
We surveyed 331 remote workers and here's what they say - hrishikesh1990
https://twitter.com/RemoteTools/status/1218167761525829634
======
thomascgalvin
I just left a remote-only job for an onsite-only (or onsite four days a week,
depending) job.

I loved the flexibility of being remote, but I was dying from the lack of
social interaction. A third of my waking hours are spent working, and most of
my friendships/relationships came from the office.

I've been remote for about two years, and I would go days at a time without
talking to anyone besides my wife. We aren't meant to live that way.

~~~
lbotos
I've been remote for 3.5 years now, and that's the first thing I tell new team
members:

You currently have a community at your office that you don't realize. You will
need to be intentional about building that community in other ways now.

I get lunch with friends more. Visit my Grandma out of state. Played a ton of
Magic the Gathering.

It waxes and wanes, but it's my job to build and not just accept the "corp
culture" as community.

~~~
inkeddeveloper
I'm curious how remote work correlates to playing MtG?

~~~
lbotos
My favorite joke about MtG:

"The magic is the gathering"

a draft is such a good env to just hang out, and we'd usually end up with a
ringer or two, so it was a good way to socialize.

I've waned a bit because I didn't like the state of the meta, but have been
itching to get back in for the social aspects alone.

Traded MtG for CS:GO mostly these days, but wanting to get more face to face
time, even though I've been surprised about how much a consistent CS:GO group
has felt like community.

------
chapium
I just quit my last remote job of 6 years.

The benefits:

1\. Live anywhere as long as the timezones are reasonable.

2\. No commute.

3\. Optional meetings actually stay optional.

4\. If you are in a later timezone, you can work late relative to the home
office hours; making you pretty valuable to clients for adhoc issues at the
end of the day while your team is busy commuting home.

The negatives:

1\. Very lonely, I ended up spending a lot of money going to cafes to fill a
social need.

2\. Office meetings suck. If you are the only person dialing in to a meeting
and the rest of the team is local there are tons of issues. Noise, missing out
on sidebar conversations, etc.

3\. You are obligated to overcommunicate to your coworkers or managers to
compensate for your lack of presence, but often they leave you in the dark.

4\. If your technology breaks down, you are your own support.

5\. If skype is signed out without you realizing it, management gets paranoid.

6\. You have to work very hard to keep from getting distracted. This gets
harder if you aren't interested in your workload.

7\. Lack of visibility means lack of opportunities at work.

8\. Its very easy to get in a rut where the "remote guy" only works on certain
specific things and can't grow their career.

If I can help it, I will be 100% local from now on. In my mind, there are too
many opportunities missed by not interacting with the rest of the office.

I imagine this list would be different if the team was 100% remote.

~~~
commandlinefan
> If you are the only person dialing in to a meeting

Every job I’ve had for the past 20 years (always 100% on-site) has been geo-
distributed, so I’ve had to dial into nearly every meeting, often being the
only person dialed in.

~~~
matwood
Same. One of my first jobs out of college in the 90s had me dialing into
meetings with a geo-distributed team. The only thing that really changed for
me as I transitioned fully remote was I didn't _have_ to drive somewhere every
day.

I have had jobs later that were fully onsite, and I always end up hating the
drive, the strict hours (perceived or otherwise), and the simple lack of
freedom. I will do way more work if I can some basic say over my schedule.

------
KMnO4
Perhaps I just don’t grok Twitter, but this seems like an awful way to convey
information. When you click the link, you’re shown a whole bunch of garbage
coercing you to sign up for the platform. It’s only in a small postage stamp
GIF that you’re supposed to read an article that someone captured on they’re
on screen (scrolling and all). If you miss a section or want to scroll back
up, you have to wait until the GIF loops.

Is it really too much to post a link (or archive) of the actual article?

~~~
seszett
You can get the actual article here
[https://remotework2020.remote.tools/2-state-of-remote-
work.h...](https://remotework2020.remote.tools/2-state-of-remote-
work.html#companies-are-slowly-recognising-that-having-a-100-remote-company-
is-better-than-partially-remote-teams) in a more readable form and without the
silly smileys, but with added popups.

------
score_after_air
A few downsides I've struggled with that aren't mentioned (remote last 5 years
of a 12 year career):

\- Changing jobs is very difficult, and I haven't quite cracked it yet. IME,
every company that advertises remote hiring comes with caveats: way below
market salary/down-leveling or _perfect_ candidate. I've been rejected by
several companies after multi-round interviews with seemingly great skills
match. I don't have an A-list pedigree, but maybe top 10% or so. If you're top
school/FANG/excellent interview skills, you might have better results.

\- Anyone you haven't worked with directly will doubt your value, or at worst
assume you're a complete bozo (doubly so if you live trad life in flyover
country). This makes it difficult to build strong relationships up and across
the org.

\- Remote leadership is considered an oxymoron. If you're several years into
your career, you will likely be stuck in a relatively low impact "senior"
position. This isn't a terrible place to be in the short term, but I worry
about future prospects.

\- You will miss out on the Bay Area gold rush. Not the end of the world, but
it's frustrating to see people getting rich and retiring early from doing the
same work as you.

For me the takeaway is remote is great in the short term but possibly
dangerous in the long term.

------
alohaandmahalo
Thanks for including GitLab in the report, Hrishikesh!

For those looking to learn more on remote, or leaders/founders considering it,
here are a few resources that were used in this survey.

GitLab's Guide to All-Remote: [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-
remote/guide/](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/guide/)

Informal Communication: [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-
remote/informal...](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-
remote/informal-communication/)

People: adopting a remote lifestyle:
[https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-
remote/people/](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/people/)

Guide for starting a remote job:
[https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-
remote/getting-...](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-
remote/getting-started/)

------
dglass
We build products for remote workers at my company[0], and we talk to a lot of
remote workers to get their feedback. It's true that loneliness is a big
problem that is mentioned by almost everyone we talk to.

We wanted to find a way to solve this so we started hosting "Work Clubs" which
are essentially small meetup groups at coffee shops during the workday. We
gather 3-4 people at the same table and work for 3-4 hours. It's a great way
to get out of the house, meet other people and chat for a bit, but also get
your work done during the day. We're seeing a lot of repeat users coming back
and it's growing into a nice community of remote workers. Friendships and
professional connections are made every week.

Right now we're hosting work clubs in the SF Bay Area, Portland, and San
Diego. We're adding new work clubs daily or you can even host your own Work
Club if you'd like. We'll be expanding to other cities soon so if you're a
remote worker I'd encourage you to check it out and come work with us!

[0] [https://outofoffice.app/](https://outofoffice.app/)

------
unnouinceput
So basically remote is better then on-site for majority of people, if
applicable. We kinda knew this for at least 10 years, no?

------
_tkzm
working full-time is retarded. its just way too much. working full-time
remotely is beyond retarded. i cannot comprehend anybody that does that. i do
work remotely but no way in hell i would take a full-time 8-hour-day job. no
amount of money would make me do that.

~~~
chadlavi
Reconsider your use of the word "retarded," friend.

------
stuff4ben
An atheist, a vegan, a crossfitter, and a remote worker all walk into a bar...

I only know because they told everyone within two minutes.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
To be fair, everybody always asks "So, what do you do?". The remote worker is
being prompted to tell...

~~~
neonate
That question asks what they do, not where they do it.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
… and then "Where is that? I'm not familiar with that company" or "How is your
commute?"

