

My first experience at working from home - pauloteixeira
http://blog.jobbox.io/first-experience-working-from-home/

======
imjared
I've been working at home for about a year and can sympathize with the author.
I've really been surprised at what an effect its had on me socially. I'm not
the most outgoing person to begin with so the forced in-person interactions
(both appreciated and unappreciated) that I got in my previous office settings
were probably a lot more beneficial to me than I previously believed.

I feel like I have the additional challenge of being a web developer so when I
do get the chance to talk to people, I don't have the "oh you won't believe
this crazy guy I work with" stories. Everything is "oh you won't believe this
wacky stacktrace I was getting." Cue glazed over eyes.

I love sitting here in my sweats, making fresh lunches, taking a short nap
almost every afternoon to refresh, and being able to travel literally wherever
I want as long as there's wifi. I miss people more than I thought I would. I
think I'll probably join a coworking space before long even if it's only to go
for a part of the week.

~~~
puranjay
Get out while you still can.

Seriously.

I worked from home for 2.5 years and it has had a profoundly negative impact
on my social life and even my personality. I'm good with people, but sitting
alone all day for such a long-time has turned me into the kind of person who
thinks of calling an old friend, then thinks 'eh, why bother. Let's see what's
new on Reddit instead'.

Then there's the problem with setting a routine. I can wake up whenever I want
to, sleep whenever I want to. And that's what I usually end up doing. Sure,
it's fun for the first few weeks, but soon you realize why human beings need
structure and organization.

It's corrosive. I moved to a co-working space and I've never been happier.

Working from home is seriously overrated.

~~~
gclaramunt
is a trade-off, I worked from home for a year, and although I missed the
casual interactions you get in the office, I was able at any moment to take a
5 minute break to play with my kids, go pick them up from school, help them
with homework, and that's priceless

~~~
paulornothing
It's definitely not for everyone. In my work 90% of the people I interact with
are working remotely, so working from home half of the week doesn't really
affect me. Not having to commute in the morning has a profound effect on my
mood. I've also learned that rolling out of bed and just plunking down to work
makes me less productive than getting up and showering and putting on at least
some casual clothes. However I also have a wife and kids that come home after
I'm done with work, so I'm not fully isolated all day.

------
agentultra
I've been working remotely for a few years. The first few months, if you've
never done it before and don't know how to cope, definitely feel as the author
described. It's your first time. You're just doing it wrong.

Best way I've over come the social needs is to work out of a local cafe once
or twice a week. Get to know the people there. Learn their names. Make
friends. Work on a crossword together.

Get a whiteboard. Plenty of notebooks. Take time to journal your day.
Thoughts, frustrations, tasks. Explain things to yourself out loud.

Reward yourself. Take a walk to the park. Catch up on the New Yorker Poetry
podcast.

I don't find motivation to be a problem so long as the team is good at
planning and there's always something to do that I can take action on without
bothering folks. Use a system and stick to it: pomodoro, GTD, whatever. Be
systematic and work with intent. If you're stuck wondering what you should be
doing you need to re-evaluate your process and plug the leaks: you should
always know what needs to be done next.

Things that make working remote suck for your remote workers:

1\. Hallway planning. Making decisions face-to-face in meat-space and not
documenting them anywhere. Everything needs to go into an email list or task
tracking system.

2\. Poor communication. If you're never available online, refuse too many
requests for chats, ignore emails... it can be really frustrating. The great
thing about working remotely is that communication can be intermediated by
scripts. Set auto-replies, status updates, reminders, alerts.

3\. Never enough information. When you're working closely in a group face-to-
face it can be easy to draw consensus on an issue and document it with a
single, innocuous task in the task manager and not bother filling in the
description, properly rating it, tagging it, etc. Always add enough
information so that anyone can come along and take care of it without having
to hunt you down.

~~~
kleer001
I really connected with your first half there. Self Enrichment!

It's funny, that's a lot of what it takes to keep a dog happy and healthy too.
They need a job and friends and play time and special snacks. We just need to
take the same care and consideration for ourselves when it's not provided by
an employer.

------
bswen
I've been working from home for almost eight years now. At first, it was just
me and my dogs while my wife went to work. That was definitely hard at first,
to stay focused and productive. Every day Alicia would come home and I'd be
desperate to get out of the house, she'd usually want to stay in and chill,
though, having just had a full day interacting with people at work. I
eventually learned that walking down to the library or coffee shop a couple
times a week helped some. But coffee shops aren't ideal workspaces in that
they don't provide reliable internet, space, often too noisy and sometimes
feel like you're not welcome to stay for a long time.

The past few years my wife started staying home and we have two kiddos now.
Being able to work from home while raising a young family is a huge advantage
logistically speaking and I am thankful every time I get to have lunch with my
kids or take a 15 minute break to play in the backyard. But there's also a lot
of distractions that are sometimes hard to ignore and the problems of
professional isolation and like and reduced networking opportunities.

To this end I started working with a couple friends on a project last year
called SpareChair ([https://sparechair.me](https://sparechair.me)) to build a
community of people who work remotely and so we can get connected and provide
easy access to a lot of places to work together. We're mostly active in
Brooklyn/Manhattan right now to gather feedback and learn how to make this
work. Would definitely love to hear any thoughts you all might have on
SpareChair, too.

~~~
aareet
This is cool!

I've wanted something like this for a while now, especially because the usual
coffee-shop routine is to pack everything up and take it all with you to the
bathroom, and bring it right back and it can get tedious after a while. It's
too bad you don't have any spaces in Toronto right now.

~~~
bswen
Cool! We're hearing the same thing from a lot of folks. They want a lot of
choices when it comes to spaces and they want to also find people to work
with. I'll get in touch when we launch in Canada!

~~~
aareet
Please do!

------
drewg123
I worked full time remote for 12 years doing driver / kernel / firmware work
for an IHV.

What I missed most about working in an office (and what I liked most about
going to work at an office again 2 years ago) is the sense of separation and
decompression that a commute gives you. If you're not careful, you can easily
wind up always working all the time since your "office" is right in your
living space.

~~~
FigBug
I've been working at home for the last 5. Doing iOS, android, desktop apps and
firmware. I find the firmware the most frustrating, probably because I'm the
least experienced at it. Trying to debug things by sharing screenshot of a USB
scope is a pain. Having to drive in every time I need a mod done. Even worse
is driving in and whatever piece of equipment I wanted is at somebody else's
house (or forgotten at mine).

I've had a better experience when doing firmware upgrades for mature products,
but has anybody had a good experience developing hardware products with a work
from home team?

~~~
drewg123
The IHV that I worked for had most of the hardware team local in California,
and most of the software team remote. We had a great lab team that could
install bits, move cables, etc. All machines had serial consoles & power
controllers (or IPMI). One source of frustration was that most of the locals
did not arrive until 10am Pacific, and I was on the Eastern time zone. So if I
needed a cable moved, I had to wait until after lunch. Though I sometimes
asked one of the secretaries to do it (she arrived at 6am Pacific).

By the time I had hardware access, we always had jtag or more advanced access
methods working.

A big frustration was using tools like PCIe logic analyzers remotely. Luckily,
these were mostly controlled by PCs, and we could access them via an IP KVM
solution (but again, we had to wait for on-site labstaff to hook up physical
connections).

------
abalos
I found this article really interesting. I've really enjoyed my recent
experiences telecommuting. The main difference in my life, though, is that I'm
close to the office. This allows me to go in part of the week and work from
home another part.

I love being able to talk to my coworkers and go in for meetings, but when it
comes down to it, it's really nice to be able to sit in the silence and
comfort of my house and work when I need to get stuff done.

Both working in the office and at home have their pros/cons. It's all about
preference.

------
zaphar
I've been working from home for almost a year now. I agree with most of the
article. My checklist of things I do for sanity goes something like this:

1\. Set up regular lunch get togethers with friends.

2\. Use Video Conferencing liberally. Don't keep trying to hash something out
via email or chat for too long. At some point the higher bandwidth of face to
face communication even over a VC will be much more efficient.

3\. Keep a persistent group chat for you team open. IRC, Slack, Anything that
is always on and provides a sense of presence for you. Don't be afraid to joke
around and make small talk there. Out team even plays the occasional verbal
logic puzzle there.

4\. Stock some variety in your kitchen. You get bored of Bologne and PB&J
after a while. You are going to want to provide some variety for lunches.

5\. Be responsive but only during regular working hours. It helps your team to
know _when_ they can contact you and get a response. After 5pm I don't respond
to txts or emails unless they are emergencies. But before then I make sure
people get a quick response from me even if it's just that I'll have to get
back to them later.

6\. And lastly join a Gym. I swim regularly but you might run or play some
basketball or lift weights. When your place of work is your home it can be
hard to disengage. A gym is a good way to leave the work behind and reset the
mental clock as well as meet other people.

------
flountown
Since I work in sales, I am stuck to the typical 9-5 availability schedule.

If I feel like I'm in a rut, I go to a coffee shop to change it up. I have one
40 feet from my front door, or I take a longer walk on a nicer day to the
coffee shop I frequented from my last apartment.

It forces you to shower, dress like a real human being and can sometimes
substitute for that human interaction.

~~~
scoj
Ha, have to look like a human, too true! Sadly, sometimes I have to think
about when the last time I was outside. Not good.

~~~
flountown
The worst was a week ago on Monday. I wasn't feeling well and realized that
the deadbolt on my front door hadn't been opened in over 36 hours. Tuesday was
definitely a coffee shop day at that point.

------
tribaal
Working from home for 3 years now, and I love it.

I think what people in general tend to forget is that you _can_ work from home
but you don't _have to_. Renting a spot in a coworking space is very fun and
helps with the loneliness.

~~~
puranjay
Honest question: what is your home situation like? Are you married? Kids?

In my experience, older folks with kids and a spouse tend to love the work
from home thing. Younger people tend to get bogged down by the lack of social
interaction.

~~~
tribaal
Well, just like the other user who answered you (hi, lifestyle clone!) I'm
married, One kid, one on the way.

Like I said, I love the choice it brings me - I don't have to work form home
(I can use a coworking space for instance), but I get to decide every morning.
I tend to go to a coworking space or to friends/friendly startups/friendly
companies to hang out about one day a week, but it can be much more.

One tidbit: almost the whole company is remote (600 people!), so we're all
organized around that, and it probably makes it easier.

So my personal take away: it's about the choice it gives you :)

~~~
puranjay
> One tidbit: almost the whole company is remote (600 people!)

I'm intrigued. I was under the impression remote work was only feasible for
smaller startups. The only fully distributed companies I know have < 30
employees.

~~~
tribaal
I work for Canonical (www.canonical.com)

We have some offices and legal presence in some countries that require it, but
most of the engineers are work-from-home only. My team is completely work-
from-home, including manager, product manager, and QA engineers. We're 12 in 7
different countries and 3 continents (used to be 4 :) )

Only designers and some sales people have a hard requirement to be in the
office, AFAIK.

EDIT: for the sake of my personal pride I updated the numbers of countries my
team is distributed to. it was _WRONG_. I hate wrong! :)

~~~
tribaal
From another thread, it seems automatic (300+ employees) is pretty big on
remote workers as well:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9232565](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9232565)

------
manmukh
> Degradation of social skills

I've noticed this if I spend too much time without meaningful face to face
conversations. Translating my thoughts into coherent sentences becomes a
little more challenging.

------
lmorris84
Agree with many of these points. I've worked from home for the last 3 years
and I love it, but it definitely has it's downsides.

I think the worst for me is not being able to switch off at 5pm. Without the
journey home to empty my mind a little, I do find myself thinking about work
for the rest of the night.

~~~
jeromegv
I work from home & I keep my work emails in a separate software, at 5, I just
quit the software. That does the job!

~~~
anotherevan
Cannot plus one this enough. I use to have all email accounts in the one
client. Now for work (which is gmail) I use a notifier (plus often just
leaving the browser page open in Chromium).

If I find the notifier starting to bug me on the non-work days, I just switch
it off. I have a cron job that starts it 9am every work day if it is not
already running.

------
Pephers
I've also been working from home for the last 10 months, and while I love the
freedom, I do also miss the times when you can cheer with your co-workers over
an accomplishment and the general chit-chat over small breaks and lunch break.

I also agree with the author that a bad day working from home is worse than at
a job. Since I'm a solo-founder it means I'll not get paid on a bad day, but
at a job you typically get at least something done – and get paid.

------
taternuts
Really agree with the point of pressure, that having a bad day whilst working
from home feels way more terrible than having one while at the office
(production-wise)

~~~
evincarofautumn
It is in a sense more honest. If you didn’t get anything done, it doesn’t
matter where you were.

------
zero-g
How do you guys communicate while working remotely?

At my current job we have daily two daily meetings (in the morning and in the
evening) where everyone tells what he's done or we discuss something with a
whole team. These meetings lock us to particular schedule and make traveling
hard. I'd like to suggest my boss to get rid of these daily meetings but I
don't know with what to replace them.

~~~
talentless
My team is entirely remote and we do written standups/sitdowns. This adds some
flexibility to your day which helps given that we are spread across many
timezones. At the end of the week we have a demo day via google hangout where
we can show off work that we have done or something cool we learned.

------
devonkim
I've been working remotely about 5 or so of my 10+ professional years. Working
remotely can be a very different experience depending upon job roles. Most of
the articles linked on HN are for already-isolating back office jobs like
development, but for roles like customer support, sales, an outsourced front
desk receptionist, or other highly communication-heavy roles you will not
really feel as lonely probably. For coders and asset-producers with pretty
clear expected (and more importantly, asynchronous) output, solutions
typically focus upon forcing your job duties to include more actual human
interaction even if it might not be in-person. However, higher value
consultants typically will be communicating a lot more with their clients and
spending half your day at Starbucks is going to be few and far between.

Secondly, the "freedom" people tend to talk about is pretty minimal in some
roles and being remote tends to reinforce the need for your role to be
available as much as possible. If you're the on-call contact in operations
where it's arguably more important that you're available immediately rather
than that you just make some deadlines (transactional work), you really can't
just take off very often like you can oftentimes with very asynchronous,
start-stop workflows like development. You're not about to work at Starbucks
much unless you can be guaranteed that you won't have a really important call
come in. I would have lost precious availability time if I was working at
Starbucks a few days ago when I had to manage a production outage and get on
the phone and start talking authoritatively quickly. It's one thing to have a
kid or pet in the background, it's another when you're obviously sitting at a
coffee shop.

For work-life separation, I recommend separate devices from your personal
belongings for starters. It's oftentimes substantially cheaper than getting a
separate room or larger residence. I have a company-provided laptop that I do
my work on as well as a company-provided phone, and that helps keep things
separate from the rest of my life. If I have to reach for that phone or RDP /
ssh into that machine, that's time I've spent for the company, not for me.

------
dugmartin
After ~13 years of working mostly from a home office I decided to rent a small
office "downtown" in the little village I live in a couple of years ago. It is
nice sized room (19'x11') in a building right on a river with two windows
looking out at the river and the hills beyond (seen in the top image here:
[http://zoopdoop.com/](http://zoopdoop.com/))

I now love walking to work as much as I used to love working from home and I
don't see myself going back to a home office anytime soon.

~~~
vayarajesh
Wow nice view, do you work with a team or alone?

------
vinceyuan
If you are a software developer and your aggressive manager is not a
developer, don't work remotely. I worked for several months in this condition.
The experience was very bad. The manager couldn't understand the difficulty
and complexity of programming. He was just pushing and pushing to make sure I
was working. I worked 10-12 hours per day, but he was still not satisfied.
Finally, I worked on-site. The communication became much better and he could
see I am working. And I did not need to work too long every day.

------
benmorris
Coming up on my 3rd year now working from home and running my own company. I
agree with most of this article. The lack of social interaction is probably
what I miss the most. Overall it has been a positive change for me though. I
had serious issues concentrating while coding at my last job. Working from
home has mostly solved that. I've found in the last year it is easy to stop
working at 4:30-5 since we have had our first child, before that I was doing
10-12 hour days because I could.

~~~
vinceyuan
+1. I am working at home. My child is young and my wife cannot handle
completely. I can't concentrate on programming. Sometimes I have to take my
laptop to the public library to work.

------
davexunit
Personally, I think it's great to just have 1 or 2 remote days per week.
Really helps with overall time spent commuting and breaks up the monotony of
the daily routine.

------
Varcht
I've been working from home for the last 4 mos. For the most part it has been
very positive. I've enjoyed the looser schedule and have spent quite a bit
less on food and gas. The biggest benefit has been that I have not had a
single insomniac episode. I have slept very well. I'm reminded of this as I am
transitioning back to working in the office. Over the last two weeks I have
been setting up an office for two coworkers and myself. Yesterday was the
first that I moved my PC in and worked at the office although still alone till
the rest of the furniture arrives. Last night I slept maybe a total of 3 hours
before my first full day at the office. Not sure why, I am only accountable to
myself at this point for when I come and go yet here I am up and going on 3
hours sleep again...

------
lordnacho
Simple solution to the loneliness thing: get a webcam. You can see the office,
they can see you. I saw a business that ran like that. Seemed okay. It wasn't
a dev who was remote though, and that may matter.

Also some people don't like the feeling of being watched.

~~~
tribaal
Another simple solution: go to a coworking space once in a while.

It's usually cheap and has a coffee machine, and plenty of people to introduce
yourself to and smalltalk with.

------
krylon
I would really like to work from home one day per week. But all in all, I
enjoy the interaction with my coworkers. I have a strong reclusive streak, and
being forced to interact with other all day has a positive effect on me.

Also, I live in the city, but my workplace is in a pretty rural area, next to
a field. On my way to work, and from my office, I get to see rabbits, roe
deer, horses, cows, a kestrel hunting... I would not get to see any of that if
I worked from home. I do feel a little guilty at times for staring out the
window so much, but having grown up in the city, I totally love that awesome
view.

------
junto
I've been working remote for 10 years. For the first 6 years I worked from
home and I lived in various countries as a bonus (since the location wasn't
tied to the work).

For the last 4 years I've been based in a coworking space. I can highly
recommend it. The biggest benefit to me was that it forced me to have set
times to _finish work_. When I worked from home I would always work _a little
bit longer_.

Now I switch my computer off, leave the coworking space in the evening, go
home and relax. There is no temptation to start working again.

------
br3w5
I work from home two days a week and the issue I have is actually switching
off so I typically start early and then keep going with less breaks than in
the office. Maybe this feels easier because it is more comfortable at home and
not an abrasive environment like an office. Pros vs cons also depends on both
the home and office environment e.g. if you have dedicated working space at
home vs a very noisy office or vice versa.

Also, just to say I love Lagos and the western Algarve - it's such a beautiful
place

------
mrrrgn
This is why I work from cafes whenever possible. If I actually work from a
quiet room by myself I start to slip into sadness. My brain craves the
presence of other humans.

That said, I prefer cafes to offices. It's nice to be around people with no
real ties to your source of income. It eliminates the stress of needing to
manage all of your actions more carefully.

Also, I find that over time I make actual friends coffee shops. Co-workers
rarely make good long-term friends.

------
Killswitch
I am on my first month working from home. While I am not a huge fan of it,
either I work from home, or I lose my job.

My biggest gripes about telecommuting is that I have a hard drive focusing.
Something about the process of getting up and getting ready and LEAVING the
house, puts my brain into this mode of "time to work!" While telecommuting I
can get up and get ready, but there's nothing there that convinces my brain
I'm going to work.

~~~
brianwawok
Set aside a different room. Go for a walk around the block first. Lots of ways
to split up your day prework vs postwork.

~~~
Killswitch
Yeah I'm still setting up my second room as an office. Right now I'm sitting
on my couch with laptop on lap. Not very helpful.

Along with that, I'm also changing my diet and even starting to go to the gym
since it's right across the street.

Hopefully these things help.

~~~
jfoutz
I'd recommend, get up and go to the gym before work. As others mentioned,
having that daily routine where you transition to work mode is really helpful.

~~~
Killswitch
That's the goal. Thank you for solidifying that goal as being the right steps.
Appreciate it.

------
felhr
The worst thing is the feeling that you are always at work. In this situation
I discovered going to the gym is helping me to switch the mode (it could be
running, swimming...just any physical activity). If I keep working remotely
this year I would like to: \- Keep two computers, one for work and other for
my spare time. \- Keep a room of my house as my private study or, if it is not
possible, work somedays from a coworking space.

------
sparrish
I've been working from home for 7+ years now and wouldn't trade it for the
world. I get to have breaks and lunch with my wife and 7 kids and my flexible
schedule means I can do the 'bus driving' and other errands whenever I'm
needed. I keep in constant contact with my co-worker via hangouts and the
occasional phone call.

I have less distractions and am more productive on my worse day at home than
my best in any office.

------
shawn-butler
>>> When you have a bad day at work you still have the sensation of
accomplishment. You drove to work, attended meetings, take care of some stuff…
you actually did some tasks. >>>

Probably not a very original thought but this strikes me as very similar to
the same game mechanics / psychology involved in grinding ladder-type MMOs.

Is it possible the mundane office environment is created to be somewhat
addicting?

------
vayarajesh
Even though I haven't worked from home for longer than a week, I completely
understand what the author means, My first 2 days were ok ok.. but then rest
of the day were very bad... you don't realize or feel the break from work and
off-work.

When you drive back home you feel the sensation of work is "finished" but at
home you are always in the feeling of "work"

------
jscheel
Now I just need a cafe that isn't closed in the middle of the day, actually
has heat in the winter, has chairs that support those of us that weigh over 98
lbs, and that attracts people/encourages them to hang out. Man this town needs
another coffee shop...

~~~
lucaspiller
Ever thought of starting a co-working space with some friends?

~~~
jscheel
Thankfully, I have my own office at my parents' office, so I do get some
interaction. I've actually talked with a friend about starting a co-working
space in our town, but I don't think it's ready for one yet. Maybe in 5-10
years. That's what we get for being a commuter-city to Nashville.

------
tylerc230
I actually find an office environment to be _more_ distracting than working
from home. At the office you have noise and people wanting to chat, at home I
can work for a six hour stretch, uninterrupted.

------
kelukelugames
When I was a grad student I spent most of my time working in the labs. I too
experienced deterioratingn social skills. Got a retail job at the mall on
weekends to interact with more people.

------
eleitl
Mirror?

~~~
slau
Google Cache seems to work:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:a5OjeFf...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:a5OjeFfoOiEJ:blog.jobbox.io/first-
experience-working-from-home/&hl=en&gl=fr&strip=1)

------
adaml_623
"The page you are looking for is temporarily unavailable. Please try again
later."

That's quite funny if you're working from home with a dodgy internet
connection

~~~
pauloteixeira
Had a problem with a cache plugin, I think that it's up again

