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I'm a remote worker. I've worked remotely for teams based in the US for one of those big names you know and more recently for a London-based company with offic

I'm a remote worker. I've worked remotely for teams based in the US for one of those big names you know and more recently for a London-based company with offices just a couple of hours commute from my house deep in the Swedish countryside. I've worked about 6 years full-time remote in the last 10. Working for home is not for everyone but for some of us its speeds us up not slows us down. The days I go into the office for meetings are the days I get nothing real done. Here and in all the remote-working threads people come along to say it doesn't work and that you need to sit together to be a team. Well, I guess these are inexperienced people who haven't worked out how to do it effectively is all. I hope there is a new enlightenment in remote-working for us programmers. There's so many diverse companies and meaningful organizations I'd be happy to dedicate my thinking hours too if their management could just consider it possible...

cbsmith 14y ago
> Working for home is not for everyone but for some of us its speeds us up not slows us down. The days I go into the office for meetings are the days I get nothing real done. It seems like you've drawn a particular conclusion from this, but I think you are missing an entirely different one. If you "don't get anything done" every time you come in to the office, that would suggest there is something more important than your individual "getting things done" that doesn't get addressed when you aren't in the office. When you are there, taking advantage of the opportunity to address this exceeds the value of what I'm sure most people would describe as your primary job function. > Here and in all the remote-working threads people come along to say it doesn't work and that you need to sit together to be a team. Well, I guess these are inexperienced people who haven't worked out how to do it effectively is all. I would agree with this. Obviously remote working can work. That isn't to say that there aren't trade offs. There absolutely are. Like all trade offs, the exchange is a bargain for some contexts and an unacceptable price for others.
- gcp 14y ago
  When you are there, taking advantage of the opportunity to address this exceeds the value of what I'm sure most people would describe as your primary job function. I think it's more a side-effect of the typical meeting. They tend to be so low bandwidth, that most people view any way out of them as increasing their productivity. I've not found remote meetings much better in this regard.
  - cbsmith 14y ago
    But given that one can have remote meetings, the fact that one is deluged with meetings when coming in to the office kind of suggests something, no?
    - gcp 14y ago
      Yes, it says the the OP's company doesn't have a good teleconferencing setup.
      - cbsmith 14y ago
        Well, more generally it says that there is value in having on site meetings. I think it is fair to say that the OP's measure of his net productivity doesn't match that of his coworkers/employer... else they'd leave him alone when he came in to the office. Now, you can argue whose perceptions are accurate, but in the end the employer's perceptions are kind of all that matters.
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
- willvarfar 14y ago
  I distress that a flippant bit of colour can derail my point.
  - cbsmith 14y ago
    Perhaps your point wasn't clearly presented then, because it seemed to me that the substantive argument you made was about notions of your own productivity and the value you consequently provided to your company, and I responded with a serious attempt to address that point in context that was broader than peculiarities of your own situation. If that was actually a flippant remark, I'll be happy to focus the conversation on your intended point, once I grok what it is.
    - willvarfar 14y ago
      Because I am just a couple of hours commute from some of my workmates now I do head into the office and do the social bit sometimes. But when I worked for moto I spent years in teams I never, ever met. I wouldn't want you to be under the impression that the social bit is necessary for a good effective team nor good effective work.
- chaostheory 14y ago
  It's not just the meetings, some of it is also useless distractions like non-pc gossip about how exactly someone got promoted even though they lack both skill and experience. It's distracting and it takes time for people to repeatedly tell their coworkers that they're busy and they need to work without offending anyone.
  - cbsmith 14y ago
    Those "useless distractions" tend to be more important than one realizes. Random conversations on random subjects actually can serve a purpose.
    - chaostheory 14y ago
      That would be highly dependent on the quality of the company culture. For example, the following is good random interaction: "Hey did you know there's this cool company that's planning to mine asteroids?" "Check out the new strategy for expansion" "Look at this cool new library" The following is stuff I just don't care for: "She got to where she is by sleeping around" "Why haven't they promoted me yet? I've been here x years" You can argue that the former is useful to know, but I don't have ambitions of going the managerial route. I just want to build cool stuff.
      - cbsmith 14y ago
        > That would be highly dependent on the quality of the company culture. Bingo. > You can argue that the former is useful to know, but I don't have ambitions of going the managerial route. While there can be significant advantage in knowledge exchange, most of the big wins are from random moments of inspiration that come from interactions with people. I think more importantly than that though, if you have a huge organization that has a dysfunctional culture you have a major problem of inertia that is only magnified if significant chunks of the organization disengaged from day-to-day interactions. Your odds of turning that ship around are tremendously improved if you have people interacting day to day. By no means do I mean to let Yahoo's management off the hook: this decision is entirely the result of bad management, and I think upset employees would be perfectly justified in blaming poor management for the change. That doesn't make this decision a bad decision or one that reflects a lack of trust or respect for employees. If one has any respect or trust for employees, one ought to want to see them as part of the solution (something that I'd argue hasn't always been the case at Yahoo), and one ought to have the willingness to be take drastic measures to effect change, and be honest with them about what those measures are, in order to help the organization get out of its quagmire.
tjdetwiler 14y ago
"The days I go into the office for meetings are the days I get nothing real done." I think that has more to do with the meetings than the office.
- johnward 14y ago
  When your in the office is much easier for you to be pulled into impromptu meetings.

cbsmith 14y ago

> Working for home is not for everyone but for some of us its speeds us up not slows us down. The days I go into the office for meetings are the days I get nothing real done. It seems like you've drawn a particular conclusion from this, but I think you are missing an entirely different one. If you "don't get anything done" every time you come in to the office, that would suggest there is something more important than your individual "getting things done" that doesn't get addressed when you aren't in the office. When you are there, taking advantage of the opportunity to address this exceeds the value of what I'm sure most people would describe as your primary job function. > Here and in all the remote-working threads people come along to say it doesn't work and that you need to sit together to be a team. Well, I guess these are inexperienced people who haven't worked out how to do it effectively is all. I would agree with this. Obviously remote working can work. That isn't to say that there aren't trade offs. There absolutely are. Like all trade offs, the exchange is a bargain for some contexts and an unacceptable price for others.

gcp 14y ago
When you are there, taking advantage of the opportunity to address this exceeds the value of what I'm sure most people would describe as your primary job function. I think it's more a side-effect of the typical meeting. They tend to be so low bandwidth, that most people view any way out of them as increasing their productivity. I've not found remote meetings much better in this regard.
- cbsmith 14y ago
  But given that one can have remote meetings, the fact that one is deluged with meetings when coming in to the office kind of suggests something, no?
  - gcp 14y ago
    Yes, it says the the OP's company doesn't have a good teleconferencing setup.
    - cbsmith 14y ago
      Well, more generally it says that there is value in having on site meetings. I think it is fair to say that the OP's measure of his net productivity doesn't match that of his coworkers/employer... else they'd leave him alone when he came in to the office. Now, you can argue whose perceptions are accurate, but in the end the employer's perceptions are kind of all that matters.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
willvarfar 14y ago
I distress that a flippant bit of colour can derail my point.
- cbsmith 14y ago
  Perhaps your point wasn't clearly presented then, because it seemed to me that the substantive argument you made was about notions of your own productivity and the value you consequently provided to your company, and I responded with a serious attempt to address that point in context that was broader than peculiarities of your own situation. If that was actually a flippant remark, I'll be happy to focus the conversation on your intended point, once I grok what it is.
  - willvarfar 14y ago
    Because I am just a couple of hours commute from some of my workmates now I do head into the office and do the social bit sometimes. But when I worked for moto I spent years in teams I never, ever met. I wouldn't want you to be under the impression that the social bit is necessary for a good effective team nor good effective work.
chaostheory 14y ago
It's not just the meetings, some of it is also useless distractions like non-pc gossip about how exactly someone got promoted even though they lack both skill and experience. It's distracting and it takes time for people to repeatedly tell their coworkers that they're busy and they need to work without offending anyone.
- cbsmith 14y ago
  Those "useless distractions" tend to be more important than one realizes. Random conversations on random subjects actually can serve a purpose.
  - chaostheory 14y ago
    That would be highly dependent on the quality of the company culture. For example, the following is good random interaction: "Hey did you know there's this cool company that's planning to mine asteroids?" "Check out the new strategy for expansion" "Look at this cool new library" The following is stuff I just don't care for: "She got to where she is by sleeping around" "Why haven't they promoted me yet? I've been here x years" You can argue that the former is useful to know, but I don't have ambitions of going the managerial route. I just want to build cool stuff.
    - cbsmith 14y ago
      > That would be highly dependent on the quality of the company culture. Bingo. > You can argue that the former is useful to know, but I don't have ambitions of going the managerial route. While there can be significant advantage in knowledge exchange, most of the big wins are from random moments of inspiration that come from interactions with people. I think more importantly than that though, if you have a huge organization that has a dysfunctional culture you have a major problem of inertia that is only magnified if significant chunks of the organization disengaged from day-to-day interactions. Your odds of turning that ship around are tremendously improved if you have people interacting day to day. By no means do I mean to let Yahoo's management off the hook: this decision is entirely the result of bad management, and I think upset employees would be perfectly justified in blaming poor management for the change. That doesn't make this decision a bad decision or one that reflects a lack of trust or respect for employees. If one has any respect or trust for employees, one ought to want to see them as part of the solution (something that I'd argue hasn't always been the case at Yahoo), and one ought to have the willingness to be take drastic measures to effect change, and be honest with them about what those measures are, in order to help the organization get out of its quagmire.

tjdetwiler 14y ago

"The days I go into the office for meetings are the days I get nothing real done." I think that has more to do with the meetings than the office.

johnward 14y ago
When your in the office is much easier for you to be pulled into impromptu meetings.