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"You still have stuff like chat, commit messages, code reviews, cases, Trello boards, etc. Be a little paranoid for this time about showing your work. It will h

"You still have stuff like chat, commit messages, code reviews, cases, Trello boards, etc. Be a little paranoid for this time about showing your work. It will help you feel good about your time, and us feel good about granting it." Run through a de-weaselizer, this reads: "Be a good little pet, and do an extra set of tricks when we take you out to the park, so you feel good about running around in the park and we feel good about granting you the privilege to go out once a week." Yeah, bullshit. Place where I work operates on a culture of complete trust, period. Example: Once, a guy on my team had to go to his parents' house out in the country and was stuck with a slow internet connection. No problem, he did some stuff, stuck it out for as much as he could and then shelved it. I bet he enjoyed his time there much more than he would have sitting in a bunch of chatrooms anyway, and he did it on company time. He was much happier when he came back, and probably did twice the usual amount of work when he did on average. As his co-worker who was working when this guy was at his parents' house, did I feel slighted or angry at him? No, for heaven's sake -- he was seeing his family, and enjoying a few choice, uninterrupted hours with them. Webapps can fucking wait. I was perfectly happy doing his share of the work. The culture in the American software industry glorifies ass-in-seat hours (directly or indirectly -- this notion of "exhibiting your productivity" is just another version of ass-in-seat hours) at a cost to actual productivity, happiness, and general well-being by waving the distant promise of some sort of vague payout in front of you, and getting you to constantly compete with your co-workers at "putting in more time". Reject this sort of rubbish unconditionally if you have even the slightest choice.

mistermann 13y ago
In your opinion would it be safe to assume employee morale at Fog Creek is low due to working in such an obviously tyrannical environment?
- parennoob 13y ago
  Employee morale at my local McDonald's is tremendous. They also have tons of these micro-managey rules. Does that mean you would instantly want to work there?
  - mistermann 13y ago
    > Does that mean you would instantly want to work there? I really don't understand the point you're trying to make. Personally, I don't prefer micromanagement, but it doesn't make me unhappy if other things are being run productively.
    - parennoob 13y ago
      > Personally, I don't prefer micromanagement, but it doesn't make me unhappy if other things are being run productively. What is this I don't even. So you don't prefer to be micro-managed, but you're fine if other people are? It doesn't work that way. This is a pervasive company culture. Either your company has these rules and everyone is micromanaged, or no-one is.
      - mistermann 13y ago
        Hows about you stop and consider that you don't know everything, go back and read what was said in the thread, and think it over again. At the very least, you have poor reading comprehension. You are not trying to understand what I'm saying, you are deliberately taking the worst interpretation of what I've written, to the degree that you're literally attributing to me things that I didn't even say. Humility, civility, understanding, thoughtfulness, etc are very valuable and somewhat rare traits in the technology industry.
  - slantyyz 13y ago
    Well, if I was working at a low morale Taco Bell, then yeah, I think I would want to work at your local McD's. Otherwise, asking someone who works in technology if they want to work in fast food is kinda pointless.
    - parennoob 13y ago
      > Well, if I was working at a low morale Taco Bell, then yeah, I think I would want to work at your local McD's. Yes, if you work in the industry equivalent of a low morale Taco Bell (dunno, Oracle?), Fog Creek sounds like a great place to work.
- bowlofpetunias 13y ago
  I would assume the nature of the staff naturally adjust to the nature of this kind of micromanagement. People who don't need/want this bullshit leave, don't get hired or decline, people who need hand-holding stay. Management-style is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
- pjc50 13y ago
  This is not a tyrannical environment. A tyrannical environment is one that makes you clock off to go to the bathroom.
general_failure 13y ago
The problem is not about the other person enjoying vacation. Its about you not being able to enjoy your work day because of their absence.
- parennoob 13y ago
  Read my comment again. I did not mind working a little extra because my co-worker had a bit of a problem with a slow internet connection when he was working remotely. I was confident he would more than make it up later. I did enjoy my work day in spite of his absence.
calinet6 13y ago
I feel like these rules are direct results of frustrations experienced in real life and trying to put them down in a shared manner. I know, because I've experienced about 70% of these frustrations. I usually ignored them, and thought "whatever, I'm sure things are fine," and then I realized my views of remote work are impacted negatively by these slight annoyances. Maybe if people had that slightly better headset, or a connection that doesn't piss you off due to choppiness, hey, maybe it would make things work better. I think it might help. These aren't bad suggestions taken at face value. Codifying them as rules is a bit harsh-sounding I agree, but it seems like they're just Things That Work, and in the sense of Paying People Real Money For Doing Things, they might as well be Things That Work, and not things that are just annoying and less functional, even if, as you say, in the unmeasurable ways they are beneficial (which I still think is true). It sounds like they're not trusting people. I don't like that part, and I don't think it's effective to reduce autonomy like this. Maybe they need to work on the wording, or the philosophy, I don't know.
- parennoob 13y ago
  They aren't a bad set of suggestions (although apart from the headset bit, the rest are fairly obvious and I try to implement them anyway while working remotely. Yeah, I need a decent up bandwidth for Google Hangout. Where do I sign up for the newsletter?) What I don't like is making them into a "remote work policy" rather than "here are some things which might make your remote work more smooth for your team". That basically means (as you said) that there is a lack of trust amongst your team members. And lines like the suggestion to "Over-communicate and over-deliver." are just plain Microsoft-management-style bullshit which prevents anyone who is actually working remotely from enjoying their day. > Maybe they need to work on the wording, or the philosophy, I don't know. Probably both, the post would be pretty good as a set of suggestions without the hubris, and if they actually gave technological suggestions that you might not know off the bat. A set of scripts that makes remote VPN login seamless and smooth? Perfect. A set of things that sounds like Captain Obvious combined with some pseudo-motivational nonsense from an IBM manager training session? Probably not so much.
  - x0x0 13y ago
InclinedPlane 13y ago
As teams and companies grow larger they typically get dumber and become more focused on increasingly more trivial issues. It's the classic "streetlight effect". It's always easier to prioritize things that are easier to measure or more highly visible even when those things are fundamentally less important.
tghw 13y ago
As Fog Creek's first full time remote employee[0], I fully disagree with your assumption. Coming from Fog Creek, that statement has no weasel words in it, it's a genuine sentiment. Back when I was working for the company on site, my father had his leg broken by an out of control snow boarder right before Thanksgiving. When I was home for the holiday, I realized he needed help around the house, so I asked to work remotely for a week to help him out. Joel and Michael gave me the time and told me to do whatever work I could, but not to worry if it was less than usual. I fully expected to sacrifice a vacation day or two, but they made it clear that wasn't necessary, even though I spent half of my time helping my father. And what did I do while I was working? I wrote longer commit messages, checked in on chat, and updated my Fog Bugz cases because I didn't want to feel like I was taking advantage of my company's generosity. It's also important to remember, in most industries, trust like this is totally unheard of. We are very fortunate to work in an industry where it is a more common practice. [0] I left the company about 18 months ago to pursue my own startup.
- mistermann 13y ago
  Stockholm Syndrome obviously, right guys?
  - tghw 13y ago
    Clearly. That's the only explanation for a happy employee with such terrible rules.
- cs02rm0 13y ago
  I think the concern though is that the policy doesn't tie with the attitude you have experience of. The company I work with wouldn't have a problem with me going somewhere and finding video didn't work, so stepping down to audio, then IM. And if that wasn't sufficient, then not booking the hours. Having to Google Hangout with some random where you've booked a room is virtually saying don't bother asking to work remotely. I'd rather pursue my own startup than have to do Google Hangout checks everywhere!
  - tghw 13y ago
mathattack 13y ago
At some point firms grow from "Trust everyone" to people wanting to know what the shared expectations are. This appears to be an attempt to define what the shared expectations are.
thedufer 13y ago
> I bet he enjoyed his time there We call this "vacation". Our leave policy is plenty generous to take things like this into account (unlimited sick, unlimited unpaid, and 4-5 weeks paid). This policy is about long-term remote work. For short-term things like that, it's not worth the hassle of working at all.

mistermann 13y ago

In your opinion would it be safe to assume employee morale at Fog Creek is low due to working in such an obviously tyrannical environment?

parennoob 13y ago
Employee morale at my local McDonald's is tremendous. They also have tons of these micro-managey rules. Does that mean you would instantly want to work there?
- mistermann 13y ago
  > Does that mean you would instantly want to work there? I really don't understand the point you're trying to make. Personally, I don't prefer micromanagement, but it doesn't make me unhappy if other things are being run productively.
  - parennoob 13y ago
    > Personally, I don't prefer micromanagement, but it doesn't make me unhappy if other things are being run productively. What is this I don't even. So you don't prefer to be micro-managed, but you're fine if other people are? It doesn't work that way. This is a pervasive company culture. Either your company has these rules and everyone is micromanaged, or no-one is.
    - mistermann 13y ago
      Hows about you stop and consider that you don't know everything, go back and read what was said in the thread, and think it over again. At the very least, you have poor reading comprehension. You are not trying to understand what I'm saying, you are deliberately taking the worst interpretation of what I've written, to the degree that you're literally attributing to me things that I didn't even say. Humility, civility, understanding, thoughtfulness, etc are very valuable and somewhat rare traits in the technology industry.
- slantyyz 13y ago
  Well, if I was working at a low morale Taco Bell, then yeah, I think I would want to work at your local McD's. Otherwise, asking someone who works in technology if they want to work in fast food is kinda pointless.
  - parennoob 13y ago
    > Well, if I was working at a low morale Taco Bell, then yeah, I think I would want to work at your local McD's. Yes, if you work in the industry equivalent of a low morale Taco Bell (dunno, Oracle?), Fog Creek sounds like a great place to work.
bowlofpetunias 13y ago
I would assume the nature of the staff naturally adjust to the nature of this kind of micromanagement. People who don't need/want this bullshit leave, don't get hired or decline, people who need hand-holding stay. Management-style is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
pjc50 13y ago
This is not a tyrannical environment. A tyrannical environment is one that makes you clock off to go to the bathroom.

general_failure 13y ago

The problem is not about the other person enjoying vacation. Its about you not being able to enjoy your work day because of their absence.

parennoob 13y ago
Read my comment again. I did not mind working a little extra because my co-worker had a bit of a problem with a slow internet connection when he was working remotely. I was confident he would more than make it up later. I did enjoy my work day in spite of his absence.

calinet6 13y ago

I feel like these rules are direct results of frustrations experienced in real life and trying to put them down in a shared manner. I know, because I've experienced about 70% of these frustrations. I usually ignored them, and thought "whatever, I'm sure things are fine," and then I realized my views of remote work are impacted negatively by these slight annoyances. Maybe if people had that slightly better headset, or a connection that doesn't piss you off due to choppiness, hey, maybe it would make things work better. I think it might help. These aren't bad suggestions taken at face value. Codifying them as rules is a bit harsh-sounding I agree, but it seems like they're just Things That Work, and in the sense of Paying People Real Money For Doing Things, they might as well be Things That Work, and not things that are just annoying and less functional, even if, as you say, in the unmeasurable ways they are beneficial (which I still think is true). It sounds like they're not trusting people. I don't like that part, and I don't think it's effective to reduce autonomy like this. Maybe they need to work on the wording, or the philosophy, I don't know.

parennoob 13y ago
They aren't a bad set of suggestions (although apart from the headset bit, the rest are fairly obvious and I try to implement them anyway while working remotely. Yeah, I need a decent up bandwidth for Google Hangout. Where do I sign up for the newsletter?) What I don't like is making them into a "remote work policy" rather than "here are some things which might make your remote work more smooth for your team". That basically means (as you said) that there is a lack of trust amongst your team members. And lines like the suggestion to "Over-communicate and over-deliver." are just plain Microsoft-management-style bullshit which prevents anyone who is actually working remotely from enjoying their day. > Maybe they need to work on the wording, or the philosophy, I don't know. Probably both, the post would be pretty good as a set of suggestions without the hubris, and if they actually gave technological suggestions that you might not know off the bat. A set of scripts that makes remote VPN login seamless and smooth? Perfect. A set of things that sounds like Captain Obvious combined with some pseudo-motivational nonsense from an IBM manager training session? Probably not so much.
- x0x0 13y ago

InclinedPlane 13y ago

As teams and companies grow larger they typically get dumber and become more focused on increasingly more trivial issues. It's the classic "streetlight effect". It's always easier to prioritize things that are easier to measure or more highly visible even when those things are fundamentally less important.

tghw 13y ago

As Fog Creek's first full time remote employee[0], I fully disagree with your assumption. Coming from Fog Creek, that statement has no weasel words in it, it's a genuine sentiment. Back when I was working for the company on site, my father had his leg broken by an out of control snow boarder right before Thanksgiving. When I was home for the holiday, I realized he needed help around the house, so I asked to work remotely for a week to help him out. Joel and Michael gave me the time and told me to do whatever work I could, but not to worry if it was less than usual. I fully expected to sacrifice a vacation day or two, but they made it clear that wasn't necessary, even though I spent half of my time helping my father. And what did I do while I was working? I wrote longer commit messages, checked in on chat, and updated my Fog Bugz cases because I didn't want to feel like I was taking advantage of my company's generosity. It's also important to remember, in most industries, trust like this is totally unheard of. We are very fortunate to work in an industry where it is a more common practice. [0] I left the company about 18 months ago to pursue my own startup.

mistermann 13y ago
Stockholm Syndrome obviously, right guys?
- tghw 13y ago
  Clearly. That's the only explanation for a happy employee with such terrible rules.
cs02rm0 13y ago
I think the concern though is that the policy doesn't tie with the attitude you have experience of. The company I work with wouldn't have a problem with me going somewhere and finding video didn't work, so stepping down to audio, then IM. And if that wasn't sufficient, then not booking the hours. Having to Google Hangout with some random where you've booked a room is virtually saying don't bother asking to work remotely. I'd rather pursue my own startup than have to do Google Hangout checks everywhere!
- tghw 13y ago

mathattack 13y ago

At some point firms grow from "Trust everyone" to people wanting to know what the shared expectations are. This appears to be an attempt to define what the shared expectations are.

thedufer 13y ago

> I bet he enjoyed his time there We call this "vacation". Our leave policy is plenty generous to take things like this into account (unlimited sick, unlimited unpaid, and 4-5 weeks paid). This policy is about long-term remote work. For short-term things like that, it's not worth the hassle of working at all.