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by TeMPOraL 3663 days ago
The "rise of remote working" was supposed to happen 20 years ago. We should all be working from home for a good decade now. Instead, management invented excuses like "importance of teamwork", "serendipity happening at the water cooler", etc. Another messaging app won't change that by itself.
2 comments

I still haven't found a "remote" replacement for gathering around a whiteboard to work out some system design issues. Whiteboard-through-a-webcam has been mostly ok as long as everyone is almost on the same page to begin with, but it gets cumbersome as soon as anyone misunderstands anything.
It is worth noting that there actually are plenty of remote workers. Most people are presumably unaware of them for two reasons:

1) People who work remotely are clustered in companies that allow remote working. If you don't work for a company that will let you work remotely then you probably don't work with any remote workers.

2) Remote workers can often choose their location so they cluster in more desirable locations which, statistically speaking, you probably do not live in.

I worked remotely for 2011-2015 within a company that had approximately 1/3 of its workforce working remotely. As I could go where I wanted I spent most of my time overseas. Spent a lot of time in SE Asia. Places like Chiang Mai in Thailand and Bali in Indonesia have no shortage of people working remotely either as an employee, freelancing or starting a business.