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by dlowe 4860 days ago
I've been telecommuting for 10 years. When I'm the only remote employee, and there isn't a culture of remoteness, I believe it's my job to have the discipline and do the extra work to stay connected, not the rest of the team's. It's a challenging dynamic, but it's not impossible, and I just don't think it's reasonable to expect the entire team to adapt to the exceptional case, instead of the other way around.
3 comments
codex_irl 4860 days ago
+1 to that. I have been working 100% remotely, full time for a client based in Europe for 4 years now - I've never met the people on my team in person & we only have a 3 hour overlap in terms of working hours. I expect myself to be at least as productive as when I was in the office and then some - to eliminate any doubts people might have. Its very easy for my boss to tell how I'm doing....just take a look at my git log.

Not sure I could ever commute 5 days to work & sit in a cubicle or open plan office (those places remind me of a Chinese factory floor)....they would have to pay me a LOT of money to endure that again.

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lsc 4860 days ago
yeah, when I was at yahoo, the one guy who worked from home (well, we all did on occasion, but the one guy who always worked from home) was really, really good; My feeling was that he was good enough that he was able to say "let me work from home or I walk" - I don't know if he would have been more effective if he was in the office all the time or not, but he was probably the most effective person on the team as it was.
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BudVVeezer 4860 days ago
+1 to this as well -- I've been telecommuting for ten years now, and it's always been my view that I have to find the communication mechanism that suits the situation, not the other way around. I think because of this viewpoint, I don't get "left out" nearly as much because I don't give people the chance to forget about me.

That's not to say that I don't miss out on "watercooler chat" topics as they happen, but I still make a point of chatting with coworkers to make up for it. A simple "hey, you feeling better now" IM goes a long way.

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