
Show HN: Remoty – Work like you're in the same office - mahad759
https://remoty.dev
======
sz4kerto
Please no, let's not use a bot to tell others that we're taking a 'power nap'.

"TIME TRACKING & SCRUM MADE SIMPLER AND FUN"

How on Earth could someone write this down? Making time tracking FUN? Making
it frictionless, easy, simple -- okay. Fun?

(Sorry for the negativity, I've been working and leading engineers remotely
for many years, and the big challenge and holy grail of remote work is finding
the best way for providing context _, not tracking time.

_ providing context: lead by providing meaningful goals and context so that
people can independently move towards them in an environment where
communication is expensive and noise is harmful.

~~~
mahad759
Hey! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts! Really appreciate it!

So, well we wrote because a developer in my company with whom we piloted this
product said "It's like playing a game, it's fun". So it just sort of started
from there and we thought might sound more catchy so we went forward with it.
Nonetheless point well taken!

Please excuse my ignorance but can you elaborate a bit more on "so that people
can independently move towards them in an environment where communication is
expensive and noise is harmful."

------
Edd314159
I'm not really sure what problem this is solving. The value prop seems to be
based around more closely emulating the in-office experience, but in what
office did people need to track time spent at their desk, and announce to
everyone when they were going to the bathroom or to lunch? I would hate to
work in that office.

That feature seems to be aimed at paranoid managers, not "teams".

Also, the "asynchronous stand-up" feature seems at-odds with the time-
tracking. A work culture that allows for asynchronous stand-up should also be
one that doesn't care when someone is at their desk and when they are not.

~~~
mahad759
Hey so maybe we are not very good at umm explaining what our product does, I
guess. Our vision behind emulating the in-office experience revolves around
the idea that when you're working in an office, you can "see" who's in and
who's not. Plus for example your colleague got off his chair and went out for
of the room you'd notice that for sure (if you're friends you may even know
the reason behind it as well). After covid-19 lockdowns, people started to
work remote. Now that feeling of knowing what your colleagues are unto isn't
anymore. If pre-lockdown you had to go and ask a colleague some help, you'd
know if he's available or not but when you go remote you're not sure if he is
available at that instant or not.

Plus, when a lot of teams faced a sudden transition to remote, they were only
touch with the people who they were dependent on. As in your team lead, or one
or two team mates. So, that feeling of being connected to other coworkers
starts to fade away.

Tbh, this is the first time I have heard so many people `pissed` (can't think
of a right word) at remoty. I literally have users emailing me who JUST used
our product for 8 days saying that their team has already started to feel
closer. I can share that screenshot as well. We never designed this workflow
for paranoid managers, else it'd have some crazy features like selfie & geo-
located attendance etc.

~~~
mahad759
And I get what you're saying about standups. But again, we designed it in a
way that it allows people working in different timezones take control of their
schedules.

~~~
aronpye
You can do that with a plain old calendar without the tracking

~~~
mahad759
So you're saying that if I have to go offline for a while during my work time
I should put in my calendar?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Absolutely. See [https://reclaim.ai/daily-habits/](https://reclaim.ai/daily-
habits/) for an example of how this is executed elegantly.

~~~
mahad759
reclaim ai looks like a really great tool! I just have skimmed through the
landing page, but from what I understand is you still have to switch context
even after using a slack integration. Teams are split in sooo many tools these
days, that switching context is sometimes that big of a overhead that people
may choose to avoid it. Plus most importantly, never claimed that using remoty
is the ONLY way you can communicate your schedule on the fly.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Points are taken. I think you have to nail down who your audience is:
colleagues or managers. How you approach the problem is going to be different
for each audience, based on the expectations and workflows of those audiences.
Best of luck.

~~~
mahad759
Thank you so much for this amazing feedback! Will do!

------
hfyksehuefs
Not really the place ask for unbiased feedback. Most devs here want less of
this sort of thing. Maybe post on reddit startups instead.

~~~
whateveracct
Yeah this is a product for managers who miss the warm fuzzies of seeing butts
in seats.

~~~
mahad759
lol! you're saying that ONLY your manager is concerned whether you're in your
seat or not?

~~~
codingdave
What everyone is saying that NOBODY should care whether we are in our seat or
not. That is not relevant to remote work, nor to autonomous team members.
Remote teams do care about availability, but that little green dot next to our
name in Slack completely suffices.

~~~
quickthrower2
This is a product where some people will want it even if they don’t “need” it
and I think it might do well on that basis. It’s for time tracking cultures
and I bet a lot of development is done this way especially cheap shops selling
basic sites to clients. So probably there is a demand for this kind of tool.
But not for FAANGs etc.

------
emerged
I would quit any job which made me do this while working remotely. I've been a
very successful full-time remote engineer for over a decade and this is
incompatible with my workflow and quality of life considerations.

~~~
mahad759
Hey! Thanks for taking a look at remoty! Can you please share what's the worst
thing about this tool? What makes it so incompatible?

~~~
aronpye
If you don't know what's so bad about it, you shouldn't be developing
software. If you know what is so objectionable about it, but are acting
unawares, you most definitely should stay the fuck away from software
development. Everyone has a duty to take responsibility for what they create.

~~~
mahad759
This is the most stupidest & absurd thing I've ever heard.

------
aronpye
This just looks like a way for employers to track employees with no benefit to
said employees. No one needs to know when I’m on a break at home / taking a
shit.

~~~
mahad759
Well that's one way to look at it, maybe a lot of people who share your view
as well but there most certainly are people who want to take shit in peace XD.
They don't want those annoying calls from their team members when they are
busy. We see it as giving back control the employee about his schedule. He
tells everyone that he's not available to work rn (adding comment is optional
so he can skip on the specifics of the break)

~~~
aronpye
I'm not against status updates, it's the tracking and clocking in and out like
a 1920's factory worker inside my own home that I find objectionable. Even in
an office proper, this kind of tracking is a fundamental breach of trust and
causes a serious imbalance of power.

I also find framing this kind of thing as somehow benefiting an employee to be
so duplicitous I think it is malicious.

~~~
mahad759
I feel like "tracking" has a very bad connotation here at hn. As an associate
product manager working remotely I would want to know if a certain software
engineer has checked in for the day so that I can ask him for an update. I
personally would not want to disturb him when he's off the clock. Again, its
not about not trusting employees but creating a sense of transparency and
closeness in a team

------
mahad759
Hey Show HN!

We’d love some feedback on remoty which helps remote teams reach their full
potential with powerful time-tracking and progress update workflow in Slack.

=> What does it do?

1.Boosts your team coordination using intuitive time tracking commands.

2.Helps you save hours in meetings by organizing async daily stand-up
meetings.

3.Helps you track billable hours, generate scrum logs and export CSV
timesheets of your team.

=> Why’d we built it?

We devised a workflow in our company to create an essence of working in the
same office by increasing visibility over availability and statuses of team
members. This workflow had 2 basic steps

1\. Announce your check-in/check-out/breaks followed by two or three words to
give context in a dedicated channel.

2\. Turn in your standup notes (even if we already had a team standup call)
while checking in or out so as to maintain records of standup notes.

We saw a real change in our team’s coordination and productivity over the
period of next few weeks. We then started to think on the lines of automation
so that the data that was being collected could be put to good use as well.
This led to us to build remoty!

As of now we have approximately 100 users who actively use our product. All of
them are following the process that we follow in our company. So far we
haven't been able to pin point the EXACT user persona of remoty. We have pure
technical teams, marketing/insurance teams and even research labs of
universities paying for the product.

Some of our users/potential users that I talked to are requesting for a
shift/leave management feature while others are looking for a more
comprehensive in-slack task management solution. Would really appreciate
feedback from you all on how we can improve & grow remoty!

Please headout to [[https://remoty.dev](https://remoty.dev)] to give remoty a
shot!

------
Whut
Jesus Christ this is terrible.

------
nobodyone123
absolute crap. should not be used by any company. yall want to make it harder
to work remotely... smh

~~~
mahad759
I am assuming you have some problem with creating intra team transparency?

~~~
psychstudio
The same way many people have some problem with neighbourhood transparency by
using curtains on their windows?

