

Working Remotely - daleharvey
http://arandomurl.com/2011/09/03/working-remotely.html

======
gordonguthrie
Dale and I worked together (more or less remotely) for a number of years.
There is another side to this story that he doesn't bring out.

There are managerial challenges when you are responsible for for is working
remotely. For the first 3 years or so of Hypernumbers we were rotating between
7- and 6- day working, going down to 5-day working in the summer.

The real concern when you are working with young developers (I was mid-40s,
Dale was early 20s) is about burnout. Particularly with software developers.
Young men working long and engaging hours with addictive work practices, with
the usual poor dietary habits - this is a bad accident waiting to happen. At
if.com we had a particular developer who physically turned green during a big
push. Easy to spot in the work place, remotely not so much...

Dale has a quite common tendency for diurnal drift - a 25 hour cycle. Nothing
wrong with it, slightly alarming when you sign off in chat at midnight, go to
bed, start up at 7am when you get up and he's still there. Diurnal drift can
rapidly turn into social isolation though (and a one way ticket to the bin).

Our industry has a lot of people at one end of the autistic spectrum - and
remote working is not an policy for everyone.

Domestic circumstances also count a lot - support at home, friends, community
stuff.

I heartily agree with what Dale says about communication, practices and
procedures. I have long thought that the main lesson of open source projects
is that they can only succeed if all the modalities are tip-top. We adopted
'open source processes' at hypernumbers to drive quality - and remotish
working helped drive them in.

The circumstances of hypernumbers were a bit different though. Normally you
would look to colocate the person specifying the system and the people who are
writing it. With hypernumbers we spent the first couple of years essentially
cloning Microsoft Excel so the business processes were optimised for remote
working. (This is also one reason why open source programmes are dominated by
clones.)

So it is a bit more nuanced I think than in his write up.

Would I hire remote workers again? Yes I would. Contrary to received wisdom I
try and hire people from the 'other' end of the autistic spectrum (the end I
would put Dale on).

On conventional measures of productivity (production SLOC per person per day)
I would regard the experience at hypernumbers very highly - although the total
difference in working procedures versus if.com where I have 'before'
measurements from make it hard to allocate outcomes to a particular aspect of
how we worked.

~~~
Ixiaus
I work from home all the time and I agree heartily with what you've said
regarding burnout. It's that "work feels empty and I don't want to touch a
computer" feeling and I can always tell when it starts to come on, usually
following an intense week-two week push. When it does, I make sure not to
touch the computer or atleast touch it minimally until I start to feel
excitement to work on something again (usually takes 3 to 4 days).

I also have to take issue with his routine - diurnal drift has always been a
problem for me (hard for me to get up early, easy to stay up late == bad
sleeping habits and a sloppy daily routine); I find I cannot maintain a
structured and meaningful routine if I start slipping outside of my
established "get up early (early here is 7AM or 6AM), shower, work, exercise,
read, sleep" cycle (excluding other creature habits like meals &c...).

I'm a rare one in that I don't actually socialize with any developer community
at all - but I do have a vibrant and active social life _outside of_ computers
- most of my friends aren't anywhere near the programmer/developer culture. I
would say exercise (I hit a CrossFit gym three times per week) and an active
social life, whatever that means to you, and a structured daily routine are
the keys to working remotely and on your own.

~~~
gordonguthrie
From a managers perspective it is very difficult to manage.

Internet startups have a cult-like culture at the moment - uber-important, the
'next Google' and all that statistically unlikely guff - with remote working
that can make a perfect storm for mental illness.

That was the sort of stuff that used to keep me up at nights. People were
doing long hours for shite wages, the last thing you want is to fry their
neurons. Burn out is more than just 'don't want to touch the computer for a
couple of days' - you can really damage people.

~~~
Ixiaus
I manage a remote worker and I'm the CTO of my own co-founded startup; yes
there's a lot of stuff going on all at once, but I think it's a bit extreme to
posit anything related to mental illness. If someone tanks like that, it's
their failure as an individual to know what their boundaries are and how to
uphold those boundaries (this would go so far as to even quit the job or stop
what you are doing till you are well again).

I had to learn those personal lessons the hard way - a long time ago I was a
quintessential nerd in that I didn't ever exercise, eat properly, or maintain
a healthy routine AND I worked 80+ hour weeks. _That was in an office with co-
workers_. Burnout wasn't just _the_ symptom, it was one of many symptoms of a
deep psychological shortcoming on my part: self-worth. The more self-esteem
you have, generally, the more capable of knowing what your boundaries are and
how/when to uphold them in the face of an encroaching white collar executive
that doesn't understand what you do or why staring at a screen for 12 hours
and eating donuts as a breakfast "bonus" is (IMHO) mistreatment. That example
is an extreme one, but it's where I came from and now I manage my time
effectively, have an equilibrium in my life that is healthy and feels good,
and I own my own company...

~~~
gordonguthrie
> If someone tanks like that, it's their failure as an individual to know what
> their boundaries are and how to uphold those boundaries

I disagree - managers have a duty of care towards their employees.

> The more self-esteem you have, generally, the more capable of knowing what
> your boundaries are and how/when to uphold them in the face of an
> encroaching white collar executive that doesn't understand what you do or
> why staring at a screen for 12 hours and eating donuts as a breakfast
> "bonus" is (IMHO) mistreatment.

I'm sorry but employment is a power-relationship and saying that the critical
thing is 'self-esteem' is simply wrong.

~~~
Ixiaus
> managers have a duty of care towards their employees.

I agree with this, but I still maintain the original point you were responding
to - I still think it is an individual responsibility.

> I'm sorry but employment is a power-relationship and saying that the
> critical thing is 'self-esteem' is simply wrong.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "power-relationship" a bit more? I
still do think self-esteem is a critical component; when you are hiring people
to be a cog in the wheel, the last thing you look for is individuality - so
yes, when herding the sheep, as a manager you come from the power position and
benefit by taking care of your sheep so they output most effectively.

But I suppose the question over which points are being argued here has more to
do with what kind of personality we are talking about? Like I said, I agree
with what you say when the person in question is desirable as a replaceable
part (as is the case in many larger corporations) but I disagree when we start
talking about autonomous individuals (the irreplaceable people in an
organization - small or large).

I suppose it was my fault for relating the concept of "remote worker" with one
of "autonomous individual" - when in fact there are people of many different
personality types and roles that engage in remote working.

~~~
j_hightower
It's definitely a two-way street. Employees bear some degree of responsibility
for self-esteem and upholding of limits. At the same time, managers bear a big
degree of responsibility for the productivity and wellbeing of their
employees. And when they cross lines and reject reasonable limits, that
shouldn't be seen by default as the employee's failing.

I've worked for a big corporation in the past that bore a particularly
onerous, victim-blaming animus toward its employees. Anytime anyone, anywhere,
had an issue with his boss, he was told to "learn to manage upward." "Managing
upward" became a catch-all excuse for allowing a boss's failures to be re-
characterized as your own. As it so happened, our division had a few downright
abusive bosses. I mean, abusive in the legally actionable sense of the word.
And their direct reports would invariably try to "manage upward," then get
firmly reprimanded for doing so. To top it off, they'd be labeled internally
as malcontents, politically isolated, and subjected to further abuses. Not
surprisingly, very few people below the upper-middle-management tier of this
company stuck around for longer than a year.

------
cpenner461
I've been working remotely as a dev for the past 6 months or so - love it! My
take on his questions:

“Doesn’t it get lonely?” Not really. I'm on IRC all day so have plenty of
technical interaction throughout the day, and there's always the outside world
(lunch, friends, etc).

“How do you get work done?” I almost think I get more work done working
remotely than I do in an office because I won't spend 30m here and there
talking about my weekend or whatever, I just work. Casual web surfing (HN etc)
is about the same (i.e. occasionally when I need a break). I spend a few days
every other month or so actually at the office, which has proven to be very
productive, but in a different way. There's a dynamic that (I've found) you
can only get in person, face to face, that doesn't involve cranking out lines
of code, but just being able to talk through various
issues/strategies/directions/etc. It's refreshing to have that time every over
month or so.

“Doesn’t it affect your quality of life?” Absolutely! But in a very very good
way. Granted I was commuting 1hr+ each way, so I immediately gained 10+ hours
a week and save $3-400/mo on gas. The flexibility is amazing. Working at an
office I had to leave early (6am) to try to beat the traffic. This morning I
took my son to Panera to pick up bagels for the family before starting work
(for example).

The whole experience thus far really makes me wonder why more companies don't
embrace it more.

------
jonnathanson
Employers that understand the concept of flex hours seem to get it.

But it's a big leap for a lot of companies. It requires placing faith in
employees and hoping for the best from them (i.e., that they'll tailor their
schedules to their peak performance hours), rather than mistrusting them and
fearing the worst (i.e., that they'll just slack off).

Incidentally, companies entrenched in that latter mindset -- those that fear
the worst from their employees -- usually end up _getting_ the worst from
their employees. So it becomes a vicious cycle: company treats employees like
dirt; employees feel demotivated; company sees demotivated employees and
decides its lack of faith in them is justified; rinse and repeat.

~~~
rick888
The problem is that most people will slack off. To work remotely, you almost
have to have the same discipline that you do when you work for yourself. Most
people don't have this type of discipline.

~~~
marknutter
Not a problem if your employees actually enjoy what they do.

~~~
rick888
You won't always enjoy what you are doing, even if you are really passionate
about your work.

------
bcl
I've been working remote for over 5 years now. Some keys are: Have a door on
your home office so the family doesn't interrupt. Use IRC, email, IM to
maintain communication with your team. Have enough self-discipline to work
instead of slack off when you run up against hard problems. Hobbies outside
the house so that you don't spend 24 hours a day working.

I personally don't work at coffee shops, I find them too distracting. I love
my quiet office where I can concentrate for large blocks of time.

As a company you should be hiring remote developers. It makes it alot easier
for you to find good employees when you aren't limiting yourself to only
locals, or only those who want to relocate.

~~~
dataminer
I agree with you on coffee shops, they are too distracting. I found my refuge
at the local library, it is 5 minutes drive from home, the environment is very
respectable, no distractions, openvpn and ssl works perfectly.

~~~
bcl
Good idea! I'll have to give that a try.

------
neebz
I have been working remotely for around 8 months.

The best thing about remote work is not that you can work from home but the
fact that you don't need to be in office to work.

We know you can work in cafes etc. but also you can work while travelling
around the globe. That's one great advantage and I love it.

I get the luxury to go around, stay in new cities (heck even countries) and
meet new people while working. All I need to ensure is that I have internet
access.

~~~
danenania
Yep, this has been my approach as well. I moved to Buenos Aires a month ago
and I'm planning to stay for at least six months to learn Spanish, then who
knows--I'd like to travel around Latin America (and Spain) to get some use out
of my new language chops, but I'd also really like to spend some time in Asia,
especially India.

One of the difficulties I've had with remote work, as mentioned in the op and
comments here, is lack of daily structure and socializing. I think learning a
new language is one of the best antidotes for this. You can do a language
program for four hours a day and meet a huge variety of people from all over
the world while picking up an incredibly useful and rewarding skill. The
natural focus on conversation and collaboration is a great counterweight to
the solitary nature of programming. Good programs also tend to offer a lot of
cultural and social events outside of classes. It's pretty low stress and
leaves plenty of time in the day to get work done.

Aside from all this, it's pretty awesome to be able to live in a nice, sunny,
furnished, utilities and internet included studio with a balcony and view in
one of the nicest areas of a giant cosmopolitan city for ~33% or less of what
a similar arrangement would cost in SF or NYC.

~~~
outside1234
how did people find a remote gig like this? I'm self motivated, an Android
developer (which I only mention because there is huge demand for this so it
seems like I should be able to find a good company that is interested in
this), and it seems like I should be able to find a great company interested
in this - but I haven't - any advice?

~~~
danenania
I've gone the contracting route, working mainly with startups and small
companies. While it's less secure than a long term gig at an established big
company, you tend to get a lot more latitude--minimal paperwork, rules, and
bs. All that really matters is that you get stuff done, do good work, and
communicate well. The hardest part is getting your foot in the door so you can
prove yourself. Once you do, you're set. Startup communities are small and
entrepreneurs would much rather go with the recommendation of a
friend/colleague than any other method. If you can get people what they need,
you can pretty much set all the other terms, including charging a lot, and
you'll still get as much work as you can handle.

As far as getting that foot in the door, go to where the entrepreneurs are. Go
to meetups, conferences, anywhere entrepreneurs and web-minded people
congregate, and talk with people about their work and ideas. With Android, you
definitely have a skill that's highly in demand. If you show intelligence and
enthusiasm, it's very possible you'll get offers on the spot. Hope that helps.

------
beanstr
At one of my jobs about 2 years ago I regularly used to work remotely once
twice a week. Until now the most I have worked remotely in one stretch is 1
week.

I have been working on an online / smartphone based food ordering project for
about 6 months. This work was getting done on the side along with my day job
which required me to be in the office from 9 to 5. I always thought about the
day when I would become fully involved with my personal project and leave my
day time job. That day came sooner than I was hoping for and it come on the
terms of my employer rather than mine because of some budget cuts and project
discontinuations. This is my first week working from home on my personal
project.

Yesterday I contacted a couple of shared office spaces where I can find a
cubicle. I am still debating whether to work from home or to find a shared
cubicle and get into the routine of going to office and interacting with other
startups that share office space in the same building.

This phase and my personal experience in this phase will help me lay some
guidelines on working from home when we actually have employees. So far I feel
good. I can work until late in the night and wake up late because I do not
have to take a shower and drive to start working in the morning and use my
lunch time as shower time. I am feeling that working from home requires better
planning and focus than working from office with other employees.

I feel somewhat inexperienced in writing a whole lot on this subject as I am
in my first week of working from home but for me there will not be a better
time to read other people's comments on this topic.

------
mgkimsal
I've had mixed results, both with myself and other people I've used, and part
of the difference is focus. If you're a remote developer for _one_ company,
with _one_ set of tasks, I've found it's easier. If you're doing remote
contract work for multiple clients, you've just added in some more hurdles.

I'm considering taking on a full-time developer to help out with my work, and
while I'm OK working for people remotely, I'd probably prefer this person to
be local and we get an office, at least for part time meeting space (if there
was a coworking area nearby I'd use it). The difficulty I've had is finding
other developers who _are_ communicative with emails, ticket systems, phone
calls, whatever. I've worked with a couple dozen devs over the past few years,
and can count on one hand those that were strongly professional in their
attitude towards communication - documenting things clearly, keeping in
regular contact, knowing when to ask questions, preemptively helping out with
ambiguous issues, etc.

Certainly "working from home" can be great, but you do need an emphasis on
"work" rather than the "from home" to be successful with it. I know people see
what I do and say "awesome, I'd love to work from home". The reality is, many
people need the structure that going to an office provides (I wouldn't even
mind it myself now and then).

------
jconley
I work remotely and have done so off and on for much of my career. For about 9
months of the last year I took a trip around the US and lived in a RV. All the
while being as productive as my colleagues.

Does allowing your employees to be happier people increase their productivity
and loyalty? Yup, I think so.

------
kvgr
Great post, do you know if there is any list of techcompanies looking for
remote/parttime workers? I am student from Europe and would really like to
start working for some interesting company, but when I read job lists, most of
them do not have option for remote work, and if they do then, just for US
citizens.

~~~
daleharvey
Thanks

the only remote job listings I have seen are on hacker news

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2719028>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2270791> (cant find a more recent one)

and as I mentioned in the post, working on open source / following open source
companies is a good idea as there is quite a large correlation between being
distributed and open source

------
mfowler
Nice post, I'm curious if you ever make the venture to HQ to meet up with your
coworkers or are you 100% virtual?

I've found that the occasional trip to the office to meet and greet, bond over
drinks and do some rapid fire planning seems to recharge both those in the
office and those on the remote teams.

~~~
daleharvey
yeh definitely, I am just back this weekend from a 3 week trip over to the
office, I really enjoy spending time with coworkers and I even enjoy spending
some time in the office, I just like having time not in the office as well.

------
clueless123
I've worked remotely for the the last six years. It started because of having
to work for a Fortune 100 with overseas resources (at crazy hours) then
operations support for another huge company (crazy hours again) Then for the
last 2 years doing contract python/django development.

~~~
clueless123
By now I think I know the subject :), here are some useful tidbits I've
learned over time.

I work on an home-office space, it is quiet,it holds all my work stuff, it is
"the" office. The kids know if I am in there.. I am "at work".

I do plenty of one-to-one over chat/skype/phone with peers,vendors and
customers. Nothing different then on a real office.

I regularly do 2/3 hour pair programming sessions with members of my team. We
use x11vnc + skype, (we use the pilot-copilot technique ), we get _lots_ done
and by the end of a session, our thought-spaces are 100% in sync.

I don't miss the "social interaction" at the office, I got plenty of friends
in the "real world" and they don't care to hear from my work (nor would
understand it if I told them)

I also get plenty of "geek interaction" with other developers, over beers at
the local pub.

The key for remote development is to realize that development is creative
work. Hours of work are not important, tasks done are.

------
ChrisGrey
The way Dale describes his working practices feels contradictory. He addresses
loneliness by saying he goes out to coffee shops and bars. While that may be
nice for Dale it wouldn't enfuse me with confidence (were I his boss) that he
is focussed on MY needs. He says that it is very important that a remote
worker is open to as many communications channels as possible. But he doesn't
start work until late morning and then works through into the night. If his
colleagues need to speak to him at 0900 where are the communication channels
into his dream cycle? If he needs to talk to them at 2100 does he call them at
home when their working day is done?

My gut feeling is that this works nicely for Dale but not so much for his
colleagues!

~~~
gordonguthrie
Actually it worked well when Dale and I worked together. Most comms are near-
real time: e-mail to the mailing list. For 'now' real-time you have chat, and
for 'actually now, really now' you get on the mobile phone. My working hours
were typically 7am to about 4pm and then again 9pm til midnight so we got good
overlap.

As his boss, addressing his loneliness and isolation was one of MY needs -
people's performance isn't in isolation of the rest of their life. For Dale
this never turned out to be a problem, for others not so...

------
brendanlim
I worked remotely for close to four years. I started realizing that there was
little separation between work-life and personal-life. I was at my "office"
all of the time and my employers knew this. I started working more during off-
hours because that's what I was used to doing at home. Also, communication
through IM, Campfire, etc. got pretty tiring and my face-to-face social skills
ended up deteriorating after a while.

Just my personal experience.

~~~
equalarrow
I second this - and add a little more.

I worked with a company - as a contractor - for a number of years in the
beginning of their startup mode. Out of the 4 developers in the company, I was
the only one that came into the office. For me, it was lame. Everything over
email, im, or phone is not the way I like to work. There's something about
face to face that makes a difference. I saw many, many times things getting
blown up out out of proportion because it was not conveyed correctly over
email or im.

I want that social interaction that you can only get being face to face with
other devs - lunches, coffee, after work drinks, etc. Not only that, there's
all kinds of office activities like whiteboarding, pairing (I know you can do
this via remote too, but again, face to face is still valuable), going over to
someone's desk and just talking about something.

The other thing I've noticed at my office is we need to now bring in all these
other tools to keep everyone apprised of when builds have been deployed, etc.
And all these tools detract from the amount of time someone can focus on
something - there are guys that have all this hooked into their im and it's
_really_ distracting when you're sitting with them.

In closing, I'm of the opinion that I would prefer to have everyone in the
office 5 days a week. If someone wants to work at home a day here or there
thats totally fine, but overall, I've just experienced it not being beneficial
for the group.

------
feint
I previously worked remotely as a freelancer and loved it. Now being in a
position to build a team for Pen.io, I'm certainly looking at having some
remote devs.

------
theone
From employers perspective, remote working doesn't gives confidence, if they
doesn't have faith in employee. And its really difficult to have faith on any
new / average employee.

------
mattvot
How do you get into the developer scene in Edinburgh, Where do you hangout?

~~~
daleharvey
tonight there is refresh, a bunch of designers / developers go for burgers and
beer - <http://refreshedinburgh.org/> I wont be able to make it tonight
though.

next wednesday there is techmeetup, some talks + beer and pizza, then we go to
the pub afterwards - <http://techmeetup.co.uk/>

through techmeetup its usually quite easy to find out about a lot of the other
events that go on, edinburgh uni run a lot of events, there are side meetups
like the lean startup meetings and functional programming meetup, and the
usual python / ruby / java / linux user groups.

~~~
mistrQ
Just turn up? I'm a CS student at Edinburgh and always planned to hit up
techmeetup but something always came up (coursework).

Last year now, last chance!

~~~
daleharvey
yup techmeetup is an open, no sign up needed event, I know what you mean about
time, I have been meaning to go to refresh edi for months now and only made
one. definitely worth making the time for though

~~~
peterbraden
second this. When I was a developer in Edinburgh, these events were what
introduced me to Edinburgh's vibrant startup/tech scene.

------
warambil
Great post. I work remotely and I feel great. 100% satisfied

------
bjc
approx 11300miles for me, for last 4 years and loving it

------
Tomis
At my current work place (which I'm looking to change, by the way) I work
remotely but with a horrible twist.

First of all I have to come into the office and stay there for 8 hours a day
-which is normal- but then I have to login to another computer via remote
desktop and work on that environment, even though I have a perfectly
functional computer right in front of me.

Things wouldn't be so bad if the remote server wouldn't be a few thousand
kilometers away and the lag weren't so noticeable that it induced regular
urges to go take a nap and took away most of the desire to write any kind of
code.

I think most of you agree that anything less than instant response when you
type a word or scroll a page is practically torture when done for 8 hours a
day. I would have never imagined that it would be possible to have better
working conditions at home than at work, but nevertheless here I am, living
the horror.

One of the things I've learned from this experience is that I still
tremendously enjoy programming stuff at home and that when I have a good
working environment I can become more productive by orders of magnitude.

~~~
arethuza
So you go into the office to then work remotely?

You have my profound sympathy.

~~~
Tomis
Yeah, that's pretty much it. I've confronted my manager about this and his
first answer was an attempt to bullshit me by saying we're working remotely
(as opposed to locally) for security reasons; the obvious reply to that
monumental pile of crap was to employ my 1337 haX0r skills to copy a whole
folder from the remote machine right onto my local desktop (ctrl+C/ctrl+V,
actually) - there's your security right there.

Working at that place made me a witness to a constant stream of fail.

