14 ms·

My first experience at working from home

94 points by pauloteixeira 12y ago

jscheel 12y ago
Now I just need a cafe that isn't closed in the middle of the day, actually has heat in the winter, has chairs that support those of us that weigh over 98 lbs, and that attracts people/encourages them to hang out. Man this town needs another coffee shop...
- lucaspiller 12y ago
  Ever thought of starting a co-working space with some friends?
  - jscheel 12y ago
    Thankfully, I have my own office at my parents' office, so I do get some interaction. I've actually talked with a friend about starting a co-working space in our town, but I don't think it's ready for one yet. Maybe in 5-10 years. That's what we get for being a commuter-city to Nashville.
eleitl 12y ago
Mirror?
- slau 12y ago
  Google Cache seems to work: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:a5OjeFfoOiEJ:blog.jobbox.io/first-experience-working-from-home/&hl=en&gl=fr&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:a5OjeFf...
- adav 12y ago
  https://medium.com/@semeano/my-first-experience-at-working-from-home-9ad5dbc1589 https://medium.com/@semeano/my-first-experience-at-working-f...
taternuts 12y ago
Really agree with the point of pressure, that having a bad day whilst working from home feels way more terrible than having one while at the office (production-wise)
- evincarofautumn 12y ago
  It is in a sense more honest. If you didn’t get anything done, it doesn’t matter where you were.
flountown 12y ago
Since I work in sales, I am stuck to the typical 9-5 availability schedule. If I feel like I'm in a rut, I go to a coffee shop to change it up. I have one 40 feet from my front door, or I take a longer walk on a nicer day to the coffee shop I frequented from my last apartment. It forces you to shower, dress like a real human being and can sometimes substitute for that human interaction.
- scoj 12y ago
  Ha, have to look like a human, too true! Sadly, sometimes I have to think about when the last time I was outside. Not good.
  - flountown 12y ago
    The worst was a week ago on Monday. I wasn't feeling well and realized that the deadbolt on my front door hadn't been opened in over 36 hours. Tuesday was definitely a coffee shop day at that point.
lmorris84 12y ago
Agree with many of these points. I've worked from home for the last 3 years and I love it, but it definitely has it's downsides. I think the worst for me is not being able to switch off at 5pm. Without the journey home to empty my mind a little, I do find myself thinking about work for the rest of the night.
- serg_chernata 12y ago
  You know I find that going to the gym right at 5 helps me stay healthy and do just that, clear my head. Force yourself to leave the house.
- jeromegv 12y ago
  I work from home & I keep my work emails in a separate software, at 5, I just quit the software. That does the job!
  - anotherevan 12y ago
    Cannot plus one this enough. I use to have all email accounts in the one client. Now for work (which is gmail) I use a notifier (plus often just leaving the browser page open in Chromium). If I find the notifier starting to bug me on the non-work days, I just switch it off. I have a cron job that starts it 9am every work day if it is not already running.
- scoj 12y ago
  One thing that helps me (other than.my wife and kids asking when I'm done) is to go for a short walk. My wife knows that its part of my routine and is usually pretty supportive.
- pingwin 12y ago
  I've been working from home for going on 6 years. I have the same problem. It doesn't help that I also have a young child at home as well. He's only known me to work from home, so every few hours I get forced breaks, which is sometimes very nice to have. I am with the other commenter that having some sort of activity to transition yourself from work to home is important. Sometimes a jog, or walk is enough. Most days I don't have anything to transition with beyond cooking the family dinner.
adaml_623 12y ago
"The page you are looking for is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later." That's quite funny if you're working from home with a dodgy internet connection
- pauloteixeira 12y ago
  Had a problem with a cache plugin, I think that it's up again
Pephers 12y ago
I've also been working from home for the last 10 months, and while I love the freedom, I do also miss the times when you can cheer with your co-workers over an accomplishment and the general chit-chat over small breaks and lunch break. I also agree with the author that a bad day working from home is worse than at a job. Since I'm a solo-founder it means I'll not get paid on a bad day, but at a job you typically get at least something done – and get paid.
abalos 12y ago
I found this article really interesting. I've really enjoyed my recent experiences telecommuting. The main difference in my life, though, is that I'm close to the office. This allows me to go in part of the week and work from home another part. I love being able to talk to my coworkers and go in for meetings, but when it comes down to it, it's really nice to be able to sit in the silence and comfort of my house and work when I need to get stuff done. Both working in the office and at home have their pros/cons. It's all about preference.
br3w5 12y ago
I work from home two days a week and the issue I have is actually switching off so I typically start early and then keep going with less breaks than in the office. Maybe this feels easier because it is more comfortable at home and not an abrasive environment like an office. Pros vs cons also depends on both the home and office environment e.g. if you have dedicated working space at home vs a very noisy office or vice versa. Also, just to say I love Lagos and the western Algarve - it's such a beautiful place
Killswitch 12y ago
I am on my first month working from home. While I am not a huge fan of it, either I work from home, or I lose my job. My biggest gripes about telecommuting is that I have a hard drive focusing. Something about the process of getting up and getting ready and LEAVING the house, puts my brain into this mode of "time to work!" While telecommuting I can get up and get ready, but there's nothing there that convinces my brain I'm going to work.
- brianwawok 12y ago
  Set aside a different room. Go for a walk around the block first. Lots of ways to split up your day prework vs postwork.
  - Killswitch 12y ago
    Yeah I'm still setting up my second room as an office. Right now I'm sitting on my couch with laptop on lap. Not very helpful. Along with that, I'm also changing my diet and even starting to go to the gym since it's right across the street. Hopefully these things help.
    - jfoutz 12y ago
      I'd recommend, get up and go to the gym before work. As others mentioned, having that daily routine where you transition to work mode is really helpful.
      - Killswitch 12y ago
        That's the goal. Thank you for solidifying that goal as being the right steps. Appreciate it.
lordnacho 12y ago
Simple solution to the loneliness thing: get a webcam. You can see the office, they can see you. I saw a business that ran like that. Seemed okay. It wasn't a dev who was remote though, and that may matter. Also some people don't like the feeling of being watched.
- tribaal 12y ago
  Another simple solution: go to a coworking space once in a while. It's usually cheap and has a coffee machine, and plenty of people to introduce yourself to and smalltalk with.
benmorris 12y ago
Coming up on my 3rd year now working from home and running my own company. I agree with most of this article. The lack of social interaction is probably what I miss the most. Overall it has been a positive change for me though. I had serious issues concentrating while coding at my last job. Working from home has mostly solved that. I've found in the last year it is easy to stop working at 4:30-5 since we have had our first child, before that I was doing 10-12 hour days because I could.
- vinceyuan 12y ago
  +1. I am working at home. My child is young and my wife cannot handle completely. I can't concentrate on programming. Sometimes I have to take my laptop to the public library to work.
manmukh 12y ago
> Degradation of social skills I've noticed this if I spend too much time without meaningful face to face conversations. Translating my thoughts into coherent sentences becomes a little more challenging.
imjared 12y ago
I've been working at home for about a year and can sympathize with the author. I've really been surprised at what an effect its had on me socially. I'm not the most outgoing person to begin with so the forced in-person interactions (both appreciated and unappreciated) that I got in my previous office settings were probably a lot more beneficial to me than I previously believed. I feel like I have the additional challenge of being a web developer so when I do get the chance to talk to people, I don't have the "oh you won't believe this crazy guy I work with" stories. Everything is "oh you won't believe this wacky stacktrace I was getting." Cue glazed over eyes. I love sitting here in my sweats, making fresh lunches, taking a short nap almost every afternoon to refresh, and being able to travel literally wherever I want as long as there's wifi. I miss people more than I thought I would. I think I'll probably join a coworking space before long even if it's only to go for a part of the week.
- puranjay 12y ago
  Get out while you still can. Seriously. I worked from home for 2.5 years and it has had a profoundly negative impact on my social life and even my personality. I'm good with people, but sitting alone all day for such a long-time has turned me into the kind of person who thinks of calling an old friend, then thinks 'eh, why bother. Let's see what's new on Reddit instead'. Then there's the problem with setting a routine. I can wake up whenever I want to, sleep whenever I want to. And that's what I usually end up doing. Sure, it's fun for the first few weeks, but soon you realize why human beings need structure and organization. It's corrosive. I moved to a co-working space and I've never been happier. Working from home is seriously overrated.
  - KFW504 12y ago
    What's the turnover rate at your co-working space? If people aren't working there for any significant period of time, you might not be able to develop the same type of meaningful interactions you'd hope for in an office.
  - gclaramunt 12y ago
    is a trade-off, I worked from home for a year, and although I missed the casual interactions you get in the office, I was able at any moment to take a 5 minute break to play with my kids, go pick them up from school, help them with homework, and that's priceless
drewg123 12y ago
I worked full time remote for 12 years doing driver / kernel / firmware work for an IHV. What I missed most about working in an office (and what I liked most about going to work at an office again 2 years ago) is the sense of separation and decompression that a commute gives you. If you're not careful, you can easily wind up always working all the time since your "office" is right in your living space.
- FigBug 12y ago
  I've been working at home for the last 5. Doing iOS, android, desktop apps and firmware. I find the firmware the most frustrating, probably because I'm the least experienced at it. Trying to debug things by sharing screenshot of a USB scope is a pain. Having to drive in every time I need a mod done. Even worse is driving in and whatever piece of equipment I wanted is at somebody else's house (or forgotten at mine). I've had a better experience when doing firmware upgrades for mature products, but has anybody had a good experience developing hardware products with a work from home team?
  - drewg123 12y ago
    The IHV that I worked for had most of the hardware team local in California, and most of the software team remote. We had a great lab team that could install bits, move cables, etc. All machines had serial consoles & power controllers (or IPMI). One source of frustration was that most of the locals did not arrive until 10am Pacific, and I was on the Eastern time zone. So if I needed a cable moved, I had to wait until after lunch. Though I sometimes asked one of the secretaries to do it (she arrived at 6am Pacific). By the time I had hardware access, we always had jtag or more advanced access methods working. A big frustration was using tools like PCIe logic analyzers remotely. Luckily, these were mostly controlled by PCs, and we could access them via an IP KVM solution (but again, we had to wait for on-site labstaff to hook up physical connections).
- icebraining 12y ago
  I wonder if there are any techniques that might work, like using a dedicated computer that you put away, taking a walk or a shower, etc.
tribaal 12y ago
Working from home for 3 years now, and I love it. I think what people in general tend to forget is that you can work from home but you don't have to. Renting a spot in a coworking space is very fun and helps with the loneliness.
- puranjay 12y ago
  Honest question: what is your home situation like? Are you married? Kids? In my experience, older folks with kids and a spouse tend to love the work from home thing. Younger people tend to get bogged down by the lack of social interaction.
  - 91bananas 12y ago
    Not OP but, I have been at home for the last year. Married with a kid and another on the way. ~30 years old. I love it. I do at times feel the loneliness, but we have worked hard as a team to make it possible for me to be "in the office" as much as possible. We set up a persistent Google Hangout on a 60" TV that I can jump in at any time and be a part of the rest of the non-remote team. I love being able to rush in to my kid's room when he wakes up in the morning, saying goodnight when he takes his nap. I love eating from my own kitchen. I love working outside of home.
  - tribaal 12y ago
    Well, just like the other user who answered you (hi, lifestyle clone!) I'm married, One kid, one on the way. Like I said, I love the choice it brings me - I don't have to work form home (I can use a coworking space for instance), but I get to decide every morning. I tend to go to a coworking space or to friends/friendly startups/friendly companies to hang out about one day a week, but it can be much more. One tidbit: almost the whole company is remote (600 people!), so we're all organized around that, and it probably makes it easier. So my personal take away: it's about the choice it gives you :)
    - puranjay 12y ago
      > One tidbit: almost the whole company is remote (600 people!) I'm intrigued. I was under the impression remote work was only feasible for smaller startups. The only fully distributed companies I know have < 30 employees.
mrrrgn 12y ago
This is why I work from cafes whenever possible. If I actually work from a quiet room by myself I start to slip into sadness. My brain craves the presence of other humans. That said, I prefer cafes to offices. It's nice to be around people with no real ties to your source of income. It eliminates the stress of needing to manage all of your actions more carefully. Also, I find that over time I make actual friends coffee shops. Co-workers rarely make good long-term friends.
agentultra 12y ago
I've been working remotely for a few years. The first few months, if you've never done it before and don't know how to cope, definitely feel as the author described. It's your first time. You're just doing it wrong. Best way I've over come the social needs is to work out of a local cafe once or twice a week. Get to know the people there. Learn their names. Make friends. Work on a crossword together. Get a whiteboard. Plenty of notebooks. Take time to journal your day. Thoughts, frustrations, tasks. Explain things to yourself out loud. Reward yourself. Take a walk to the park. Catch up on the New Yorker Poetry podcast. I don't find motivation to be a problem so long as the team is good at planning and there's always something to do that I can take action on without bothering folks. Use a system and stick to it: pomodoro, GTD, whatever. Be systematic and work with intent. If you're stuck wondering what you should be doing you need to re-evaluate your process and plug the leaks: you should always know what needs to be done next. Things that make working remote suck for your remote workers: 1. Hallway planning. Making decisions face-to-face in meat-space and not documenting them anywhere. Everything needs to go into an email list or task tracking system. 2. Poor communication. If you're never available online, refuse too many requests for chats, ignore emails... it can be really frustrating. The great thing about working remotely is that communication can be intermediated by scripts. Set auto-replies, status updates, reminders, alerts. 3. Never enough information. When you're working closely in a group face-to-face it can be easy to draw consensus on an issue and document it with a single, innocuous task in the task manager and not bother filling in the description, properly rating it, tagging it, etc. Always add enough information so that anyone can come along and take care of it without having to hunt you down.
- kleer001 12y ago
  I really connected with your first half there. Self Enrichment! It's funny, that's a lot of what it takes to keep a dog happy and healthy too. They need a job and friends and play time and special snacks. We just need to take the same care and consideration for ourselves when it's not provided by an employer.
sparrish 12y ago
I've been working from home for 7+ years now and wouldn't trade it for the world. I get to have breaks and lunch with my wife and 7 kids and my flexible schedule means I can do the 'bus driving' and other errands whenever I'm needed. I keep in constant contact with my co-worker via hangouts and the occasional phone call. I have less distractions and am more productive on my worse day at home than my best in any office.
felhr 12y ago
The worst thing is the feeling that you are always at work. In this situation I discovered going to the gym is helping me to switch the mode (it could be running, swimming...just any physical activity). If I keep working remotely this year I would like to: - Keep two computers, one for work and other for my spare time. - Keep a room of my house as my private study or, if it is not possible, work somedays from a coworking space.
dugmartin 12y ago
After ~13 years of working mostly from a home office I decided to rent a small office "downtown" in the little village I live in a couple of years ago. It is nice sized room (19'x11') in a building right on a river with two windows looking out at the river and the hills beyond (seen in the top image here: http://zoopdoop.com/ http://zoopdoop.com/) I now love walking to work as much as I used to love working from home and I don't see myself going back to a home office anytime soon.
- vayarajesh 12y ago
  Wow nice view, do you work with a team or alone?
vinceyuan 12y ago
If you are a software developer and your aggressive manager is not a developer, don't work remotely. I worked for several months in this condition. The experience was very bad. The manager couldn't understand the difficulty and complexity of programming. He was just pushing and pushing to make sure I was working. I worked 10-12 hours per day, but he was still not satisfied. Finally, I worked on-site. The communication became much better and he could see I am working. And I did not need to work too long every day.
vayarajesh 12y ago
Even though I haven't worked from home for longer than a week, I completely understand what the author means, My first 2 days were ok ok.. but then rest of the day were very bad... you don't realize or feel the break from work and off-work. When you drive back home you feel the sensation of work is "finished" but at home you are always in the feeling of "work"
davexunit 12y ago
Personally, I think it's great to just have 1 or 2 remote days per week. Really helps with overall time spent commuting and breaks up the monotony of the daily routine.
Varcht 12y ago
I've been working from home for the last 4 mos. For the most part it has been very positive. I've enjoyed the looser schedule and have spent quite a bit less on food and gas. The biggest benefit has been that I have not had a single insomniac episode. I have slept very well. I'm reminded of this as I am transitioning back to working in the office. Over the last two weeks I have been setting up an office for two coworkers and myself. Yesterday was the first that I moved my PC in and worked at the office although still alone till the rest of the furniture arrives. Last night I slept maybe a total of 3 hours before my first full day at the office. Not sure why, I am only accountable to myself at this point for when I come and go yet here I am up and going on 3 hours sleep again...
zero-g 12y ago
How do you guys communicate while working remotely? At my current job we have daily two daily meetings (in the morning and in the evening) where everyone tells what he's done or we discuss something with a whole team. These meetings lock us to particular schedule and make traveling hard. I'd like to suggest my boss to get rid of these daily meetings but I don't know with what to replace them.
- talentless 12y ago
  My team is entirely remote and we do written standups/sitdowns. This adds some flexibility to your day which helps given that we are spread across many timezones. At the end of the week we have a demo day via google hangout where we can show off work that we have done or something cool we learned.
zaphar 12y ago
I've been working from home for almost a year now. I agree with most of the article. My checklist of things I do for sanity goes something like this: 1. Set up regular lunch get togethers with friends. 2. Use Video Conferencing liberally. Don't keep trying to hash something out via email or chat for too long. At some point the higher bandwidth of face to face communication even over a VC will be much more efficient. 3. Keep a persistent group chat for you team open. IRC, Slack, Anything that is always on and provides a sense of presence for you. Don't be afraid to joke around and make small talk there. Out team even plays the occasional verbal logic puzzle there. 4. Stock some variety in your kitchen. You get bored of Bologne and PB&J after a while. You are going to want to provide some variety for lunches. 5. Be responsive but only during regular working hours. It helps your team to know when they can contact you and get a response. After 5pm I don't respond to txts or emails unless they are emergencies. But before then I make sure people get a quick response from me even if it's just that I'll have to get back to them later. 6. And lastly join a Gym. I swim regularly but you might run or play some basketball or lift weights. When your place of work is your home it can be hard to disengage. A gym is a good way to leave the work behind and reset the mental clock as well as meet other people.
bswen 12y ago
I've been working from home for almost eight years now. At first, it was just me and my dogs while my wife went to work. That was definitely hard at first, to stay focused and productive. Every day Alicia would come home and I'd be desperate to get out of the house, she'd usually want to stay in and chill, though, having just had a full day interacting with people at work. I eventually learned that walking down to the library or coffee shop a couple times a week helped some. But coffee shops aren't ideal workspaces in that they don't provide reliable internet, space, often too noisy and sometimes feel like you're not welcome to stay for a long time. The past few years my wife started staying home and we have two kiddos now. Being able to work from home while raising a young family is a huge advantage logistically speaking and I am thankful every time I get to have lunch with my kids or take a 15 minute break to play in the backyard. But there's also a lot of distractions that are sometimes hard to ignore and the problems of professional isolation and like and reduced networking opportunities. To this end I started working with a couple friends on a project last year called SpareChair (https://sparechair.me https://sparechair.me) to build a community of people who work remotely and so we can get connected and provide easy access to a lot of places to work together. We're mostly active in Brooklyn/Manhattan right now to gather feedback and learn how to make this work. Would definitely love to hear any thoughts you all might have on SpareChair, too.
- aareet 12y ago
  This is cool! I've wanted something like this for a while now, especially because the usual coffee-shop routine is to pack everything up and take it all with you to the bathroom, and bring it right back and it can get tedious after a while. It's too bad you don't have any spaces in Toronto right now.
  - bswen 12y ago
    Cool! We're hearing the same thing from a lot of folks. They want a lot of choices when it comes to spaces and they want to also find people to work with. I'll get in touch when we launch in Canada!
    - 12y ago
devonkim 12y ago
I've been working remotely about 5 or so of my 10+ professional years. Working remotely can be a very different experience depending upon job roles. Most of the articles linked on HN are for already-isolating back office jobs like development, but for roles like customer support, sales, an outsourced front desk receptionist, or other highly communication-heavy roles you will not really feel as lonely probably. For coders and asset-producers with pretty clear expected (and more importantly, asynchronous) output, solutions typically focus upon forcing your job duties to include more actual human interaction even if it might not be in-person. However, higher value consultants typically will be communicating a lot more with their clients and spending half your day at Starbucks is going to be few and far between. Secondly, the "freedom" people tend to talk about is pretty minimal in some roles and being remote tends to reinforce the need for your role to be available as much as possible. If you're the on-call contact in operations where it's arguably more important that you're available immediately rather than that you just make some deadlines (transactional work), you really can't just take off very often like you can oftentimes with very asynchronous, start-stop workflows like development. You're not about to work at Starbucks much unless you can be guaranteed that you won't have a really important call come in. I would have lost precious availability time if I was working at Starbucks a few days ago when I had to manage a production outage and get on the phone and start talking authoritatively quickly. It's one thing to have a kid or pet in the background, it's another when you're obviously sitting at a coffee shop. For work-life separation, I recommend separate devices from your personal belongings for starters. It's oftentimes substantially cheaper than getting a separate room or larger residence. I have a company-provided laptop that I do my work on as well as a company-provided phone, and that helps keep things separate from the rest of my life. If I have to reach for that phone or RDP / ssh into that machine, that's time I've spent for the company, not for me.
kelukelugames 12y ago
When I was a grad student I spent most of my time working in the labs. I too experienced deterioratingn social skills. Got a retail job at the mall on weekends to interact with more people.
junto 12y ago
I've been working remote for 10 years. For the first 6 years I worked from home and I lived in various countries as a bonus (since the location wasn't tied to the work). For the last 4 years I've been based in a coworking space. I can highly recommend it. The biggest benefit to me was that it forced me to have set times to finish work. When I worked from home I would always work a little bit longer. Now I switch my computer off, leave the coworking space in the evening, go home and relax. There is no temptation to start working again.
shawn-butler 12y ago
>>> When you have a bad day at work you still have the sensation of accomplishment. You drove to work, attended meetings, take care of some stuff… you actually did some tasks. >>> Probably not a very original thought but this strikes me as very similar to the same game mechanics / psychology involved in grinding ladder-type MMOs. Is it possible the mundane office environment is created to be somewhat addicting?
tylerc230 12y ago
I actually find an office environment to be more distracting than working from home. At the office you have noise and people wanting to chat, at home I can work for a six hour stretch, uninterrupted.
krylon 12y ago
I would really like to work from home one day per week. But all in all, I enjoy the interaction with my coworkers. I have a strong reclusive streak, and being forced to interact with other all day has a positive effect on me. Also, I live in the city, but my workplace is in a pretty rural area, next to a field. On my way to work, and from my office, I get to see rabbits, roe deer, horses, cows, a kestrel hunting... I would not get to see any of that if I worked from home. I do feel a little guilty at times for staring out the window so much, but having grown up in the city, I totally love that awesome view.

94 points by pauloteixeira 12y ago

Now I just need a cafe that isn't closed in the middle of the day, actually has heat in the winter, has chairs that support those of us that weigh over 98 lbs, and that attracts people/encourages them to hang out. Man this town needs another coffee shop...

lucaspiller 12y ago
Ever thought of starting a co-working space with some friends?
- jscheel 12y ago
  Thankfully, I have my own office at my parents' office, so I do get some interaction. I've actually talked with a friend about starting a co-working space in our town, but I don't think it's ready for one yet. Maybe in 5-10 years. That's what we get for being a commuter-city to Nashville.

eleitl 12y ago

Mirror?

slau 12y ago
Google Cache seems to work: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:a5OjeFfoOiEJ:blog.jobbox.io/first-experience-working-from-home/&hl=en&gl=fr&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:a5OjeFf...
adav 12y ago
https://medium.com/@semeano/my-first-experience-at-working-from-home-9ad5dbc1589 https://medium.com/@semeano/my-first-experience-at-working-f...

taternuts 12y ago

Really agree with the point of pressure, that having a bad day whilst working from home feels way more terrible than having one while at the office (production-wise)

evincarofautumn 12y ago
It is in a sense more honest. If you didn’t get anything done, it doesn’t matter where you were.

flountown 12y ago

Since I work in sales, I am stuck to the typical 9-5 availability schedule. If I feel like I'm in a rut, I go to a coffee shop to change it up. I have one 40 feet from my front door, or I take a longer walk on a nicer day to the coffee shop I frequented from my last apartment. It forces you to shower, dress like a real human being and can sometimes substitute for that human interaction.

scoj 12y ago
Ha, have to look like a human, too true! Sadly, sometimes I have to think about when the last time I was outside. Not good.
- flountown 12y ago
  The worst was a week ago on Monday. I wasn't feeling well and realized that the deadbolt on my front door hadn't been opened in over 36 hours. Tuesday was definitely a coffee shop day at that point.

lmorris84 12y ago

Agree with many of these points. I've worked from home for the last 3 years and I love it, but it definitely has it's downsides. I think the worst for me is not being able to switch off at 5pm. Without the journey home to empty my mind a little, I do find myself thinking about work for the rest of the night.

serg_chernata 12y ago
You know I find that going to the gym right at 5 helps me stay healthy and do just that, clear my head. Force yourself to leave the house.
jeromegv 12y ago
I work from home & I keep my work emails in a separate software, at 5, I just quit the software. That does the job!
- anotherevan 12y ago
  Cannot plus one this enough. I use to have all email accounts in the one client. Now for work (which is gmail) I use a notifier (plus often just leaving the browser page open in Chromium). If I find the notifier starting to bug me on the non-work days, I just switch it off. I have a cron job that starts it 9am every work day if it is not already running.
scoj 12y ago
One thing that helps me (other than.my wife and kids asking when I'm done) is to go for a short walk. My wife knows that its part of my routine and is usually pretty supportive.
pingwin 12y ago
I've been working from home for going on 6 years. I have the same problem. It doesn't help that I also have a young child at home as well. He's only known me to work from home, so every few hours I get forced breaks, which is sometimes very nice to have. I am with the other commenter that having some sort of activity to transition yourself from work to home is important. Sometimes a jog, or walk is enough. Most days I don't have anything to transition with beyond cooking the family dinner.

adaml_623 12y ago

"The page you are looking for is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later." That's quite funny if you're working from home with a dodgy internet connection

pauloteixeira 12y ago
Had a problem with a cache plugin, I think that it's up again

Pephers 12y ago

I've also been working from home for the last 10 months, and while I love the freedom, I do also miss the times when you can cheer with your co-workers over an accomplishment and the general chit-chat over small breaks and lunch break. I also agree with the author that a bad day working from home is worse than at a job. Since I'm a solo-founder it means I'll not get paid on a bad day, but at a job you typically get at least something done – and get paid.

abalos 12y ago

I found this article really interesting. I've really enjoyed my recent experiences telecommuting. The main difference in my life, though, is that I'm close to the office. This allows me to go in part of the week and work from home another part. I love being able to talk to my coworkers and go in for meetings, but when it comes down to it, it's really nice to be able to sit in the silence and comfort of my house and work when I need to get stuff done. Both working in the office and at home have their pros/cons. It's all about preference.

br3w5 12y ago

I work from home two days a week and the issue I have is actually switching off so I typically start early and then keep going with less breaks than in the office. Maybe this feels easier because it is more comfortable at home and not an abrasive environment like an office. Pros vs cons also depends on both the home and office environment e.g. if you have dedicated working space at home vs a very noisy office or vice versa. Also, just to say I love Lagos and the western Algarve - it's such a beautiful place

Killswitch 12y ago

I am on my first month working from home. While I am not a huge fan of it, either I work from home, or I lose my job. My biggest gripes about telecommuting is that I have a hard drive focusing. Something about the process of getting up and getting ready and LEAVING the house, puts my brain into this mode of "time to work!" While telecommuting I can get up and get ready, but there's nothing there that convinces my brain I'm going to work.

brianwawok 12y ago
Set aside a different room. Go for a walk around the block first. Lots of ways to split up your day prework vs postwork.
- Killswitch 12y ago
  Yeah I'm still setting up my second room as an office. Right now I'm sitting on my couch with laptop on lap. Not very helpful. Along with that, I'm also changing my diet and even starting to go to the gym since it's right across the street. Hopefully these things help.
  - jfoutz 12y ago
    I'd recommend, get up and go to the gym before work. As others mentioned, having that daily routine where you transition to work mode is really helpful.
    - Killswitch 12y ago
      That's the goal. Thank you for solidifying that goal as being the right steps. Appreciate it.

lordnacho 12y ago

Simple solution to the loneliness thing: get a webcam. You can see the office, they can see you. I saw a business that ran like that. Seemed okay. It wasn't a dev who was remote though, and that may matter. Also some people don't like the feeling of being watched.

tribaal 12y ago
Another simple solution: go to a coworking space once in a while. It's usually cheap and has a coffee machine, and plenty of people to introduce yourself to and smalltalk with.

benmorris 12y ago

Coming up on my 3rd year now working from home and running my own company. I agree with most of this article. The lack of social interaction is probably what I miss the most. Overall it has been a positive change for me though. I had serious issues concentrating while coding at my last job. Working from home has mostly solved that. I've found in the last year it is easy to stop working at 4:30-5 since we have had our first child, before that I was doing 10-12 hour days because I could.

vinceyuan 12y ago
+1. I am working at home. My child is young and my wife cannot handle completely. I can't concentrate on programming. Sometimes I have to take my laptop to the public library to work.

manmukh 12y ago

> Degradation of social skills I've noticed this if I spend too much time without meaningful face to face conversations. Translating my thoughts into coherent sentences becomes a little more challenging.

imjared 12y ago

I've been working at home for about a year and can sympathize with the author. I've really been surprised at what an effect its had on me socially. I'm not the most outgoing person to begin with so the forced in-person interactions (both appreciated and unappreciated) that I got in my previous office settings were probably a lot more beneficial to me than I previously believed. I feel like I have the additional challenge of being a web developer so when I do get the chance to talk to people, I don't have the "oh you won't believe this crazy guy I work with" stories. Everything is "oh you won't believe this wacky stacktrace I was getting." Cue glazed over eyes. I love sitting here in my sweats, making fresh lunches, taking a short nap almost every afternoon to refresh, and being able to travel literally wherever I want as long as there's wifi. I miss people more than I thought I would. I think I'll probably join a coworking space before long even if it's only to go for a part of the week.

puranjay 12y ago
Get out while you still can. Seriously. I worked from home for 2.5 years and it has had a profoundly negative impact on my social life and even my personality. I'm good with people, but sitting alone all day for such a long-time has turned me into the kind of person who thinks of calling an old friend, then thinks 'eh, why bother. Let's see what's new on Reddit instead'. Then there's the problem with setting a routine. I can wake up whenever I want to, sleep whenever I want to. And that's what I usually end up doing. Sure, it's fun for the first few weeks, but soon you realize why human beings need structure and organization. It's corrosive. I moved to a co-working space and I've never been happier. Working from home is seriously overrated.
- KFW504 12y ago
  What's the turnover rate at your co-working space? If people aren't working there for any significant period of time, you might not be able to develop the same type of meaningful interactions you'd hope for in an office.
- gclaramunt 12y ago
  is a trade-off, I worked from home for a year, and although I missed the casual interactions you get in the office, I was able at any moment to take a 5 minute break to play with my kids, go pick them up from school, help them with homework, and that's priceless

drewg123 12y ago

I worked full time remote for 12 years doing driver / kernel / firmware work for an IHV. What I missed most about working in an office (and what I liked most about going to work at an office again 2 years ago) is the sense of separation and decompression that a commute gives you. If you're not careful, you can easily wind up always working all the time since your "office" is right in your living space.

FigBug 12y ago
I've been working at home for the last 5. Doing iOS, android, desktop apps and firmware. I find the firmware the most frustrating, probably because I'm the least experienced at it. Trying to debug things by sharing screenshot of a USB scope is a pain. Having to drive in every time I need a mod done. Even worse is driving in and whatever piece of equipment I wanted is at somebody else's house (or forgotten at mine). I've had a better experience when doing firmware upgrades for mature products, but has anybody had a good experience developing hardware products with a work from home team?
- drewg123 12y ago
  The IHV that I worked for had most of the hardware team local in California, and most of the software team remote. We had a great lab team that could install bits, move cables, etc. All machines had serial consoles & power controllers (or IPMI). One source of frustration was that most of the locals did not arrive until 10am Pacific, and I was on the Eastern time zone. So if I needed a cable moved, I had to wait until after lunch. Though I sometimes asked one of the secretaries to do it (she arrived at 6am Pacific). By the time I had hardware access, we always had jtag or more advanced access methods working. A big frustration was using tools like PCIe logic analyzers remotely. Luckily, these were mostly controlled by PCs, and we could access them via an IP KVM solution (but again, we had to wait for on-site labstaff to hook up physical connections).
icebraining 12y ago
I wonder if there are any techniques that might work, like using a dedicated computer that you put away, taking a walk or a shower, etc.

tribaal 12y ago

Working from home for 3 years now, and I love it. I think what people in general tend to forget is that you can work from home but you don't have to. Renting a spot in a coworking space is very fun and helps with the loneliness.

puranjay 12y ago
Honest question: what is your home situation like? Are you married? Kids? In my experience, older folks with kids and a spouse tend to love the work from home thing. Younger people tend to get bogged down by the lack of social interaction.
- 91bananas 12y ago
  Not OP but, I have been at home for the last year. Married with a kid and another on the way. ~30 years old. I love it. I do at times feel the loneliness, but we have worked hard as a team to make it possible for me to be "in the office" as much as possible. We set up a persistent Google Hangout on a 60" TV that I can jump in at any time and be a part of the rest of the non-remote team. I love being able to rush in to my kid's room when he wakes up in the morning, saying goodnight when he takes his nap. I love eating from my own kitchen. I love working outside of home.
- tribaal 12y ago
  Well, just like the other user who answered you (hi, lifestyle clone!) I'm married, One kid, one on the way. Like I said, I love the choice it brings me - I don't have to work form home (I can use a coworking space for instance), but I get to decide every morning. I tend to go to a coworking space or to friends/friendly startups/friendly companies to hang out about one day a week, but it can be much more. One tidbit: almost the whole company is remote (600 people!), so we're all organized around that, and it probably makes it easier. So my personal take away: it's about the choice it gives you :)
  - puranjay 12y ago
    > One tidbit: almost the whole company is remote (600 people!) I'm intrigued. I was under the impression remote work was only feasible for smaller startups. The only fully distributed companies I know have < 30 employees.

mrrrgn 12y ago

This is why I work from cafes whenever possible. If I actually work from a quiet room by myself I start to slip into sadness. My brain craves the presence of other humans. That said, I prefer cafes to offices. It's nice to be around people with no real ties to your source of income. It eliminates the stress of needing to manage all of your actions more carefully. Also, I find that over time I make actual friends coffee shops. Co-workers rarely make good long-term friends.

agentultra 12y ago

I've been working remotely for a few years. The first few months, if you've never done it before and don't know how to cope, definitely feel as the author described. It's your first time. You're just doing it wrong. Best way I've over come the social needs is to work out of a local cafe once or twice a week. Get to know the people there. Learn their names. Make friends. Work on a crossword together. Get a whiteboard. Plenty of notebooks. Take time to journal your day. Thoughts, frustrations, tasks. Explain things to yourself out loud. Reward yourself. Take a walk to the park. Catch up on the New Yorker Poetry podcast. I don't find motivation to be a problem so long as the team is good at planning and there's always something to do that I can take action on without bothering folks. Use a system and stick to it: pomodoro, GTD, whatever. Be systematic and work with intent. If you're stuck wondering what you should be doing you need to re-evaluate your process and plug the leaks: you should always know what needs to be done next. Things that make working remote suck for your remote workers: 1. Hallway planning. Making decisions face-to-face in meat-space and not documenting them anywhere. Everything needs to go into an email list or task tracking system. 2. Poor communication. If you're never available online, refuse too many requests for chats, ignore emails... it can be really frustrating. The great thing about working remotely is that communication can be intermediated by scripts. Set auto-replies, status updates, reminders, alerts. 3. Never enough information. When you're working closely in a group face-to-face it can be easy to draw consensus on an issue and document it with a single, innocuous task in the task manager and not bother filling in the description, properly rating it, tagging it, etc. Always add enough information so that anyone can come along and take care of it without having to hunt you down.

kleer001 12y ago
I really connected with your first half there. Self Enrichment! It's funny, that's a lot of what it takes to keep a dog happy and healthy too. They need a job and friends and play time and special snacks. We just need to take the same care and consideration for ourselves when it's not provided by an employer.

sparrish 12y ago

I've been working from home for 7+ years now and wouldn't trade it for the world. I get to have breaks and lunch with my wife and 7 kids and my flexible schedule means I can do the 'bus driving' and other errands whenever I'm needed. I keep in constant contact with my co-worker via hangouts and the occasional phone call. I have less distractions and am more productive on my worse day at home than my best in any office.

felhr 12y ago

The worst thing is the feeling that you are always at work. In this situation I discovered going to the gym is helping me to switch the mode (it could be running, swimming...just any physical activity). If I keep working remotely this year I would like to: - Keep two computers, one for work and other for my spare time. - Keep a room of my house as my private study or, if it is not possible, work somedays from a coworking space.

dugmartin 12y ago

After ~13 years of working mostly from a home office I decided to rent a small office "downtown" in the little village I live in a couple of years ago. It is nice sized room (19'x11') in a building right on a river with two windows looking out at the river and the hills beyond (seen in the top image here: http://zoopdoop.com/ http://zoopdoop.com/) I now love walking to work as much as I used to love working from home and I don't see myself going back to a home office anytime soon.

vayarajesh 12y ago
Wow nice view, do you work with a team or alone?

vinceyuan 12y ago

If you are a software developer and your aggressive manager is not a developer, don't work remotely. I worked for several months in this condition. The experience was very bad. The manager couldn't understand the difficulty and complexity of programming. He was just pushing and pushing to make sure I was working. I worked 10-12 hours per day, but he was still not satisfied. Finally, I worked on-site. The communication became much better and he could see I am working. And I did not need to work too long every day.

vayarajesh 12y ago

Even though I haven't worked from home for longer than a week, I completely understand what the author means, My first 2 days were ok ok.. but then rest of the day were very bad... you don't realize or feel the break from work and off-work. When you drive back home you feel the sensation of work is "finished" but at home you are always in the feeling of "work"

davexunit 12y ago

Personally, I think it's great to just have 1 or 2 remote days per week. Really helps with overall time spent commuting and breaks up the monotony of the daily routine.

Varcht 12y ago

I've been working from home for the last 4 mos. For the most part it has been very positive. I've enjoyed the looser schedule and have spent quite a bit less on food and gas. The biggest benefit has been that I have not had a single insomniac episode. I have slept very well. I'm reminded of this as I am transitioning back to working in the office. Over the last two weeks I have been setting up an office for two coworkers and myself. Yesterday was the first that I moved my PC in and worked at the office although still alone till the rest of the furniture arrives. Last night I slept maybe a total of 3 hours before my first full day at the office. Not sure why, I am only accountable to myself at this point for when I come and go yet here I am up and going on 3 hours sleep again...

zero-g 12y ago

How do you guys communicate while working remotely? At my current job we have daily two daily meetings (in the morning and in the evening) where everyone tells what he's done or we discuss something with a whole team. These meetings lock us to particular schedule and make traveling hard. I'd like to suggest my boss to get rid of these daily meetings but I don't know with what to replace them.

talentless 12y ago
My team is entirely remote and we do written standups/sitdowns. This adds some flexibility to your day which helps given that we are spread across many timezones. At the end of the week we have a demo day via google hangout where we can show off work that we have done or something cool we learned.

zaphar 12y ago

I've been working from home for almost a year now. I agree with most of the article. My checklist of things I do for sanity goes something like this: 1. Set up regular lunch get togethers with friends. 2. Use Video Conferencing liberally. Don't keep trying to hash something out via email or chat for too long. At some point the higher bandwidth of face to face communication even over a VC will be much more efficient. 3. Keep a persistent group chat for you team open. IRC, Slack, Anything that is always on and provides a sense of presence for you. Don't be afraid to joke around and make small talk there. Out team even plays the occasional verbal logic puzzle there. 4. Stock some variety in your kitchen. You get bored of Bologne and PB&J after a while. You are going to want to provide some variety for lunches. 5. Be responsive but only during regular working hours. It helps your team to know when they can contact you and get a response. After 5pm I don't respond to txts or emails unless they are emergencies. But before then I make sure people get a quick response from me even if it's just that I'll have to get back to them later. 6. And lastly join a Gym. I swim regularly but you might run or play some basketball or lift weights. When your place of work is your home it can be hard to disengage. A gym is a good way to leave the work behind and reset the mental clock as well as meet other people.

bswen 12y ago

I've been working from home for almost eight years now. At first, it was just me and my dogs while my wife went to work. That was definitely hard at first, to stay focused and productive. Every day Alicia would come home and I'd be desperate to get out of the house, she'd usually want to stay in and chill, though, having just had a full day interacting with people at work. I eventually learned that walking down to the library or coffee shop a couple times a week helped some. But coffee shops aren't ideal workspaces in that they don't provide reliable internet, space, often too noisy and sometimes feel like you're not welcome to stay for a long time. The past few years my wife started staying home and we have two kiddos now. Being able to work from home while raising a young family is a huge advantage logistically speaking and I am thankful every time I get to have lunch with my kids or take a 15 minute break to play in the backyard. But there's also a lot of distractions that are sometimes hard to ignore and the problems of professional isolation and like and reduced networking opportunities. To this end I started working with a couple friends on a project last year called SpareChair (https://sparechair.me https://sparechair.me) to build a community of people who work remotely and so we can get connected and provide easy access to a lot of places to work together. We're mostly active in Brooklyn/Manhattan right now to gather feedback and learn how to make this work. Would definitely love to hear any thoughts you all might have on SpareChair, too.

aareet 12y ago
This is cool! I've wanted something like this for a while now, especially because the usual coffee-shop routine is to pack everything up and take it all with you to the bathroom, and bring it right back and it can get tedious after a while. It's too bad you don't have any spaces in Toronto right now.
- bswen 12y ago
  Cool! We're hearing the same thing from a lot of folks. They want a lot of choices when it comes to spaces and they want to also find people to work with. I'll get in touch when we launch in Canada!
  - 12y ago

devonkim 12y ago

I've been working remotely about 5 or so of my 10+ professional years. Working remotely can be a very different experience depending upon job roles. Most of the articles linked on HN are for already-isolating back office jobs like development, but for roles like customer support, sales, an outsourced front desk receptionist, or other highly communication-heavy roles you will not really feel as lonely probably. For coders and asset-producers with pretty clear expected (and more importantly, asynchronous) output, solutions typically focus upon forcing your job duties to include more actual human interaction even if it might not be in-person. However, higher value consultants typically will be communicating a lot more with their clients and spending half your day at Starbucks is going to be few and far between. Secondly, the "freedom" people tend to talk about is pretty minimal in some roles and being remote tends to reinforce the need for your role to be available as much as possible. If you're the on-call contact in operations where it's arguably more important that you're available immediately rather than that you just make some deadlines (transactional work), you really can't just take off very often like you can oftentimes with very asynchronous, start-stop workflows like development. You're not about to work at Starbucks much unless you can be guaranteed that you won't have a really important call come in. I would have lost precious availability time if I was working at Starbucks a few days ago when I had to manage a production outage and get on the phone and start talking authoritatively quickly. It's one thing to have a kid or pet in the background, it's another when you're obviously sitting at a coffee shop. For work-life separation, I recommend separate devices from your personal belongings for starters. It's oftentimes substantially cheaper than getting a separate room or larger residence. I have a company-provided laptop that I do my work on as well as a company-provided phone, and that helps keep things separate from the rest of my life. If I have to reach for that phone or RDP / ssh into that machine, that's time I've spent for the company, not for me.

kelukelugames 12y ago

When I was a grad student I spent most of my time working in the labs. I too experienced deterioratingn social skills. Got a retail job at the mall on weekends to interact with more people.

junto 12y ago

I've been working remote for 10 years. For the first 6 years I worked from home and I lived in various countries as a bonus (since the location wasn't tied to the work). For the last 4 years I've been based in a coworking space. I can highly recommend it. The biggest benefit to me was that it forced me to have set times to finish work. When I worked from home I would always work a little bit longer. Now I switch my computer off, leave the coworking space in the evening, go home and relax. There is no temptation to start working again.

shawn-butler 12y ago

>>> When you have a bad day at work you still have the sensation of accomplishment. You drove to work, attended meetings, take care of some stuff… you actually did some tasks. >>> Probably not a very original thought but this strikes me as very similar to the same game mechanics / psychology involved in grinding ladder-type MMOs. Is it possible the mundane office environment is created to be somewhat addicting?

tylerc230 12y ago

I actually find an office environment to be more distracting than working from home. At the office you have noise and people wanting to chat, at home I can work for a six hour stretch, uninterrupted.

krylon 12y ago

I would really like to work from home one day per week. But all in all, I enjoy the interaction with my coworkers. I have a strong reclusive streak, and being forced to interact with other all day has a positive effect on me. Also, I live in the city, but my workplace is in a pretty rural area, next to a field. On my way to work, and from my office, I get to see rabbits, roe deer, horses, cows, a kestrel hunting... I would not get to see any of that if I worked from home. I do feel a little guilty at times for staring out the window so much, but having grown up in the city, I totally love that awesome view.