
The tools and tricks that let Ars Technica function without a physical office - cattlefarmer
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/01/no-office-no-problem-how-ars-technicas-remote-workers-work/
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blaser-waffle
\- Slack

\- Macbooks

\- Email, via the G-Suite

\- g-suite spreadsheet with what everyone is working on

\- realtime analytics via Parse.ly

\- Polycom phones and OnSIP

\- Wordpress for Content Mgmt (CMS) purposes

\- 2FA via Duo for everything, if feasible

The "flow of work" stuff is more interesting, IMO. What's also mentioned --
but I think is critical and needs repeating -- is the ground-up remote
approach, which means structuring things like that from the start, as opposed
to a lot of orgs which are slowly turning remote, but still stuck in their old
ways. I've been remote for five years now, and only one company had that
approach, which was great. (their pay was not, however, so I jumped)

In particular this point:

> "Making a remote office feel like a remote office requires a sense of
> presence. For most people, feeling like you’re at work, even if your bedroom
> is just down the hall, makes a big mental difference."

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rolleiflex
Couple things that stand out to me is the continued use of Wordpress with
2-factor via Duo, and email as a part of the core flow.

When the world is over, the last sysadmin on Earth is going to do three
things: shut down the Wordpress install, shut down the email server, and turn
off the lights.

There’s a distinct lack of things nowadays that make working with group email
nicer, I wonder why that is. I have a horse I bet on this one,
[https://aether.app](https://aether.app), so I’m not exactly unbiased — but I
seriously don’t get it. Chat covers a lot of things, but there is _so_ much it
doesn’t, and just looking at their _ready-for-editorial_ channel makes me
wonder why they’re not also using plain old email for that.

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freehunter
I've worked on a fully-remote team for over 5 years now and everything in this
article is exactly on point. Constant communication (we also use Slack) is
important. So is voice communication, since text breaks down really quickly if
things are getting heated. Wearing appropriate clothing also helps... I found
it hard in the beginning because I'm still wearing my pajamas and my Xbox is
right over there. Getting dressed and having a dedicated work space really
helped get me into the mindset. If you don't have space for a fully separate
office, a separate desk or even separate tools can provide that little bit of
mental differentiation. I have a work laptop and a personal laptop, and my
work laptop has a keyboard and mouse that are only used for my work laptop.
The two computers share the same desk, but I know when my work keyboard is
sitting in front of me, it's professional time. I have to move my work
keyboard out of the way to get to my personal laptop, which signals the ending
of professional time.

I've also found that face-to-face is necessary sometimes. I work with clients,
and sometimes things can get hairy on a project. Over email or even on a phone
call, sometimes it's easy to forget that the person on the other end is a
human being with their own hopes and dreams and life and desires. Getting to
see them in real life, having little moments of downtime where you're on a
coffee break and just chatting about life, those are important. That's easy to
miss in a remote job, and it leads to a lot of stress.

Also something I didn't think of when I started working remote... the constant
letters from my electric company about how I use more electricity than a
normal house. Because normally people aren't home all day with lights and
heat/AC and computers running.

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durbatuluk
This "office feeling" is something still strange to me as someone who like to
work with less cloth as possible. Maybe is my background in biology which we
did everything in same place, research, sample, drink and eat. In fact working
in office make my production drop even with 35h/week.

Maybe is related to programming as hobby turning to job.

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Analemma_
This is sort of a sobering response and wake-up call for all those people
going, "You don't need Slack, just use IRC!". Well, here's a company that
_was_ using IRC and had to switch over, for reasons they articulated pretty
well. IRC needs to fix the checklist in this article before it can claim to be
a serious Slack alternative.

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egypturnash
_" If you and a spouse/partner/housemate both work from home full-time, make
sure you have separate spaces, both physical and mental," adds Kate Cox. "It
can be really easy to get too much in each other's faces if you're both
squatting on the same sofa for the day."_

oh god yes. separate desks in separate rooms if at all possible, sometimes my
SO and I go out to the same cafe and share a table, sometimes we very
explicitly go to different places...

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luord
How they use their dashboard spreadsheet reminded me quite a bit of the kanban
flow I've seen in most projects I've worked on. So I wasn't shocked to read
that at least one of their editors uses trello to manage his stories.

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bilekas
This is really cool actually, some nice advice and tip even for startup
enviornments.

