working remotely

PeakOutput

just curious if anyone here works remotely for either contract clients or their full time employers?

It seems to be a relatively common occurence in the states now and just wondering if it is taking off at home at all or if companies are still sticking with the traditional idea of a work place

azzeretti

I work from home 3 days a week and have done for the least 3-4 years....I wouldn't like it fulltime as I go a bit stir crazy as it is!!

Defiler Of The Coffin

My manager works full-time from Poland, he flies over here for a week every 4/5 weeks or so. For the most part it works out OK but it's better when he's here, things get done an awful lot more quickly. I occasionally work from home, it's handy when I want to head back to the home house for a few days, the working from home gives me an extra few days. It's all using putty though, you'd miss having a full X Session. I wouldn't fancy doing it full-time, some things you just need to be in the office for, especially as I am in the process of moving to a new team

PeakOutput

and while I assume you guys are in development do you or your companies have a specific specialty? do you notice other companies you deal with letting their employees work remotely?

The little bit of contract work I did before moving out of the country I did remotely and loved it, I am convinced it is the way to work for me but just wondering what other peoples experiences are

IRLConor

I work semi-remotely.

We have four offices with developers in them: San Francisco, Portland, Buffalo and Dublin. We have a bunch of developers who work from home and they're spread around the place. If any of the developers who are based in the offices wants to work from home they can (e.g. two of the Dublin-based lads worked from home today 'cos the weather was crap and they didn't fancy venturing outside).

The project I'm working on right now has developers in Dublin, Portland, San Francisco and Pennsylvania. Juggling the timezones can be a little irritating at times but I'm not an early morning person so I work 11-7 to give a little more overlap. I mostly work from the office since I don't have a desk at home and I like having a big monitor for the laptop but I probably work from home about 3-5 days a month. The usual reasons for working at home are either I'm feeling sick (but am well enough to work), I need extended periods of quiet time or I need to be at home for a boiler service guy or something.

I've worked remotely before so I'm kinda used to it. You need a bit of discipline (i.e. make communication written) and planning (i.e. make sure you're not blocking someone while you sleep) but it's not as hard as some people like to make it out to be.

Things that help:

• Meetings over Skype: Turn on the video! In the short term you get better meetings and in the long term you remember that your teammates are humans.
• Write stuff down. When you're in the same office as a teammate a lot of minor decisions are handled verbally. If anyone on your team is remote then you have to either keep all discussion in a long-running chat room or be extremely disciplined to write up even the trivial stuff and e-mail it on to them. If they're even slightly cut off from the decision-making then you'll all lose out. Bonus: you have records you can grep.
• Have some medium for water cooler style chat that includes the remote people. This keeps the human connection bits going.
• Schedule one-on-one chats (Skype in our case) with people you work closely with. Just cover the usual random chat and bitching that would happen over lunch or over a pint on a Friday evening in a "regular office".

SalteeDog

Plenty good tips from IRLConor there. I work from home occasionally. I manage a team that is spread across 6 different sites in Ireland and North America - several of whom are home-workers. Its a US Technology MNC so the company is favourable to flexible arrangements. I couldn't work from home full-time though - would miss the face to face interaction with people.

GreeBo

I worked from home for 2 years, as did the entire office. (Downsized and 6 of us were kept on)
In some ways it didnt change too much as most of the people I worked with on a day to day basis were remote (Poland, USA, India, etc)

I found that all I did was work, there was no real end to the day, especially since my offshore colleagues were always online somewhere.
It was *very* useful to be able to do things, get the car fixed, hit the gym at a time that suited me, etc
But in the end I dont think its a long term good idea, at least not for me, I definitely missed the physical interaction with other people, even if I wasnt working with them directly.

In a full, vibrant office now and I really like it and think Im probably more productive and healthy.

ChRoMe

GreeBo wrote: »

I worked from home for 2 years, as did the entire office. (Downsized and 6 of us were kept on)
In some ways it didnt change too much as most of the people I worked with on a day to day basis were remote (Poland, USA, India, etc)

I found that all I did was work, there was no real end to the day, especially since my offshore colleagues were always online somewhere.
It was *very* useful to be able to do things, get the car fixed, hit the gym at a time that suited me, etc
But in the end I dont think its a long term good idea, at least not for me, I definitely missed the physical interaction with other people, even if I wasnt working with them directly.

In a full, vibrant office now and I really like it and think Im probably more productive and healthy.

My exact experience and feelings on it. Being alone for extended periods of time along with the work day "never ending" are bad for your mental health.

PeakOutput

That definitely makes sense, although I can see pros and cons of both. for me working remotely would mean I could live in a particular place were I wouldnt get lonely anyway but I can understand if everyone you know goes off to work every morning and you just stay at home everyday it could mess with your head alright.

robbiezero

Used to work from home every Friday for about a year. Loved it.
Like others have said, I would not like to do it full time, and also no real limit on the working day, but for me that was fine, as could go for a run during the day or do a bit of shopping etc and do the actual work in the evening.
1 day a week was great, any more that that would have been a bit much for me.

um7y1h83ge06nx

My company allows Developers to work from home.

I'm assigned to the office as it's in Limerick and so am I. However they've had no problem on the 2 occasions I wanted to work from home (only been here since October).

It's handy, one day an Electrician was coming to do work and the other day I was getting a delivery of tabletop glass.

I would dislike it on a full-time basis, I would feel a little isolated and maybe a bit blue that I'm always at "work".

So I'm planning on maybe working from home most Fridays, just to break-up the week.

rainbow kirby

Wouldn't be my thing in general, but on a day like this (where I'm just about well enough to get some work done, but quite possibly acting like a contagious ball of snot in the office) it would be really nice to wrap up in my blanket on my couch at home and code away.

croo

I worked remotely for client companies around the world for a few years but the lack of good broadband made it difficult and often I had to travel to some place with a stable connection so I wasn't killing whole skype conferences when my connection dropped.

In 2005/6 I could just about get away an unstable 3g connection but these days clients are much less tolerant and expect every to have fast stable connections.

Personally I loved working at home and not wasting hours traveling every day.

Fussgangerzone

I'm actually about to start working from home as a freelancer for half the time, being retained part-time in my current position. It'll be my second time working from home, and I'm looking forward to it. The first time, I made some mistakes I won't be repeating. Some things to remember are:

1. Get dressed. No, really. Working in your boxers is fun a few times, but it's bad for your brain. Put your shoes on and present yourself like somebody can see you.
2. Don't work from your bedroom. You end up spending 16+ hours a day in the same room. Time becomes meaningless.
3. Keep the same hours as everyone else. Working from 4 to 12 might seem just as good on paper, but it will **** your social life.
4. Socialise. Meet somebody for lunch, maybe even just Skype chats, but it can be easy to go a few days without talking to someone. If you live with your partner, it can't just be them, you'll drive them up the wall unloading your technical problems on them.
5. Mix it up. Some office-sharing spaces offer a weekly rate. One week every month or two working next to someone else can keep you straight, stop you scratching your bum compulsively.
6. Consider office-sharing all the time. Maybe there's somewhere within five minutes you could use, beat the commute, but otherwise be in "office-mode" while you're there. Some of my mates swear by it. Personally, I don't feel the need, but I have it in my head as an option if I'm not feeling it in the gaff. (no pun intended)

moycullen14

Working from home is great! Here's your typical day:

11am: Get up, start illegal movie/music/porn downloads
1130am: Down to the bookies in your jamies.
1pm: pub for lunch
2-4pm: snooze
5pm: Do all the jobs your wife ordered you to do that morning
6pm: Let the cat out
7-9pm: Cocktail hour
930pm: check that your outsourcer in China ($5 per month and very good) has done your work. Check it in to github.
945pm: Down to the pub for last orders

Rinse and repeat

um7y1h83ge06nx

There was a guy in the States that did something like that. Outsourced his job to somewhere in Asia. He got caught out though but it worked for a decent amount if time for him. Google the article. :-)