[ganzolo]

I had a totally different experience from the author of this article. Maybe, this was due to the fact that I was working remotely for 4 years with different startups maniacs.

Biggest issues were :

- Nobody sees how much you are invested into your day to day work. They just see bunch of commits / builds and the little gray or green presence indicator on your messenger app. But if you are struggling for 3 days x 10 hours per day to fix a bug, chances are high that nobody will realize this.

- You're constantly alone. Even if nowadays we have great communications tools, the reality is that you'll spend 95% of your time alone in front of a computer in an empty apartment. I am excluding working from coffee shops because of the noise and bad setup (chair/table), this can only work once in a while.

- There is no separation between private and professional life, unless you have an office space and you dedicate yourself to go there on a daily basis (which is at the end equivalent of having an in-house job...). Being in the same place where you live and work makes it very challenging to not think of job in your private time or vice-versa. I also have to be honest and tell you that temptation of using your working time to do private things are much higher when you are at home.

- You need to be everything. In regular companies, you usually have direct manager, human resources, office manager, cleaning personnel, legal department, IT support, etc... When you are alone at home you need to do everything by yourself, organizing/cleaning your space, negotiating your vacations, dealing with your personal issues, etc...

So now, let's analyze the most common issues of working in an office is... ... The time lost in transportation.

Right now in my new office job, I am spending around 1h30 everyday to get ready and to travel back and forward to the office. At first I started to see that at pure waste. But actually this is not that bad. The days weather is good, I am biking to work and also doing sport, days weather is bad, I drive listening to music and relaxing.

With the biggest advantage of not thinking of job as soon as I leave office, I will definitely never go back to remote work!

[brightball]

> Nobody sees how much you are invested into your day to day work. They just see bunch of commits / builds and the little gray or green presence indicator on your messenger app. But if you are struggling for 3 days x 10 hours per day to fix a bug, chances are high that nobody will realize this.

What you just described is why it’s so important to have daily standups and an assumption that when people on a team finish a story they will pair with somebody who has not. It has to be a standard mode of operation because there are so many people who are too proud to ask for help or think it will make them look bad. Sometimes, you just need another set of eyes.

[cpayne624]

I’d agree except for the I-will-interrupt-the-next-dude (chick) when I’m finished my story to pair part. Make it known that you’re available to pair if needed, but pairing as SOP would have me interviewing.

[brightball]

Pairing is very much a cultural thing. It's either normal or it's not. If it's not it tends to only be a "ask me for help if needed", which leads to not doing it. That's not really pairing either, that's just "Let me know if anybody needs any help."

The perks of pairing are regularly unsticking stuck people, getting another set of eyes on a problem, learning from each others development habits as a side effect of doing your job. People tend to really overthink what is involved in pairing, turning it into some rigidly drilled type of exercise.

All that is needed to get most of the benefits is to fire up a screen share and verbally communicate while the main developer keeps working. Everything else falls into place. Even if it's just for a couple of hours here and there rather than "finish this entire story with this person" it's beneficial.

When people get stuck on something, it can become harder for them to focus. They'll start looking for alternatives like opening HN or Facebook, reading an article, etc. For a lot of people trying to prove themselves, asking for help isn't going to happen until it's too late and that makes it easy for people to work in their own little bubble.

If it's considered an interruption for you to screen share while the person continues to code, you're doing pairing wrong.

[cpayne624]

This is the typical response to pair push-back. And I have no interest in convincing anyone why it is not for me. I will interview.

[brightball]

That's the thing...it's the typical response because it's true...

If pairing periodically is enough of a burden on you that it would cause you to interview elsewhere, it really seems like you're overthinking the impact.

[cpayne624]

You’re being dogmatic. Assuming that something works for everyone because it works for you, and if they say it doesn’t, it’s because they “don’t understand,” is wholly closed-minded.

[izacus]

> - You're constantly alone. Even if nowadays we have great communications tools, the reality is that you'll spend 95% of your time alone in front of a computer in an empty apartment. I am excluding working from coffee shops because of the noise and bad setup (chair/table), this can only work once in a while.

I had this issue as well, but managed to solve it by renting an office with a few of my remote working friends. This resulted in best-of-both-worlds: I could still go to the office to work with tech people (and grab coffee, lunch) while noone really cared if I came in. Also the city I was living in was decently small which meant 15 min "commute" with bike if I wished.

[ahtu123]

It's a fine fix but many companies don't pay for that so you're out $200+ a month in a large city. It also gets complicated if you take the home office deduction

[maxxxxx]

Renting an office and sharing it with somebody is definitely worth the money from my experience. I used to live like that in Munich. Had an office with nice people 5 minutes bike ride away. Perfect!

[izacus]

Yeah, I've decided then that the 140EUR of costs per month were worth it in terms of mental health and motivation. The difference in rents between the company HQ and my city made up for it anyway.

[driverdan]

These largely sound like problems with your ability to manage working remotely and management at the companies you worked for.

> if you are struggling for 3 days x 10 hours per day to fix a bug, chances are high that nobody will realize this

That's on you. You need to seek out help no matter what environment you work in. You should never struggle on something for more than an hour or two. Seek help early instead of wasting time.

> You're constantly alone.

The author described the way they tackled this. You can also join a coworking space or rent a shared office.

> There is no separation between private and professional life, unless you have an office space

Also an advantage of working at a coworking space.

> You need to be everything.

Only at very small companies. In that situation it'd be the same problem if you were working at an office. Larger companies should have a proper management structure and good management of remote workers.

[ahtu123]

I've been working remotely for 3 years now and found some different struggles than the author. Everyone living within 1 hour of each other is quite different than being a global team. We're always struggling to fit in even really important meetings because of time differences and can only meet in person a few times a year. Asking people to do casual meetings at 6am or 8pm would not go over well.

[ganzolo]

Who told you that I wasn't seeking help? Or that I was wasting time? You don't know anything about my situation but you are already judging it.

That's typically what can do bad remote managers. Don't ask any question, don't know details but already judged the situation. :-)

[sotojuan]

> Being in the same place where you live and work makes it very challenging to not think of job in your private time or vice-versa.

Can you expand on this? I do not work remotely right now but as programmers, we're problem solvers. Often times I leave the office after 8 hours but the problem I was solving is still in my head through the night. However, I do not open work stuff over the weekend or in the evening unless there's an emergency. Do you find yourself doing work stuff after your working time or just thinking about it? Also, do you have a work computer and a personal computer, or both in one? Back when I first joined my company was cheap and I used my personal laptop for work, and it made it hard to ignore work stuff when I wasn't in the office.

[ahtu123]

Imagine it's 8pm and you try to work 9-5. You get an email or slack message, you just quickly glance at it and it sounds like there's a tiny fire somewhere in the system that you know how to fix/respond to. It's very easy to sit down on the computer since it's literally a few feet away and get sucked into an 30-90min debacle multiple times per week. I use the same computer for games/internet time and work so that definitely doesn't help. I just don't have room to set up another desktop since my home office has a nice desk, monitor, chair already.

[sotojuan]

That can happen with onsite jobs too. My solution is I don't check work email and barely check Slack after work.

If I worked remote I'd do that I do now - request a work only laptop.

[acct1771]

KVM. VMs.

[sunir]

Problem solving in the shower is fun.

Answering emails, reviewing docs, project management drudgery at all hours is oppressive.

The asynchronous nature of the medium you think is understood but it is not always at all times.

I had to change my thinking that my inbox is always zero priority. I choose what to focus on. In the evenings I only do email if that is what I want to do.

Not always possible if there is someone elses anxiety to deal with. I was motivated to help because it was a rare human connection that I didn't want to strain. But I eventually learnt expectation setting is a key skill to master.

[ganzolo]

I have a work computer that I, on purpose, never bring home. It also happen to me now, to think about job problems from home but it's very rare.

While I was working from home, just seeing this desk / chair make me think of job. The temptation to look on mails / slack outside of your working hour is also much higher.

[jimmaswell]

I just use two different windows accounts on a laptop. Works fine for me.

[fao_]

> Right now in my new office job, I am spending around 1h30 everyday to get ready and to travel back and forward to the office. At first I started to see that at pure waste. But actually this is not that bad. The days weather is good, I am biking to work and also doing sport, days weather is bad, I drive listening to music and relaxing.

That's all very well when you own your mode of transportation. When I was working and decided to work from home, I was limited to a train that ran every hour, taking an hour to get to the destination. Many times I was either in a shoddy train (A cost savings measure by arriva) with nobody, or (more often) I was packed like tuna with a bunch of other people who also used it to go to work. If I missed that train, I would then have to wait another hour, usually in the cold and wet, being totally unproductive. It was an hour's walk to this train station as well, making it irritating when you add on the usual time cost of preparing to Enter The World. To add to this, people from my area tend to talk very loudly. I would often find myself either deafening myself to avoid listening to them, or being completely and utterly distracted and unable to focus for much of the journey (I used to attempt to read).

When I switched to working from home, I no longer had those concerns, which allowed me to dedicate more time to my job. Of course it lacked the usual work/life separation, but there are other ways to enforce that. A shower, or going out for a short walk often works. Putting on a short episode of a favored show is another.

[ganzolo]

Yes, if you can't live close enough to your work this can be an issue. By close enough I mean around 10kms, this make it easy to go by bike or public transportation.

[jvns]

> In regular companies, you usually have direct manager, human resources, office manager, cleaning personnel, legal department, IT support, etc...

It's interesting to me that you didn't have those! Is that because you were working for small startups? I work for a pretty large company, so I have a manager, HR, a legal team, and IT support. I can't go see the IT folks in person obviously, but they have occasionally mailed me things I need. I talk to my direct manager 1:1 once a week, and he also works remotely. I definitely feel like I'm part of a larger team / company of people who can help me and not like I'm just off working on my own without any support.

I edited the post to add a section about "But if you are struggling for 3 days x 10 hours per day to fix a bug, chances are high that nobody will realize this." (that hasn't been my experience so I wanted to talk about how I approach spending a long time stuck on something)

[ganzolo]

My experience are with startups. But even though you are in a bigger company, you cannot have :

- Unexpected physical 1-1 with an HR in a meeting room about your problems.

- Cleaning and organization of your working space. Even if this represents only 10 minutes a day this can represent half a day at the end of the month...

- And more generally everything that goes through email / chat / calls tend to take more time than if you just go to see the person and ask.

[kostarelo]

From what I read, your experience must have to do with the specific environments you were working on. Lots of companies that had embraced the remote first culture (GitLab[1], Automattic to name a few) have overcome those issues and you will hear lots of happy testimonials from their employees.

The fact though is that remote working will work for some people but will completely fail with others.

1: https://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-GitLab-EI_IE12...

[KeitIG]

I think this is not only about commuting time. If you have a wife/husband and children, you do not want to move every 4 months for each new contract you get. Here remote makes perfect sense if you want to live in a fixed city.

[emilecantin]

> unless you have an office space and you dedicate yourself to go there on a daily basis (which is at the end equivalent of having an in-house job...).

I'm in this situation, and it really does feel like an in-house job. It's not as "free" as people would think it is, because while I can technically work from anywhere, I have a very comfortable setup at home (multiple screens), and I don't really like to leave it. I still do it from time to time, and it's pretty handy.

One thing everyone talks about when talking about remote work is loneliness, but I think it doesn't always apply. If you have a family and / or volunteer somewhere at least weekly, it's very easy to avoid feeling lonely.

[dasmoth]

Nobody sees how much you are invested into your day to day work. They just see bunch of commits / builds and the little gray or green presence indicator on your messenger app. But if you are struggling for 3 days x 10 hours per day to fix a bug, chances are high that nobody will realize this.

This is possibly the biggest (theoretical) feature for me. I want to be judged in results produced, not work done. In practice, even remote-friendly places seem to want (at least) daily check ins, and a lot of visibility about how people are working, not just what they manage to build.

[galfarragem]

After experiencing daily commutes ranging from 0 to 4:30h, I would say that the commute time sweet spot is not zero (remote work) but 25-30 minutes of daily biking/walking.

[potta_coffee]

I can't relax in traffic, no matter what. My last job I was working myself to the bone and the commute just made it worse. So happy to be working from home now.

[baus]

Personally I think the best situation is a mix of both. Being able to work remotely, but go to an office for collaboration.