. The tools people have today to collaborate remotely are much better than they were in 2002, and getting better every year. Unless you can point to a recent study that actually compares truly remote workers using modern tools to co-located employees I'm going to go ahead and say that the evidence is weak at best.
stephencanon 14y ago
Do you require that local employees be physically visible at all times? What if they need to take a walk to clear their head and focus on the problem at hand? What if they need to go to the bathroom? Do you require that local employees drop the task they're working on to respond immediately to any question from anyone and completely lose focus on real work just to save you from a minute of reading some documentation? Either this is an absurd double standard, or your office is a terrible environment for doing any sort of independent focused work (which may well be just fine, if your office doesn't do that sort of thing, but that's what most people who work remotely are going to be doing).
- Irregardless 14y ago
  > Do you require that local employees be physically visible at all times? What if they need to take a walk to clear their head and focus on the problem at hand? What if they need to go to the bathroom? Yes, remote and physical team members must have a mobile webcam that they bring with them on all breaks. The webcam must have RFID tags built into it, and their homes and frequent break locations must be equipped with RFID scanners to verify the location of the camera and prevent any funny business. No exceptions, ever. Also, when people ask questions they never EVER preface them with "Let me know when you have a second". Seriously, are you in third grade? Can you read something and not interpret it literally? The Greek knew reduction to absurdity was a shitty argument more than 2,000 years ago... how come you still haven't figured it out? From adrianhoward above: > Another field study compared interruptions in paired, radically-collocated and traditional, cube-dwelling software development teams, and found that in the former interruptions were greater in number but shorter in duration and more on-task (Chong and Siino 2006). Close proximity improves productivity in all cases." -- http://conway.isri.cmu.edu/~jdh/VRC-2008 http://conway.isri.cmu.edu/~jdh/VRC-2008
  - Yhippa 14y ago
    I think after reading the tone of your response I can determine that I would have a difficult time working with this type of personality. As a developer interruptions are a huge productivity drag. I have to stop whatever I'm doing, answer your question, and figure out where I left off and get back into the right mode to program which can take a while. Right now I have a few work-from-home days a week and I find I'm enormously productive on those days due to lack of interruptions. If the company cannot sacrifice face time and trust for higher developer productivity (even in the name of teambuilding) then I wouldn't want to work there.
wogg 14y ago
That's exactly the kind of interruptive behavior that worsens productive. Communication should be batch, considered, and efficient. The "Hello???" kind of attitude toward peer engineer communication is akin to a mobile phone notification or a blinking chat icon, all enemies of organized thought that leeds to maximum quality output in minimum time.
jaggederest 14y ago
> Why aren't you answering your phone? Why haven't you responded to that email I sent you 5 minutes ago? Are you even at your computer right now? Hello??? You're confusing people who are bad at communication with working remotely being bad. Maybe you've never worked in an office environment with someone who has the same issues, but they're by no means alleviated merely by having their ass in a particular chair. > Or are you just so special that you deserve all that extra effort? From the employee point of view: Is your business so special I should sell my house, pull my kids out of school, and move so I can work for it? Do you really want to pay me the 50% pay differential I'd need in order to live in your higher-cost-of-living and lower-quality-of-life area? Is your (presumably internet-focused) company so incompetent it can't manage to use the same systems that we use in our day to day work and life to communicate? > I'd welcome a remote employee under one condition: They're required to be on a constant video call so their on-site team members can see and talk to them at any time. Completely laughable. Do you have closed circuit TV recordings of everywhere in the office?
- Irregardless 14y ago
  > From the employee point of view: Is your business so special I should sell my house, pull my kids out of school, and move so I can work for it? Do you really want to pay me the 50% pay differential I'd need in order to live in your higher-cost-of-living and lower-quality-of-life area? Is your (presumably internet-focused) company so incompetent it can't manage to use the same systems that we use in our day to day work and life to communicate? People make those choices knowing it limits their career options. Since when are companies expected to accomodate every lifestyle and location employees might desire? That's pretty self-centered. > Completely laughable. Do you have closed circuit TV recordings of everywhere in the office? Why would you need closed circuit TV for team members who are all sitting in an office together? Is there something difficult to understand about tying to create an on-site presence for a remote employee? There are companies that already do it.
  - jaggederest 14y ago
    > People make those choices knowing it limits their career options. Since when are companies expected to accomodate every lifestyle and location employees might desire? That's pretty self-centered. Companies make the choice not to hire remote workers knowing it limits their hiring options. Since when are workers expected to accomodate every workplace and management decision an employer might desire? That's pretty myopic. > Why would you need closed circuit TV for team members who are all sitting in an office together? Is there something difficult to understand about tying to create an on-site presence for a remote employee? There are companies that already do it. My point is that it's beyond the pale for anything reasonable. You don't record your offices 24/7 or install keyloggers on your computers, I hope, why would you expect anything different remotely? Can you really not measure effectiveness and communications skills except via panopticon?
seany 14y ago
> If I need to ask a teammate a question, I turn my head slightly to the left and ask them. Avoiding this is the primary reason I like working at home. Getting distracted by things like that are a productivity killer for me.
- Irregardless 14y ago
  Because team work is all about you, right? Quite a myopic view. How dare anyone try to increase the productivity of the team by stealing precious seconds from you! Teams are more productive when they're in the same location. That is a fact. Your individual productivity may suffer at times, but the team will do better overall if you all work together in one location.
  - gyepi 14y ago
    I've noticed quite a few responses in this vein. It may be worth considering that indeed, personal productivity is part of the benefit people get out of this kind of work. I, too, am much more productive working at home. So much so that I started working from home 3 days a week and eventually just switched to remote work. I understand the need for team productivity but there are ways to solve it that don't require constant face time. When I, as a remote worker, had to hire employees to work for me at the office, I made sure to hire people who were good enough not to require constant supervision and did not need to ask a question every 5 minutes. After the initial orientation, I made sure to be available by email, IM, phone (in that order) which worked out just fine. I think part of the reason for the strong differences of opinion is that both can be right. The right team, colocated, can be very productive. However, I have seen many colocated teams fail, sometimes horribly. Conversely, I've seen remote teams do extremely well also. In fact, all remote teams I've worked with have done quite well. Obviously some of that may be due to their motivation, skills, experience, etc. But the fact remains. As I say to everyone who asks, remote work is not for everyone. We're used to the norm of working on location, but that, too, isn't for everyone.
  - seany 14y ago
    That same comment could be turned around just as easily though. If your team mates have no concept of just how much of a distraction they are, or worse they don't care, then they'll interrupt you all the time for random reasons. Some times that's fine, some times it really does speed up what ever we're working on, but the `vast` majority of the time it's things that would have been 100% ok getting typed into a 2 sentence email for me to look at when I next opened my email. By slightly increasing the "cost" of communicating it makes people think a little more about the way they do it, and if a response is truly needed "right now".
jdrenterprises 14y ago
Sorry, but I disagree with this: "you'd have to be pretty ignorant to claim remote workers are able to communicate as well as on-site workers. If I need to ask a teammate a question, I turn my head slightly to the left and ask them. They respond immediately." And here's why, Skype overcomes this problem... I've worked remotely in plenty of team situations where I've sent a chat message, and got instant response, consistently. When I get a Skype message in these situations, the only reason I wouldn't respond is if I wasn't at my desk for the same reasons someone wouldn't be at their desk in a face-to-face office situation. I think, as a business community, we just need to get more and more comfortable with remote working arrangements, and implement policies that could cover the various productivity issues (if you don't respond to a message within 'X'... this happens etc...). I also think we have to remember there are productivity issues in the face-to-face office scenario as well, when people get together they tend to "talk around the water cooler," they tend to "go out for drinks, then call in sick the next day" etc... and other social-oriented productivity issues. Not all productivity issues are bad either, if someone working remotely doesn't answer a chat message in 7 seconds, they might be improving themselves in some manner. ;)
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
darkarmani 14y ago
> Why haven't you responded to that email I sent you 5 minutes ago? WTF? What kind of person checks their email every 5 minutes and gets any work done? > If I need to ask a teammate a question, I turn my head slightly to the left and ask them. How is that a sign of productiveness? If anything this is an argument for working remotely. Read PG's essay on Maker's Schedule: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
vsync 14y ago
> Why aren't you answering your phone? Why haven't you responded to that email I sent you 5 minutes ago? Are you even at your computer right now? Hello??? That sounds like an incredibly frustrating work environment. I mean for them, not for you.

hkarthik 14y ago

> If I need to ask a teammate a question, I turn my head slightly to the left and ask them. They respond immediately. And then they stand the chance of losing anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour of productivity thanks to your interruption. Part of the reason remote work appeals to so many of us is because we don't deal well with the constant stream of interruptions that occur in many office environments. I don't believe this is the case for everyone. There are some individuals capable of working productively in a noisy environment all day while sleeping only 3-4 hours per day. But I think such individuals are rare, and you're doing yourself and your organization a disservice if you think all developers can work this way effectively.

mlwarren 14y ago
My main drivers for working remotely are what you just described and eliminating commuting time. I find I'm much more productive and happy without those inconveniences in my life.
- Irregardless 14y ago
  Yeah, I get that. You are more productive. You are interrupted less. You can focus more easily. You are happier at home. Now, where's the consideration for everyone else on your team? That seems to be the one thing missing from all these counter arguments, yet it's the crux of the matter.
  - mlwarren 14y ago
    They can reach me via IM, phone, webex, etc. Initiating communication this way (maybe excluding IM) is somewhat more formal than face to face chatting. This gives the initiator more incentive try to work out their own problems first without bugging me (and that's great). If they truly need me for something, I'm happy to oblige. The casual face-to-face "do you have a minute" interruptions are the ones that really kill productivity. I'd like to respond to some of your other comments: If I had to endure a culture where this was acceptable: > Why aren't you answering your phone? Why haven't you responded to that email I sent you 5 minutes ago? Are you even at your computer right now? Hello??? I wouldn't work there for very long. This mentality of "butts must be in chairs" flies against the notion that software engineers are professionals and should be treated as such. This nagging is a great way to lead to a broken, angry engineer. That said, I agree with your premise: > Team productiviy > your individual productivity. It's that simple. Do you think your team members interrupt you just for the fun of it? No, they interrupt you because they need your help to accomplish something. But there is a fine line between nagging and actual necessary interruptions that is deepened by remote work. Asking a professional why haven't they responded to the email you sent 5 minutes ago, to me, is crossing the line and if everyone on the team has to endure that kind of behavior then individual and team productivity will both suffer. I've experienced being micromanaged and it's terrible and it's definitely not conducive to my productivity. The rest of the team seemed the same way and thus the team productivity suffered as well. Creative thinkers need uninterrupted time to plan, think, and execute.
varjag 14y ago
If you can't deal with interruptions, maybe teamwork is not for you. I agree that it's distracting and irritating at times, but that's the nature of working with other people.
- stephencanon 14y ago
  Most people believe they are able to deal with interruptions. Very few people are actually able to do so in an even remotely efficient manner.
  - varjag 14y ago
    Still teams of gifted individuals tend to achieve more than sum of gifted individuals working alone, distractions notwithstanding. Anyway I'm reserved about the very thesis that office life is particularly full of distractions. At home office you might have spouse and kids who are even less understanding of your "zone" than your coworkers. If you are single it might be neighbors driving their renovation project with hammer drills at work hours. You probably have a TV, game console, your guitar, your pet, and basically have to rely on self-discipline with that.
    - emperorcezar 14y ago
      Remember there is a distinction between remote working and working from home.
- moneypenny 14y ago
  Absolutely - anyone wandering into one of these opinion articles/discussions would think that developers are a self-centred bunch of arseholes whose productivity is the most important thing in the entire universe, and isolation/concentration is critical. Even brain surgeons need to collaborate and operate - literally - in conjunction with other people.
- moneypenny 14y ago
  Absolutely agree - anyone wandering into one of these opinion articles/discussions would think that developers are a self-centred bunch of arseholes whose productivity is the most important thing in the entire universe, and isolation/concentration is critical. Even brain surgeons need to collaborate and operate - literally - in conjunction with other people.
Irregardless 14y ago
Oh, really? Because researchers disagree with you: > Another field study compared interruptions in paired, radically-collocated and traditional, cube-dwelling software development teams, and found that in the former interruptions were greater in number but shorter in duration and more on-task (Chong and Siino 2006). Close proximity improves productivity in all cases." -- http://conway.isri.cmu.edu/~jdh/VRC-2008 http://conway.isri.cmu.edu/~jdh/VRC-2008 From adrianhoward's post above.
- marknutter 14y ago
  Have you even read the study, or are you just quoting it blindly? Your link provides a very brief summary but mentions no details about what tools and workflows remote workers were using. It also doesn't mention anything about the type of project that was being delivered and the various constraints that it had. Maybe you're just taking this stuff on faith.
  - Irregardless 14y ago
    The referenced study answers all of that: http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~sillito/cpsc-601.23/readings/chong-2006.pdf http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~sillito/cpsc-601.23/readings/...
    - marknutter 14y ago
      So reading through that study it appears as though that the remote test group ("Team Solo"): - was actually working in cubicles in the same room and could overhear each others conversations. - used email and a very basic text-based chatroom built in 2002 as their primary means of communication, as well as the telephone. Doesn't sound like a sophisticated setup to me. - did not use any screen sharing software or VOIP software like google hangouts or skype and no mention was made about version control software, wikis, project management software ala Asana or Basecamp, or any other of the modern tools we developers use today. They mention that "Team Pair" benefited greatly from pair programming, which any remote worker (including myself) can tell you is more than just possible using the tools of today, but perhaps even better than hovering over someone's shoulder in the instances where the software allows you to take control of the other person's screen. From the study: "On Team Solo, by contrast, intrusions were both functional and social in nature. Intrusions were longer and generally involved movement – team members physically visited another team member’s cubicle." Again, their "remote" team is actually just a team in the same room but separated by cubicles. They state that the reason the interruptions were lengthier for Team Solo was because of the physical distance between the team members. In my experience, when team members are truly remote, the interruptions drop significantly in both length and frequency. You have linked to a very old study that determined that working in an open-plan office is better than working in a cubicle-based office. You either didn't read the study, or are not understanding how this clearly does not apply to truly remote workers and the topic at hand. The tools people have today to collaborate remotely are much better than they were in 2002, and getting better every year. Unless you can point to a recent study that actually compares truly remote workers using modern tools to co-located employees I'm going to go ahead and say that the evidence is weak at best.

stephencanon 14y ago

Do you require that local employees be physically visible at all times? What if they need to take a walk to clear their head and focus on the problem at hand? What if they need to go to the bathroom? Do you require that local employees drop the task they're working on to respond immediately to any question from anyone and completely lose focus on real work just to save you from a minute of reading some documentation? Either this is an absurd double standard, or your office is a terrible environment for doing any sort of independent focused work (which may well be just fine, if your office doesn't do that sort of thing, but that's what most people who work remotely are going to be doing).

Irregardless 14y ago
> Do you require that local employees be physically visible at all times? What if they need to take a walk to clear their head and focus on the problem at hand? What if they need to go to the bathroom? Yes, remote and physical team members must have a mobile webcam that they bring with them on all breaks. The webcam must have RFID tags built into it, and their homes and frequent break locations must be equipped with RFID scanners to verify the location of the camera and prevent any funny business. No exceptions, ever. Also, when people ask questions they never EVER preface them with "Let me know when you have a second". Seriously, are you in third grade? Can you read something and not interpret it literally? The Greek knew reduction to absurdity was a shitty argument more than 2,000 years ago... how come you still haven't figured it out? From adrianhoward above: > Another field study compared interruptions in paired, radically-collocated and traditional, cube-dwelling software development teams, and found that in the former interruptions were greater in number but shorter in duration and more on-task (Chong and Siino 2006). Close proximity improves productivity in all cases." -- http://conway.isri.cmu.edu/~jdh/VRC-2008 http://conway.isri.cmu.edu/~jdh/VRC-2008
- Yhippa 14y ago
  I think after reading the tone of your response I can determine that I would have a difficult time working with this type of personality. As a developer interruptions are a huge productivity drag. I have to stop whatever I'm doing, answer your question, and figure out where I left off and get back into the right mode to program which can take a while. Right now I have a few work-from-home days a week and I find I'm enormously productive on those days due to lack of interruptions. If the company cannot sacrifice face time and trust for higher developer productivity (even in the name of teambuilding) then I wouldn't want to work there.

wogg 14y ago

That's exactly the kind of interruptive behavior that worsens productive. Communication should be batch, considered, and efficient. The "Hello???" kind of attitude toward peer engineer communication is akin to a mobile phone notification or a blinking chat icon, all enemies of organized thought that leeds to maximum quality output in minimum time.

jaggederest 14y ago

> Why aren't you answering your phone? Why haven't you responded to that email I sent you 5 minutes ago? Are you even at your computer right now? Hello??? You're confusing people who are bad at communication with working remotely being bad. Maybe you've never worked in an office environment with someone who has the same issues, but they're by no means alleviated merely by having their ass in a particular chair. > Or are you just so special that you deserve all that extra effort? From the employee point of view: Is your business so special I should sell my house, pull my kids out of school, and move so I can work for it? Do you really want to pay me the 50% pay differential I'd need in order to live in your higher-cost-of-living and lower-quality-of-life area? Is your (presumably internet-focused) company so incompetent it can't manage to use the same systems that we use in our day to day work and life to communicate? > I'd welcome a remote employee under one condition: They're required to be on a constant video call so their on-site team members can see and talk to them at any time. Completely laughable. Do you have closed circuit TV recordings of everywhere in the office?

Irregardless 14y ago
> From the employee point of view: Is your business so special I should sell my house, pull my kids out of school, and move so I can work for it? Do you really want to pay me the 50% pay differential I'd need in order to live in your higher-cost-of-living and lower-quality-of-life area? Is your (presumably internet-focused) company so incompetent it can't manage to use the same systems that we use in our day to day work and life to communicate? People make those choices knowing it limits their career options. Since when are companies expected to accomodate every lifestyle and location employees might desire? That's pretty self-centered. > Completely laughable. Do you have closed circuit TV recordings of everywhere in the office? Why would you need closed circuit TV for team members who are all sitting in an office together? Is there something difficult to understand about tying to create an on-site presence for a remote employee? There are companies that already do it.
- jaggederest 14y ago
  > People make those choices knowing it limits their career options. Since when are companies expected to accomodate every lifestyle and location employees might desire? That's pretty self-centered. Companies make the choice not to hire remote workers knowing it limits their hiring options. Since when are workers expected to accomodate every workplace and management decision an employer might desire? That's pretty myopic. > Why would you need closed circuit TV for team members who are all sitting in an office together? Is there something difficult to understand about tying to create an on-site presence for a remote employee? There are companies that already do it. My point is that it's beyond the pale for anything reasonable. You don't record your offices 24/7 or install keyloggers on your computers, I hope, why would you expect anything different remotely? Can you really not measure effectiveness and communications skills except via panopticon?

seany 14y ago

> If I need to ask a teammate a question, I turn my head slightly to the left and ask them. Avoiding this is the primary reason I like working at home. Getting distracted by things like that are a productivity killer for me.

Irregardless 14y ago
Because team work is all about you, right? Quite a myopic view. How dare anyone try to increase the productivity of the team by stealing precious seconds from you! Teams are more productive when they're in the same location. That is a fact. Your individual productivity may suffer at times, but the team will do better overall if you all work together in one location.
- gyepi 14y ago
  I've noticed quite a few responses in this vein. It may be worth considering that indeed, personal productivity is part of the benefit people get out of this kind of work. I, too, am much more productive working at home. So much so that I started working from home 3 days a week and eventually just switched to remote work. I understand the need for team productivity but there are ways to solve it that don't require constant face time. When I, as a remote worker, had to hire employees to work for me at the office, I made sure to hire people who were good enough not to require constant supervision and did not need to ask a question every 5 minutes. After the initial orientation, I made sure to be available by email, IM, phone (in that order) which worked out just fine. I think part of the reason for the strong differences of opinion is that both can be right. The right team, colocated, can be very productive. However, I have seen many colocated teams fail, sometimes horribly. Conversely, I've seen remote teams do extremely well also. In fact, all remote teams I've worked with have done quite well. Obviously some of that may be due to their motivation, skills, experience, etc. But the fact remains. As I say to everyone who asks, remote work is not for everyone. We're used to the norm of working on location, but that, too, isn't for everyone.
- seany 14y ago
  That same comment could be turned around just as easily though. If your team mates have no concept of just how much of a distraction they are, or worse they don't care, then they'll interrupt you all the time for random reasons. Some times that's fine, some times it really does speed up what ever we're working on, but the `vast` majority of the time it's things that would have been 100% ok getting typed into a 2 sentence email for me to look at when I next opened my email. By slightly increasing the "cost" of communicating it makes people think a little more about the way they do it, and if a response is truly needed "right now".

jdrenterprises 14y ago

Sorry, but I disagree with this: "you'd have to be pretty ignorant to claim remote workers are able to communicate as well as on-site workers. If I need to ask a teammate a question, I turn my head slightly to the left and ask them. They respond immediately." And here's why, Skype overcomes this problem... I've worked remotely in plenty of team situations where I've sent a chat message, and got instant response, consistently. When I get a Skype message in these situations, the only reason I wouldn't respond is if I wasn't at my desk for the same reasons someone wouldn't be at their desk in a face-to-face office situation. I think, as a business community, we just need to get more and more comfortable with remote working arrangements, and implement policies that could cover the various productivity issues (if you don't respond to a message within 'X'... this happens etc...). I also think we have to remember there are productivity issues in the face-to-face office scenario as well, when people get together they tend to "talk around the water cooler," they tend to "go out for drinks, then call in sick the next day" etc... and other social-oriented productivity issues. Not all productivity issues are bad either, if someone working remotely doesn't answer a chat message in 7 seconds, they might be improving themselves in some manner. ;)

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darkarmani 14y ago

> Why haven't you responded to that email I sent you 5 minutes ago? WTF? What kind of person checks their email every 5 minutes and gets any work done? > If I need to ask a teammate a question, I turn my head slightly to the left and ask them. How is that a sign of productiveness? If anything this is an argument for working remotely. Read PG's essay on Maker's Schedule: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

vsync 14y ago

> Why aren't you answering your phone? Why haven't you responded to that email I sent you 5 minutes ago? Are you even at your computer right now? Hello??? That sounds like an incredibly frustrating work environment. I mean for them, not for you.