
David Heinemeier Hansson: Every Employee Should Work From Home - equilibrium
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2013/03/29/david-heinemeier-hansson-every-employee-should-work-from-home/
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veidr
A lot of people are pointing out drawbacks to working at home. Noisy, cramped,
no separation of home work life, etc etc etc.

None of those are valid criticisms of the idea being discussed. We say 'work
from home' as shorthand. It doesn't literally mean _YOU MUST WORK AT YOUR
DOMICILE AND NOWHERE ELSE_.

It means _you can work anywhere you can make arrangements to work_.

That is a huge difference.

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hackerboos
>It means you can work anywhere you can make arrangements to work.

Like in an office surrounded by my co-workers. This works for me.

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joonix
Yeah. Always thought I'd love to work at home; now I'm doing it and I'm not a
big fan. I desire to have a separate place to go just for work. I think what
people (myself included) really want is the ability to leave the office
whenever they want/need without being judged. Commute times are also a
problem, especially in the US with its poor city planning, but a lot of times
it's due to their election to live in distant suburbs. If people adjust the
amount of space they think they need, we can make strides to reducing commute
times and building up urban infrastructure, with the bonus that people can
easily step in and out of the office as they please.

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atirip
I'm the minority, i guess, who does not wan't to work from home. I like to
have some routine, like waking up, taking shower, putting on clean clothes and
going outside, see the sun, see the people, have a lunch in a nice restaurant
- to feel being alive. I'm currently telecommuting, but ... i have rented a
desk from co-working space, where i go every day. I don't have to, but i do.
Home is toxic for me.

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config_yml
It's exactly the same for me. Times can get very lonely (even depressing) when
all you do is work from home.

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wlll
I've worked from home for about four years now. I keep in regular contact with
my Co-workers (Campfire) and friends (IRC). It would take a lot to get me back
into an office.

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cpursley
Yeah, me to. I'd have to get at least a $30,000 raise to go into an office.
Even then, I'd still probably say no. Peace of mind, family time, more
productivity and fewer vehicle expenses are worth their weight in gold.

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kayoone
I dont see working from home as the solution to everything as described here.

I have worked from home for years and slowly the urge to do some work crept
into every situation in my private life. I started to constantly felt guilty
when not at my desk working and "home" wasnt a place to relax anymore.

I feel much better now with a desk in a Coworking space, where i am not all
alone and can talk to other engineers if i want to and when i leave in the
evening its much easier to relax at home. I do occasionally work from home
when i feel like it or on the weekends, but as its opt-in it feels totally
different.

YMMV of course, but imo there are also serious downsides.

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nthj
I prefer the term ”remote work” over ”working from home.” I almost never work
from my apartment, beyond the occasional email. But by working from co-working
offices or a coffee shop, I avoid the constant “hey, quick question man” and
“let's just have a quick meeting” and driving during rush hour and having to
ask permission to work from a beach in Florida because I scored cheap flights
like happened last week.

So a bit of a false dichotomy (not judging, just mentioning): "Remote working"
does not necessarily mean "working from the space I also sleep in." That would
drive me nuts.

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kayoone
Sure but for me its pretty much like an office. I like daily routines, getting
out of the house in the morning. I do even enjoy a short commute to just
think.

However i still get the mentioned interruptions as i work on pretty big
projects, but its mostly via IM. Working from the coffe shop or even the beach
is not for me though, id just grab my girlfriend for a short trip and catch up
on work on the next weekend.

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notahacker
According to the actual interview, even DHH never came up with a quote as
outrageous as the headline...

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lifeisstillgood
Been saying this for years.

It chimes with a flow of history I think we are seeing - that _source code
literacy_ is roughly equivalent to read and writing literacy, and we have
already seen Gutenberg invent the printing press (Www).

Now we are seeing what Europe saw from 1451-1590 - what happens when you go
from 2% literacy rates to 20%+. Just imagine the advantages a company in 1500
enjoyed if its top staff were literate, and engaged with all the other
literate employees in the industry. How many competitive advantages could it
take to make up for that single one?

We are lucky members of that 2 % and should not see it as a permanent elite -
but we should also recognise the changes coming. I think DHH hits it right

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danpalmer
I'm still a student, and I know that I don't yet have the personal discipline
to work from home. I know that I'll find it difficult to have a routine, so I
will work at odd times, and I know that because of this, all the time I'm not
working I'll feel like I should.

I need to do the 9-5 thing for a few years. Once I've done that, I want a
flat/house where I can designate one room as my 'work' office, in which I will
only do work, and all work will be done in it. Anything that is not work
related I'll have to do outside that room. I think if I have this separation
I'll be able to focus on work, and on personal things much better.

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michaelfeathers
When Marissa Mayer made her announcement about the work at home policy at
Yahoo the reaction was easy to predict. Many people would say that she was
wrong. What I didn't expect was to see so few people make the case that the
answer is: _it depends._

There is no one-size-fits-all work practice. The fact that nearly every writer
about this fails to acknowledge context is severely troubling.

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tfaruq
Oh my god. People always look at work from home as they are a good fit for
work-from-home-culture. The important issue to discuss is how we hire people
that fit to work-from-home-culture? I think 37signals should share more how
they hire the people that fit this culture.

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bambax
> _Managers vastly overestimate it’s efficiency_

and then

> _It’s primary role these days..._

Are there no copy editors at Forbes?

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wyclif
That bugs me, too. Cringeworthy.

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hermannj314
I just pretend there are multiple concrete implementations of the written
English syntax. I then have a substitution macro I run automatically in my
mind when I encounter a grammar rule that is inconsistent with my own
implementation. I almost always end up being able to understand the intent of
the writer.

Some minds are like the compiler that shouts, "I know you meant a semi-colon,
but you didn't type a semi-colon so I'm just going to complain" and some minds
are more forgiving and say "Let me just put a semi-colon here for you, no
worries." :-)

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bambax
You're a wise man! ;-)

I wouldn't have said anything if this was from a blog, but it surprised me
coming from Forbes. It appears they simply publish email interviews without so
much as reading them...?

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coldtea
You're overestimating Forbes.

Don't know about them to be frank, but I've seen major newspapers and
magazines go from 10-20 copy editors down to 2-3.

That's due to the news industry crisis, and also due to the switch to the
internet -- for one, 24/7 pushing of new articles tends to lower the overall
quality compared to the daily/weekly/monthly magazine editions of the past,
and second, the publishers don't seem to care as much to have copy editors
available (well, the lower margins on the net also play their role).

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JonnieCache
This is transparent advertisement.

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nossim
Working at home is not for everybody If you work with people who have a strong
intrinsic motivation it's ok to work from home but otherwise it's a nightmare
for the company.

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etler
I like Thursday as a work from home day. It's far enough into the week that
you're sick of going to the office, and it doesn't connect to the weekend so
you don't slack off.

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rtpg
Does nobody think that working in the same building as coworkers actually
improves social dynamics? I find it odd that no one has bothered to mention it

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nfm
Linkbaity article title - not remotely a quote.

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_anshulk
Is there a good place to find remote working opportunities for developers not
from the US?

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xradionut
This advice is coming from someone who probably isn't married and doesn't live
next to an noisy elementary school and a community park. :)

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wyclif
He's married and has at least one child, I think.

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Swannie
DHH: "Email gets a lot of hate these days, but it truly is the king of
communication. Yes, we all get a lot, but consider the alternative: Every
email that would otherwise had been a meeting or a phone call."

I used to believe that email was _the king_ of communication. Then I was
exposed to this idea that "email is not communication". I rallied against this
idea, and with my engineer hat on, I still do. I have written some great
technical emails that have gained praise from co-workers for their clarity,
accuracy, and logic. These mails have saved long, uninformed discussions, and
the time put into crafting them easily saved in the moment, and often again in
the future.

But then I started to think, and observe the wider climate... all those times
that a well crafted email was written and well received, but a key (senior)
team player ignored the resulting email thread, or when you needed to persude
and not just inform, or when you're about to meet a client, and you need that
answer you emailed about a week ago, and never got.

This pattern occurs again and again with overloaded resources: they see a
long, detailed email thread between senior team members, but they don't have
time (can't be bothered?) to read it. They assume that those involved are
being "lazy" and not picking up the phone (oh, poor misguided people -
crafting clear written communication takes much longer). This, usually senior
person, needs to get a handle on the issue, so they drop a meeting into the
calendar with the key players (and usually everyone else who doesn't really
care). When the meeting gets underway you're ultimately asked to summarise
2000 words of concise emails in 5 minutes, (which turns into 15 because of
interruptions from the meeting organiser, who is often your boss). The result
is that the meeting organizer has most of the picture, and assumes that their
calling the meeting means _they_ fixed the problem - but there was no lack of
working to a solution before. Even if you start to include exec. summaries of
discussions, threads, etc. _this still happens_.

It's how the senior person can affirm their status. Some of you will say that
_that's broken_ , or _that's toxic_ , but it's the norm in every environment
I've worked in: both remote and not. _At least, when it's not remote, these
discussions can happen around a whiteboard, and naturally attract or call over
the right people to resolve it more quickly... which will still then get
documented in an email/wiki/Basecamp._ In both cases, email alone is
insufficient. (My best practice now: organise a f __ __ __call every time
there is a complex issue arising, and _then_ write the email. This wastes my
engineer time because no one really understands what the issue is, but hey:
the issue cannot be "missed" or "forgotten"; no one has been "left out"; I
have not been "lazy". The email thread still ensues, but this time the senior
peoples feel included. Then if it drags on, pick up the phone again).

The second case - I'm not a copy writer. I doubt I ever will be. My writing
has always been logical and technical in nature. I'm trying to explain a
defect/complex trouble shooting procedure/entity design/user interaction
flow/describe an algorithm/the logical meaning of the constructs in an API.
But as I rise in seniority I'm expected to get people on board with
initiatives, with new tools, new ways of working. I'd love to think that the
facts will win that argument, and they can be laid out in a nice email. Well,
I've been there, and tried that. In response I get numerous requests for
screencasts or meetings to explain these things. Why? It's not a lack of
understanding. These people see _some_ value in what I propose, but they want
convincing. They need to hear the passion, enthusiasm, have the opportunity to
ask questions - they don't want it to be a directive, but a collaborative
decision. Email is never going to work in that situation. And infact writing
the email in the first place seems to be a waste of time.

(I work remotely ~3 days a week, have lead teams of fully remote staff. My
remaining ~2 days a week are spent visiting customers or in the office. In the
office, I rarely meet my team or my project teams. But I do get to interact
with people from marketing, HR, other product consultants, go to lunch with
them, build a social relationship that is not so easy to do over the phone.
I'd never want to give up the freedom of remote working, but I have to have
those ~2 days of face to face connection - that's how you build a _company
culture_.)

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senthilnayagam
why do company need all remote people on payroll, instead they can keep them
as contractors

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daliusd
This way you lose control what they are working on.

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Luyt
No, that's not true. Communication is all. For example, you can have the
repository send off commit messages to every team member, so they can see what
everyone is working on.

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PakG1
I don't think you understand. You really do lose control. Look at the legal
implications.

<http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/177992>

The most important paragraph:

 _So what are the differences between an employee and an independent
contractor? There are a number of factors that determine which category a
worker falls into. The most important of these is called the right of control.
Does the employer have the right to exercise control over the worker?
Basically, this means that the employer has the right to hire and fire the
worker. But it also means the employer has the right to dictate both the means
and the manner in which the worker performs the job. If this is the case, then
the relationship is that of an employer and an employee. However, if the
employer can control only the final results of the work, then the parties have
an employer-independent contractor relationship._

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largesse
Best April Fool's Day joke ever.

