

Making remote work work: An adventure in time and space - mrkurt
http://blog.mongohq.com/making-remote-work-work-an-adventure-in-time-and-space/

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agentultra
The hardest part about working remotely is convincing the non-remote
developers to stay engaged. When everyone is in the same office except for one
or two people things can fall apart. Hallway chats happen over coffee,
decisions get made offline and things start to happen without keeping the
remote people in the loop.

I like the idea of encouraging people in the office to, "work as if you're not
here." The advantages will add up over time and not just for remote people:
you'll have databases and logs of everything! Throw search engines on it,
watch trends evolve and use it to be more productive!

~~~
gutnor
There is the flip side of it too. This networking effect of having developer
hanging around the business people and sales is also the added value of those
developers.

As one of my manager put it, why would I hire a remote worker in the UK when
we can just add more people to our office in Poland. ( Polish dev are just as
good, well qualified and hard to find but they are cheaper )

To me "work as if you're not there" is just volunteering to prove your job can
be outsourced.

~~~
lucaspiller
> This networking effect of having developer hanging around the business
> people and sales is also the added value of those developers.

At my last on-site position (now I'm contracting remotely) the dev team was
originally going to be in another city (London) from the rest of the company
(minor EU capital), however because of this reason it was decided we should
all be together. I rarely saw the advantages of this, or felt value from being
around the business folks. Most decisions were made in hallway chats and we
were kept out of the loop, except when something 'super urgent' needed to be
changed and a PM walked over and grabbed someone. Disadvantages were apparent,
as it was a lot harder to find decent Rails developers compared to London.

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hawkharris
There's a fun activity that makes the remote work day feel like a game. I call
it "platforming," as in jumping from platform to platform.

Travel to an uncharted area of your city and bring your laptop. Set about
10-20 concrete objectives for the day. Each time you complete 5 objectives,
you get to transition to a new place such as a coffee shop (or anywhere with
WiFi).

This segments the day and makes it feel a little more structured, not to
mention fun.

~~~
lucaspiller
That's a pretty nice idea. I like exploring new places when I can (I usually
work from a village in the middle of nowhere), so try to find a new place each
day.

The only issue is getting coffee, settling in, then finding the wifi doesn't
work >_<

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addisonj
I just recently started at MongoHQ and have found the experience really
interesting and wanted to share a few observations.

\- Remote work makes a company more transparent. The documentation and writing
that makes remote work possible has an interesting side effect of giving
insight into all corners of an organization. While this might not be desired
in some organizations, I think it empowers individuals to get a sense of the
overall company goals and health and make the best decision of how to use
their time.

\- Remote work breeds trust. Instead of getting the trickle of information
from closed door management meetings, you get a log of what is happening and a
sense of what decisions are to be made and the implications.

\- Remote only works if everyone is on board. I have been at organizations
that tried to make remote possible, but it never quite worked as some groups
refused to monitor the central chat for fear of it taking too much time. You
do really need everyone on the same channels and using the same tools to
maintain the level of communication required to make remote work.

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zende
> We have an apart­ment near our San Mateo office that any­one can use when
> they’re in town. Peo­ple tend to travel to San Mateo about once every 6
> weeks on average.

This is one of the most important parts of the post IMHO. You have to see
people _at some point_ even if they work remotely or work occasionally from
home. It's particularly helpful to coordinate travel schedules to get as many
people in the office at one time no matter how small or large the company is.

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nstott
Working remotely can be hard. Tools like the sqwiggle, google hangouts,
doubles, hipchat all help.

The most important thing though is having the culture that includes remove
workers in the day to day conversations. The water-cooler is where a lot of
magic happens, and that's the first thing that you miss if your corporate
culture doesn't embrace remoteness.

~~~
visarga
I do pair programming with my brother and we used Skype for face video and VNC
for remote screen. Skype has audio problems (noise cancelling is bad) and VNC
requires an external routable IP to let anyone connect and that is not
possible in all situations. I found other tools, such as TeamViewer but they
slow down my desktop considerably.

What tools are best for remote screen + cam video on an IP behind DHCP?

~~~
jasonmccay
Have you ever tried Screen Hero? We use that from time to time here and it
works nicely.

~~~
nstott
screenhero is great too, no video, but it has voice

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semerda
Remote work works great in the early days when everyone has their head buried
deep in code and most of the team is scattered around the globe. But let's not
forget how we homosapiens evolved - via collaborative face to face group
interaction. It's like Facebook wont replace the real human touch component of
building friendships and staying connected. Remote work will not be the shape
of work to come.

When the team starts to expand you need human interaction. People need to
engage in debates, intense debates that spark creativity and get to feel the
energy in the room. That energy is the driving force which aligns everyone for
the same common mission. Quarterly team assemblies are always great, as we
revive the power of being in touch on a human level. Not 1s and 0s.

Cloud tools are great to exchange information but not to grow a company,
culture and keep the fire fueled for a very long time. There are exceptions
(outliers) but let's not use those since we know that to draw conclusions from
data we need statistically significant sample of data.

Saying this, work environments are changing and need to change to allow a
piece of isolation (just like meditation provides) and a piece of connection
(that human component). All wrapped up in a flexible schedule so employees do
not feel like prisoners.

~~~
agentultra
As I get older I tend to be more selective of who I would like to share my
time with. I'd rather make connections with my family and friends than my co-
workers. For me it's just a job. It's not summer camp.

I'm certain creativity and collaboration don't require any phantom energy in a
room of people to happen. The majority of people who build open source
software have never met. And in projects like Apache, OpenStack, Mozilla and
what-not there are thousands of contributors at every level.

I contribute to projects with people whom I've only talked with on IRC and
through commit logs and code reviews. It hasn't stopped any of us.

I think you're mistaken that there is some evolutionary heritage that requires
us to be in person in order to effectively collaborate.

~~~
semerda
Yap because in those projects one works best in isolation. Growing a company
is a lot different.

Have you read this? The Lethality of Loneliness - We now know how it can
ravage our body and brain [http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113176/science-
loneliness...](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113176/science-loneliness-
how-isolation-can-kill-you)

~~~
louhike
I'm not sure your link is relevant to him as he said he does not want to see
too much his colleagues so he can see more his family and his friends.
Therefore, he is not alone.

~~~
agentultra
You're right on the button. I spend more _quality_ time with people who have a
meaningful impact on my life. It isn't a lonely life. I feel much more
enriched by having the privilege and opportunity to be so selective.

Growing up I know my parents were forced to work and commute by necessity.
They made friends at work because those were the people they were forced to
spend their most time with and that's what most people do in that situation.
It's not useful or necessary and it takes away from the time they could have
spent with their real friends and family.

I'm friendly and professional with my co-workers. We get along. However at the
end of the day our relationship is ephemeral in the grand scheme of life. In a
few years they or I will leave the company and it's not like we're going to be
sitting on the porch together when we're 80 and remembering, "the good old
days." (Outliers not withstanding).

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belze_72
This is great news and it's a sign that this company looks into the future.
Working remotely isn't just about the place where you work. It's a sign of
trust that leads to higher productivity and engagement. Kudos

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darklajid
Working remote for a while now, first 10km away from the office (so, hopping
in was always possible), now ~70~ km away (still easy, but I'm not there in a
moment and actively try to discourage on-site meetings).

I have to agree with the article about possible distractions at home. Got a
1.x year old son, will have a daughter in < 30 days. I'm confident that I'm
doing a good job, I really prefer working without the (especially in our
company culture) regular interruptions in the office. But .. family and home
office needs really strict rules _and_ the right environment.

We moved 11/13 for the most part to give me a room that is isolated from the
daily noise of a family. If you're having a family and consider remote work:
It is possible, but you need to make sure that your SO is on board and you
need to expect some downtime while you're trying to adapt. I think it's
totally doable, but anything but easy.

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dwiel
One of the best things weve done to help with the water cooler problem was to
have a group im chat (hipchat). we try to avoid private im whenever possible.
This means that not only is it easy to see what others are talking about, you
can read it over after.the fact if youre busy.

~~~
jasonmccay
Indeed ... Hipchat has proven to be a great way for our teams to communicate.
Also, it creates a nice log of conversations for historical reference.

Secondly, Hipchat is a great central posting ground for all your apps, both
internal and external services. The same apps that we have created to increase
internal transparency on work being done are set to be relatively spammy in
Hipchat, which allows the team to receive passive updates on activity with no
extra work from individual team members.

Works nicely.

------
officemonkey
I think the Hackpad page/read ahead/agenda which becomes the meeting notes are
a terrific way to collaborate when everyone is connected to a screen.

Has anyone used any Enterprise-wide tools like this? We've got stuff we
absolutely must keep inside the firewall.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Our tool Sococo (I work there) works audio/video P2P so it all can stay inside
the firewall.

But chat is generally aggregated/federated so ends up on an encrypted server
in the cloud. That can be an issue to fix; either its saved on everyone's own
machine (and not your pad at home when you want it later), or its on a server
and theoretically 'at risk'.

~~~
Andys
What OS/platforms does your product support? is it web-based? couldn't find
these answers on the site. thanks

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Supports Mac, iPad, iPhone, WinXp/Vista/7/8\. We run it on Linux but only in
the datacenter as a 'media node', we couldn't settle on a presentation layer.

Also we've ported it to Android pucks for conference room stations, but not
selling that - no deal with a vendor yet.

There's a web client, but the audio situation there is fragmented so now
(sigh) you have to call in. Its OK if you're just attending a meeting but less
tolerable for all-day use.

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eloisant
I agree that the commute creates a healthy firewall between work and personal
life, this is why I recommend remote workers to find a coworking space to
commute to.

Not only you get a clean separation between "home" and "office", but you also
can socialize and have colleagues to go with to lunch. And you still have all
the advantages of remote, because if you feel like working from home rather
than the coworking space one day (or from a different country for a few weeks)
it doesn't make any difference for the people you work with.

~~~
RHSeeger
Interestingly, I consider the lack of such a firewall to be one of the
benefits of working from home. If I am having trouble getting into the swing
of work during the day, I can go play with my dog. If I'm thinking late at
night about a problem from work and have an idea, I can go try it... no need
to setup the computer because it's exactly how I left it earlier.

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nolite
Congrats to MongoHQ for being bold enough to head in this direction

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christkv
I've been working remotely for 2 years in Barcelona with the main office being
in NYC. The 6 hours I have for myself before people wake up in NYC are
incredibly focused and productive and I have 3 hours of overlap for meetings
and catchup which seems to be working out quite well.

One important thing is to reach out and chat with people on a daily basis to
avoid feeling isolated and also of course visit in person once in a while to
have a bit of face time.

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mkdk
Are there any good resources on the legal and tax issues related to being a US
based startup having remote workers overseas (say, the UK or Japan?). I've
heard this can be a pain.

