
Don’t work “remotely” - ntang
http://blairreeves.me/2018/11/09/dont-work-remotely/?resubmit=hn
======
wastedhours
I usually appreciate a good semantic argument, but not really sure what it
adds in this context? I think the root of every conversation on "remote",
"distributed", or "agile" working is not how it's perceived from a
nomenclature perspective, but that it's something that _has_ to be open to
everyone. You need to work somewhere where the default is non-location, only-
core-hours specific, otherwise it falls down.

Am fortunate to work in a place that offers "agile" working (it's not a
developer focused environment, so that word isn't loaded for us). You go where
you need to to get the job done, within a set of core hours work how you need
to. You can work from home independently for days or weeks on end, or you can
turn up to a desk every day, or you can collaborate in a meeting room, on
Skype, or in a cafe.

We have an HQ, but not enough desks for everyone to turn up every day, so
there's an expectation of being fluid in how you work. Every meeting has a
video conference link, and very few decisions are made by the proverbial
watercooler. It takes time and discipline to make it work, but that's spread
by default and expected across the entire workforce.

~~~
bunderbunder
As a long time remote worker, I've found that what seems like a hair-splitty
difference can actually be a deep insight into the company's culture, and how
it will affect your work experience.

Distributed teams develop a culture of communication that does not rely on
frequent face-to-face contact. I personally suspect that they tend to be even
more productive than completely co-located teams, because, based on a sample
size of one, I've seen that the communication methods they develop will
require fewer person-hours to share more information at higher fidelity.

"Remote" tends to imply a large chunk of the team is co-located, and one or
more of the members are not. My experience here is that the remote people tend
to not get the memo, or people fail to invite them to meetings because they
don't want to bother with the conference room's videoconferencing equipment,
or they _do_ invite the remote folks but then the first 15 minutes of the
meeting is devoted to figuring out how to work the Polycom system, etc.

I had the pleasure of working on a distributed team that became a team with
remote workers as a result of being acquired by a company that decided to only
hire new people to work in their home office. It was impressive how quickly
things fell apart after that.

(Edit: This isn't to say that P's team isn't working well with a flexible
approach, but it sounds like there's a big difference between it and many
other non-distributed teams that have remote work: Everyone is in it
together.)

~~~
virgilp
I've seen it even within teams in the same corporation: some are used to
working distributed, for whatever reasons (e.g. working on truly open-source
projects/ with external collaborators); others highlight the "efficiency" of
co-location, and try to get everybody working on the same project in the same
office.

In my experience, the former is far more effective, for a very simple reason:
informal communication channels quickly break down. In the latter approach -
you have decisions discussed between some people, with others not informed,
not documented properly, forgotten after a while, shifting agreements etc.
Because the team can be more "agile" it's less structured, and while on the
short term it may seem to be a good thing, on the long term it really hurts it
(working on the wrong things/ on things that are not needed anymore, constant
overhead for on-boarding new people, loss of team knowledge with every "old"
team member that leaves, etc).

I'd say the distinction between "remote" and "distributed" workers is on how
serious the team is about enabling remote work. If it treats remote workers as
a secondary, "extension team" \- things don't work well. If that's the primary
mode of operation - things actually end up working _better_ than in co-located
teams, in most situations(read: as soon as the team/product grows big enough).

~~~
hinkley
There’s not enough pressure to prevent tribal knowledge from becoming the
pattern. If you have to write everything down at least once, you’re part way
to solving the problem.

------
bsvalley
It all comes down to 2 things:

\- If you're single, working at an office is good for you. Surround yourself
with people who share a common interest. Yeah, it's work, but I'm sure you'll
meet people who have similar interests outside of work. Go share a 2 bedroom
apartment with someone else in downtown and enjoy the social life.

\- If you're married (or even with kids), remote work is what you should be
looking for so that you take away the bad energy you collect at the office and
you don't bring it back home. You can spend more time with your family which
is what matters the most. The bad energy includes a long commute to get to
work since you can't afford living next to the office. Competitive environment
and politics. Dress code, loud open space environments where you can't get
anything done, constant distraction, having to fake working 8h straight
sitting in front of a screen while anyone can look over your shoulders. You
need to be able to afford a bigger home to host your family so you need to
move far from your office.

You can get flexibility in both, not only remotely. As long as you're not
forced to commute more than 30 min to work, usually Tech giants are flexible
companies in terms of hours, etc.

~~~
knappe
This is bad advice because each and every pro listed when you're married is
also a pro when not married. So I guess I don't get it. Also, there are a
million ways to meet people and from my experience meeting people through work
is really one of the worst ways to go about it (if you're looking for a
relationship). Go join a singles club or something.

~~~
lucasmullens
For many people, their coworkers are their main group of friends. I personally
would have fewer friends if I worked remotely. If I was married, I would
prioritize my family over my friends, and would likely prefer remote work.

~~~
hiram112
> For many people, their coworkers are their main group of friends.

From what I've experienced, this is true only until your late 20s, or about
20% of your career.

~~~
bsvalley
+1

This is really true. I made amazing friends at my first 2 jobs and since then,
nothing but work. The culture has changed as well for the last 10 years.
Colleagues don't even say "hi" anymore. When you're already established in
your life you usually don't have time to make friends at work.

------
hprotagonist
The primary difficulties i have with remote work are linked:

1\. I usually wind up alphabetizing my socks at some point.

2\. a lack of face to face contact and the setting of being in my own space
keeps me in a semi-permanent doubt/guilt cycle about my work quality and how
my effort and reponsiveness is being perceived.

~~~
ryanSrich
I’ve been working remotely for just a few months shy of 5 years. I’ve moved
from coast to coast in that time. I’ve held 4 different positions in the same
company. The _only_ thing that has worked for #2 is relying less on Slack and
email and more on phone calls. It completely eliminates the guilt factor. I
encourage everyone on my team to be more open to phone calls during the day.
No real work gets done on slack. Call each other.

~~~
MrTonyD
I'm not somebody who likes or needs phone calls. They disrupt any flow I've
got and require time coordination. So I definitely don't appreciate it when a
manager forces me into them when that is something that suits his personality
and management philosophy.

Since I'm not forcing him to meet my emotional neediness, why should he force
me?

~~~
varjag
Does Slack not disrupt your flow? Or putting an email together?

~~~
breischl
Personally I find that they can, but they don't have to. I can put off
Slack/email until I hit a stopping point, or I can wedge it into the middle of
a long-running process (start a build/test-cycle/deployment, then go answer
Slack). At the very least I can finish the chunk of code/whatever I was
working on. Phone calls and in-person talking are a hard interrupt, drop all
my context on the floor and get nothing else done.

------
otaviokz
I feel like the post is a 25 cent practices discussion wrapped in a $25
semantics discussion, with the added injury of a click bait title.

~~~
baroffoos
I was expecting something interesting about the problems of working remote.
Just closed the article when I realized the main point of the article was to
keep doing what you are doing but call it something else.

------
Touche
The most annoying thing about the tech giants that askew remote is that they
also choose to locate themselves in the most expensive cities in the country.

Here's a tweet today from the creator of Babel on how he is moving to the east
bay because housing is more affordable.
[https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1064252136349822977](https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1064252136349822977)
.

If someone who's created that much value is not able to afford an area then
it's insulting that tech giants expect us to move there (or have a 2 hour
commute to somewhere affordable).

There's this terrible myth that I want to kill; that software engineering is a
well-paid field. That's a lie.

Here's something pharmacists, account managers, farmers can afford: 3 bedroom,
2 bathroom houses near where they work.

We can't. We're asked to live in apartments in Jersey and commute 45 minutes
to Manhattan every day.

Or we work remotely and are expected to take a smaller wage, where the company
can't wait to get big enough so that it can force us all to move.

~~~
oldboyFX
> There's this terrible myth that I want to kill; that software engineering is
> a well-paid field. That's a lie.

For me it's been very profitable.

> Here's something pharmacists, account managers, farmers can afford: 3
> bedroom, 2 bathroom houses near where they work.

I can easily afford that. Most software engineers I know can afford that.

> We can't. We're asked to live in apartments in Jersey and commute 45 minutes
> to Manhattan every day.

I don't live in NYC. I work from home or from an office 5min away from my
home.

> Or we work remotely and are expected to take a smaller wage

I work remotely and earn more than most engineers in SF. I save 300-400% more.

> where the company can't wait to get big enough so that it can force us all
> to move.

I've never experienced this.

~~~
calcifer
All of your points here are "me, me, me". Well, good for you? The fact that
you, a rich guy working from home, who never experienced these issues is
merely an anecdote. It doesn't contribute anything to the discussion, it just
states your own dissatisfaction with GPs comment to which I would reply with
"so what?"

~~~
oldboyFX
GP's experience is also anecdotal because software engineering clearly is a
well paid field, AS IN better paid than the majority of other fields.

Feeling victimized because you have to commute for 45 minutes, do your cushy
job, and get paid incredibly well compared to most of your fellow citizens is
just sad.

This mentality does not represent the majority of software engineers. Most of
us are (among other things) grateful and content, thank you.

~~~
davidjnelson
Science has shown commuting to be quite bad for health:
[http://time.com/9912/10-things-your-commute-does-to-your-
bod...](http://time.com/9912/10-things-your-commute-does-to-your-body)

------
wpietri
As somebody who is currently working remotely, I think this is a decent take.
A distributed culture can definitely get better results than a remote one. But
there's something in the section on collaboration I want to take issue with:

> Product Management is mostly about consistent execution of plans, not
> painting high-level visions.

It's a common view that software developers are an output device, like a
printer. You tell them what to build by sending them very detailed
instructions. They follow the instructions to the letter, and their work is
judged by compliance. Perfection is perfectly conforming to some one else's
plan.

I think this is bunk. It might have made a little sense when releases were
every 18 months to 3 years. But in an age where companies are releasing dozens
of times per day [1], it's foolish. Perfectly following a plan means you
believe nobody will learn anything during the time it takes to follow the
plan. But if you are releasing early and often, you can learn a ton from
users. You can be much more innovative and much more effective than
competition.

That only happens, though, if you treat team members not as rote plan-
followers but as creative professionals who are deep collaborators. Where
vision isn't something a few HiPPOs hammer out in exclusive twice-annual
sessions, but where everyone constantly participates and refines it. If a
company's process has already shut down collaboration, then of course the
difficulties of remote collaboration aren't a problem. The challenge -- still
unsolved, I think -- is how to maintain both a high level of collaboration and
fast iteration without having to have everyone together.

[1] E.g., [https://www.infoq.com/news/2014/03/etsy-deploy-50-times-a-
da...](https://www.infoq.com/news/2014/03/etsy-deploy-50-times-a-day)

~~~
Dashron
He goes in more details about product management here: http
://blairreeves.me/2018/10/16/whats-a-senior-product-managers-job/

I don't believe his view conflicts with yours.

I think it's very possible to have someone present to help define value and
priorities, and focus on the people part of getting shit built, while giving
engineers a lot of creative involvement and ownership.

~~~
wpietri
I agree it's possible. I disagree it's compatible with seeing product
management as being about consistent execution of plans.

~~~
Dashron
Ah, I read that phrase differently, but think I see your point now. There's
definitely a type of "plan" that can be very micromanagey, and problematic.

I've lucked out and most plans I've worked with are super, super high level
and gives everyone a lot of freedom.

------
gnulinux
I absolutely detest every single aspect of remote work. Every time my
coworkers or I wfh (and all companies I worked were very lax as to when you
can wfh) small, tiny communication problems start occurring that bite us in
the future. I find it easier to motivate myself in the office, with people,
free snacks/food. I don't think slack/hangouts is a replacement for face-to-
face conversation. I cannot even imagine working remote full time. It's not
just that I don't trust myself, I don't trust other people too.

~~~
calcifer
You are getting a barrage of comments telling you that _you_ are the problem,
so let me just say I completely agree with you.

I have multiple colleagues who just casually disappear from the office (sorry,
"work from home") for days to weeks and it's beyond irritating and disruptive
to the rest of us.

~~~
gnulinux
I think it's irrelevant if I'm the problem or not. I'm still hired for the job
and given (1) I have no communication problem when we're face to face and (2)
when people wfh I observe people other me also have communication problems,
the only way this can be relevant if my employer is willing to fire me -- and
nobody else -- for having communication problems when people other than me
disappear (I never ever wfh unless I'm sick so I have a potential to make
other people at work sick).

> I have multiple colleagues who just casually disappear from the office
> (sorry, "work from home") for days to weeks and it's beyond irritating and
> disruptive to the rest of us.

I cannot agree more. I would also add that (you might not agree with this)
this is not just a tiny, minor problem, inconvenience, I think this can
possibly cause major problems, especially in the design phase of systems. If
the design is not communicated _perfectly_ there _will_ be problems and the
only way to ensure this is to communicate face-to-face long enough that all
engineers agree design is impeccable. Call me old school.

~~~
chc
If faces are that important to your design process, you can use video chat.
There is nothing that can be communicated in the same room but not over video
chat. I don't know what the problem you're encountering is — whether you're
the problem or your work has implemented remote work poorly or your coworkers
are just weird and pathological — but it really seems like you're
misidentifying it.

~~~
stallmanite
Smells are key to the design process.

------
davidmr
Maybe I’m just a grouch in general, but I pray for a time when we have
sufficient data available that this ceaseless and monotonous drone of posts
about whether remote work is the best thing since sliced bread or if it’s the
7th sign of the apocalypse can just all be replaced by “here are the data and
there are some pretty clear conclusions that answer questions X, Y, and Z”.

Anyone who knows more about this than I do, are we close to that day?

~~~
Angostura
Since, I suspect the answer tends tobe driven by the culture of an
organisation, and within individual teams within it, and by the proclivities
of individual workers, I fear you may be waiting a long time.

~~~
davidmr
That’s true of any kind of success in any organization, yet there are still
studies that show that certain types of traits indicate success at certain
types of organizations, etc. Even in a general sense, I’d be happy if these
types of conversations could have data-driven discussions.

~~~
ghaff
You need to be careful of cargo culting though. There have been a lot of
"traits of successful organizations" types of books and papers over the years.
And it often turns out that there are unsuccessful organizations that often
have very similar characteristics and successful organizations that take the
opposite approach.

~~~
davidmr
Well that’s fair. If it’s all unknowable anyway, I’d be happy to know that.
Anything that lessens the blogspam on the topic!

------
gregw2
I'm convinced it's possible for a business to work in a distributed manner,
but I think there are certain business scenarios (and/or persons' personality
types/collaboration styles) where it's problematic. Anecdote:

I've been in two startups, one working remotely ("distributed") and one
working in the room with the CEO.

The degree of situational awareness was very different.

When I was sitting 5 feet from the CEO, I knew the company was in the tank and
in grave danger of going under. We turned it around.

When I was remote, based on the daily/weekly phone calls I knew the project I
was working on was in trouble and way behind, but had no idea till the CEO
drove up to meet me that he and the other execs had no salary for 3 months and
the company was out of money. (They found a buyer for a pittance within a year
to save face.)

I had a sense of urgency in both cases... but the urgency was different when
in-person. And the awareness was WAY different.

~~~
sailfast
Real questions from someone who has been leading remote teams for awhile:

Which one helped you better focus on your role and deliver what you needed to
help the company?

Hearing all these things in-person can definitely be good context, but there
is also a risk that you hear something wrong, succumb to gossip, or lose focus
based on worries that may not be necessary. (Of course I’d argue it’s best for
the employee to judge rather than be left in the dark, but I’m curious here
specifically)

Part of this comes down to company culture as well - getting remote comms
channels down is really hard, and takes a LOT of effort from senior
management, especially for things that are nuanced or may change. How do you
not panic anyone but also let them know there may be a need for urgency, etc
(in-person works well for that)

When you were remote, was the CEO remote as well, or just you?

~~~
gregw2
It's an interesting question- which one helped me focus on my role and
deliver? I can see in the abstract that distributed work can both demand and
benefit from strong focus. In my case, when I was a "distributed" worker I had
a much narrower scope of responsibility and along with that, less ability to
gauge whether something was "good enough" to ship and
perfectionism/procrastination and poor remote communication on my part really
hampered my work. As an in-person worker, when we were betting the company I
was able to constantly assess all work being done by all the company and pivot
us and others to what was the most risk-mitigating thing we needed to do. When
distributed, I suppose that was the role my Engineering VP was supposed to do
and I was just focused on my narrow domain, but overall the company wasn't
able to leverage my problem solving and triaging strengths and I was just a
remote coder/designer resource with a task. When it was late, I knew it was
bad, but I didn't have a sense of the consequences to the broader team (just
my own job). In hindsight I think management was trying to shelter me from the
stress and I respect that but I was really stunned at the end of the day how
out of the loop I was. I was East Coast, CEO was East Coast but four hours
away, some execs were West Coast, Engineering Lead was UK. I did a great job
for them with engineering for in-person clients, but when I switched to being
managed from overseas it really didn't work out. I always didn't want to
interrupt the UK VP since he was so busy and/or because I was behind but the
communication dynamic was ultimately dysfunctional for which I take more than
half the responsibility. (I have since been on the flip side of that coin with
a remote worker! It's an interesting challenge.)

~~~
sailfast
Thanks for these answers - super interesting and helpful. Much appreciated!

------
davnicwil
Yeah, this is actually a really good point and I didn't notice it before -
"remote" is a relative word and implies there is a place that you're _not_
which is considered the center of action.

But whatever word is used.. maybe it won't matter for that much longer? I
think another thing that will be interesting to watch is if/how quickly the
extra word "remote"/"distributed"/etc disappears because it becomes redundant
or outmoded.

Think of the internet: every service on the internet was once "e-{service}".
Over time that mostly just became "service", because the fact you are on the
internet is now assumed, and doesn't have to be qualified. Indeed, if you're
_not_ on the internet _that_ might be the thing you have to qualify now.

Will we see job listings in 10-15 years with "Engineer (Colocated Office)"?

~~~
anticensor
I think yes. Just as horseless carriage became car, remote will become norm in
a few decades.

------
DanielBMarkham
"...That said, I just don’t encounter the need for deep strategy and vision-
setting sessions with cross-functional teams of my colleagues on a frequent
basis. ..."

And you won't, either.

I think this is very simple. Either you are a distributed team working on
digital artifacts that live primarily online .... or you are a cross-
functional team trying to creatively solve a problem for somebody.

If you know what you're doing, the solution is locked in, and all you're
accomplishing by showing up somewhere is moving cards around on a wall? Stay
home. If you don't know what you're doing -- requirements are in flux, the
customer can't decide, the project is high-risk/high-stress, etc? Show up
where the other people are.

And it doesn't have to be one way or the other. I've worked great projects
where we all co-located, got into a groove, then finished it up from home --
only to repeat when the next big hunk of problems showed up.

So many of these tech essays seem to based on turning the contrast way up,
insisting that the answer must be X or Y, then defending it. Why can't it be
both? Seeing success in teams working both ways, wouldn't the more logical
position be that in some cases each has its advantages?

~~~
pdimitar
I read the post as venting disappointment towards the strong anti-remote-work
bias, for what it's worth.

------
ramtatatam
Remote (or distributed, as article is advocating to call it) work will not fit
everyone's style. It requires certain level of self discipline and recognition
that the one needs to develop certain habits in order to be able to
efficiently deliver work while doing this remotely.

What I noticed is that in early days of my startup when I was working remotely
I was able to contribute much more than now, when I'm required to work from
the (open plan) office. Working remotely gives flexibility on work hours (i.e.
I could do normal 9-5 and then in the evening I usually checked in to add some
extra but I could do that as I did not have to wake up early in the morning in
order to commute to the office).

Working remotely makes it more challenging (for some) to resist temptation to
procrastinate. And also it requires leaders to understand how to measure the
output (although, of course, leaders need to understand that despite the fact
where does the worker deliver their work from).

------
Twirrim
That floating header on the site is amazingly annoying.

Reading, and scrolling down a bit on the mouse, so the content I'm reading
reaches the top of the page. Maybe a second after I stop scrolling, boom,
suddenly the header re-appears out of nowhere and covers right what I'm
reading. I actually gave up reading the content, not because I wasn't
interested, but because that damn header kept hiding the content.

~~~
asavadatti
Save this as a bookmark and click it to eliminate floating headers:
javascript:

    
    
      (function()%7B(function%20()%20%7Bvar%20i%2C%20elements%20%3D%20document.querySelectorAll('body%20*')%3Bfor%20(i%20%3D%200%3B%20i%20%3C%20elements.length%3B%20i%2B%2B)%20%7Bif%20(getComputedStyle(elements%5Bi%5D).position%20%3D%3D%3D%20'fixed')%20%7Belements%5Bi%5D.parentNode.removeChild(elements%5Bi%5D)%3B%7D%7D%7D)()%7D)()

------
chapium
Remote work is fine if you dont mind being pigeon holed into one range of
tasks, paid well relative to your cost of living, have no career advancement,
and want to wear whatever you want at work.

~~~
ironchef
I’ve been working “distributed” (per the article) for about 17 years. My range
of tasks has been across the board (engineering, support, presales, ops, etc).
I’ve had quite a bit of career advancement (although I don’t really care about
titles).... and I get payed CA salary while not living in CA.

Just wanted to post so folks understand there is a range of opportunities out
there... you just need to find them...

~~~
Kephael
I have a very hard time believing a real CA salary is being paid to remote
workers. For engineering at leading companies, seventeen years of experience
would be over 400K TC. However, I could believe someone paying a remote worker
on the low end of entry-level compensation of around 120K for remote work.

~~~
ska
It's not at all hard to believe _some_ people are receiving CA salaries (and
note, your 400k TC line only applies to a relatively small group of companies
and senior positions).

On the other hand, I agree it is unlikely for the majority of remote workers.
Depends a lot on your skill level and how rare/in-demand it is I suppose.

~~~
ironchef
Ska's spot on here. We're not paying high end CA wages to _everyone_; however,
our remote employees are making _much_ higher than the norms in most of their
areas. We require a lot of breadth/depth for the main remote position. If you
were to look at glassdoor, comparably, or paysa .. they would suggest this
position for our company pays on average of 145 to 150k salary (w/o bonus /
RSUs .. which would significantly raise that num obvi).

At most places the "talent is your #1 resource" is bullshit. Ours is not and
is a key to us being profitable (it's actually rolled into our comp model).

------
burtonator
I've ran a distributed company for about 6 years now.

We started as a conventional company located in San Francisco.

For some context - we're
[https://www.datastreamer.io](https://www.datastreamer.io) ... we provide data
feeds around blogs, news, and social media to search engines, and data
analytics companies. We have about a petabyte of content in our index now.

Our SF location was SWEET. Downtown. 100 year old building. Brick walls, super
nice place - until they tore it down to build the new Transbay terminal.

Long story short but at that point we decided to give distributed work a try.

Back then there weren't many companies doing it but I decided to embrace the
benefits of it in terms of what it could do for my company.

This isn't discussed often but there are actually PERKS to distributed work.

If your team is in different timezones. This means you can coordinate ops so
that if there's an emergency no one actually has to wake up.

This has massive long term implications for morale and hiring!

You can now hire ops people and tell them that they never have to be woken up
in the middle of the night.

We will often have issues with data indexing of sites at odd hours. We can't
control when a site being indexed breaks so it can happen at unusual times.
Usually at 5AM when I'm sleeping.

One downside is that each country has its own hurdles for hiring.

My advice is find 2-4 countries (including your own) that are close to your
timezone. You will have banking, political, and infrastructure issues so
limiting the number of distinct countries you work with reduces your risk.

We prefer the US, Poland, Germany, Spain, and Brazil.

It definitely takes some re-thinking in terms of tools. Lots of video
conferencing. Lots of slack. Lots of email. Lots of Github issues.

I think it's worth it though.

Also, don't rule out being a hybrid company. If you have a central office (or
offices) you can have the benefits of both worlds.

~~~
t_akosuke
I've been remote for a few years and it's been a very frustrating experience
for me, one that had turned me off developing in the end. hearing from you how
it can be done right is very enlightening and encouraging at the same time - i
wish i had found such a carefully crafted work environment! mind if i drop you
a line in private?

------
lukethomas
I wrote something similar over the weekend about how remote teams are great
for people on a maker's schedule, but people on a manager's schedule tend to
dislike it.

[https://fridayfeedback.com/p/how-to-make-remote-work-more-
co...](https://fridayfeedback.com/p/how-to-make-remote-work-more-common/)

I think finding this balance is the crux of the remote work experience.
Meetings are necessary, but where is the line drawn? Collaboration is
important, but do you need to have whiteboarding sessions to get things done?

~~~
Heliosmaster
Really well put. And I want to add another anecdote: when remote working, I
used to do pair programming through Skype, with screen sharing. And I couldn't
really feel any difference than doing this in person (it was a half
remote/half office type of job), apart from the fact that we were not
bothering anybody and there wasn't any other noise around our work. So it
actually felt better than pair programming in presence.

------
RestlessMind
The article looks at the benefits of distributed computing and makes the case
that similar benefits could apply to distributed working (eg. scalability).
Then it is only fair that we also look at other aspects of distributed systems
and try to identify constraints on this model. I can think of:

1\. Just because a system is distributed does not mean you have a lot of very
small machines (eg. a system with 10 machines each with 1MB RAM will beat one
with 1000 machines each with 10KB RAM). Similarly, having 5-10 distributed
offices could net all the benefits mentioned in the article while avoiding
costs of having 500 employees working from home/wework/...

2\. Just because your system is distributed, you don't locate one machine on
each continent. Machines are still arranged in proximity and having cross
datacenter communication significantly erodes performance. Similarly, having
distributed offices in far away timezones (eg. US west coast and India)
imposes tremendous costs on collaboration. Having office in nearby timezones
would be much better (eg. Seattle, Denver, SF). One particular case where far-
away timezones help is ease of having 24-hour oncall support.

3\. Different machine profile in your system, or different composition of your
clusters, makes it harder to tune the system for performance or quality.
Similarly, having employees in vastly different jurisdictions would mean you
have additional costs on compliance / regulations / etc.

4\. When you are prototyping or bootstrapping a new product, you do that
quickly over a small setup (one machine). Similarly, it might make sense to
bootstrap your startup in your garage (or a single city) until it is ready to
scale.

------
SirLJ
Working remotely for many years is the greatest perk for me, this is the only
thing keeping me at this job... To booth, the team I am managing is across the
country, so no point going to the office anyway - I only go few time a year to
pickup my boss to go for lunch/informal chat...

------
ascendantlogic
Never heard of the assertion that VCs hate remote teams. Anyone care to expand
on that?

~~~
krallja
Definitely my experience; one of the first things that happens after an
A-round is all the remote workers get asked to move near HQ, and can’t, so
they have to resign with no severance. And the standard startup recruiting
playbook is to say “we will consider remote for the right candidate” when
inquired, but all their hires seem to come from the same central California
town the company founders live in.

~~~
ascendantlogic
What's the reasoning for that though from the VC perspective?

~~~
NullPrefix
They want to come in and see the monkeys working at the zoo.

~~~
dudul
I wonder if readers will take this comment seriously, but it very much sums up
the reasoning based on my experience. And some CEOs think that too.

I've been part of startups where VCs would stop by to pat on the CEO on the
back, take a little tour of the office, happy to see 15-ish bozos banging on
the keyboard. Sometimes they would invite some of their buddies to show off
their monkeys. I don't know, maybe it was the VC version of a dick fight.

~~~
maxxxxx
I have seen that too. It's especially important to show off someone from MIT
or Stanford when the VCs do their rounds.

------
edoo
It is possible but takes the right team. Lots of people are perfect for it. It
really depends on the lifestyle you live. If you are running it you have to
replace people pretty quick if it doesn't work out and you'll probably end up
with a pretty good team. When I was young I started out contracting remotely
from home. That blows if you don't have some reasonable guarantee of steady
hours. It can get hard to enjoy free time when your home is your office and
you are hungry for work. If I was ever going to go back to hit or miss income
I'd only do fixed price projects with nailed down scopes.

------
xte
In my limited personal experience:

pro of "decentralized" work

\- no itinere ⇒ no travel cost, wasted time, bad weather...

\- comfort at work

cons:

\- tech limitation, you are often forced to use bad proprietary software that
really suc*s

\- if your partner also work from home maybe more family stress being more
time together

\- a tendency of work more while being rewarded less

Other things balance, for instance connection problems may cost you but that's
the same for protest or adversity on roads. You pay less for travel but you
generally pay more for "personal hardware" etc.

------
Matticus_Rex
At first glance this seems semantic, but I think it hits on something that
really makes a huge difference between my current work situation and my
previous remote work experience.

I naturally gravitate to remote work -- it works for me. Where it's tough is
at the edges of "my" work. What is mine, and how does it interface with
everyone else's? This was a constant struggle with distributing the work at my
old company (and this was prior to Slack's ubiquity, which doubtless would
have helped).

My current company uses Holacracy as its organizing system, and even besides
the fact that the tools are better now, the role clarity and distributed
authority provided by Holacracy make an absolutely massive difference. From
talking with friends at other Holacracy-powered companies that aren't remote,
the difference is still big there, but a lot of the highlights are extra-
highlighted in a remote setting. Things really get "distributed" in a
meaningful way.

------
xivzgrev
I recently did a job search in SF and very few companies were hiring or open
to remote. I agree with the author that it's very ironic that tech gives us
the tools to work remote but yet most tech firms insist on working face to
face. Certain functions may be more conducive to it or more in demand to
consider it.

------
RickJWagner
I've worked from my house for 8 years now.

It saves gas, etc. I don't need the social aspect of work (I'm introverted). I
really, really like working remotely.

But it's not for everybody. Sub-par performers especially will drag down
productivity

So it's a mixed bag, IMHO. But for me, I love it.

------
k__
If you like to work in an office, work in an office.

If you don't like to work in an office, then don't.

For whatever reason.

------
jeremyvdw
Cool, Russ Olsen used this remote/distributed workers analogy back in july
2016 here [http://blog.cognitect.com/cognicast-
transcripts/104](http://blog.cognitect.com/cognicast-transcripts/104)

------
malcolmgreaves
If you know precisely what to do, then remote work is ok. However, once you
need to communicate with people _and_ problem solve with them, all forms of
digital communication are inferior to face-to-face.

~~~
pdimitar
Only voice works just fine and has worked for me for 8 years now.

~~~
malcolmgreaves
I suspect that (1) you don't have strong relationships with the people that
you've only communicated with via voice, (2) if you do, then it took a very
long (multi-year) time to create that trust: significantly longer than through
face-to-face communication, (3) you do not do a active, engaging brainstorming
and problem solving sessions (e.g. whiteboarding) with your colleagues that
you communicate with voice only.

~~~
pdimitar
I see some sort of assumption in your comment that I should be bonding with
people I work with -- and by "bonding" I mean stepping outside the of work
relationships. I don't aim for that. If it happens naturally, I welcome it.
But I don't actively pursue it.

But your assumptions are mostly false: I've actively brainstormed and planned
with people in voice-only sessions -- and they rarely exceeded 25-30 minutes.
And that went on and on for the 1-year contract, every week or two, and only
once did we have trouble getting a message across.

Building trust can take anywhere from 2 to 8 weeks if you are a down-to-earth
productive programmer -- which I am. Not sure where your multi-year idea of
building trust comes from?

I am not attacking you. But I can't stand behind this very widely believed
legend that face-to-face trumps everything. That's provably false in literally
half my work relationships during my 17-year-long career.

When people have common vision and are working honestly for the interests of
their employer -- and are professionals -- things go pretty smoothly and the
machine gets oiled _fast_.

------
alexchamberlain
I’ve never worked on a distributed team. While I can see how it works
effectively for collaborating between senior contributors, how do you
effectively mentor in a distributed environment?

~~~
mac01021
Using Slack/email/whatever, mainly.

I think it works just fine when the domain in which you're mentoring is like
software engineering.

It's not like you need to show them the proper technique for wielding an axe
or anything else with a lot of physicality to it.

------
pdimitar
Remote / distributed requires discipline and wearing different hats while you
sit in the same physical chair (if you work at home and not in remote co-
working spaces). And you must be damn good at distilling your thoughts into a
succint text -- in short amounts of time.

Fail these two and of course you will think remote/distributed doesn't work.

It's not for everybody. I only find myself improving all the time by working
at a home office.

I respect the people who dislike it but they rarely return the favor.

------
Eiriksmal
>Teams hold more meetings when they don’t have enough important work to do
otherwise.

This is... quite the statement. Teams hold more meetings as the size of their
organization increases and any one individual cannot complete the work on
their "shared digital artifact." This horrific, pre-digital concept termed
"teamwork" emerges and the team discovers the most effective form of getting
work done, as a _team_ , is talking to one another.

------
slics
Remote working = “Cast Away” by Tom Hanks. At some point, even the best of us
need the human interaction or we start losing our other needed skills. (My 2c
anyways)

~~~
izacus
You're allowed to have human interaction outside your company, ya know? :/

------
rasikjain
Remote may not be ideal for everyone. Some prefer office setting. It all boil
down to individual needs and preferences.

In my case, I chose Remote option as a necessity when we had our kids. Due to
the necessity, the client agreed for a partial remote work arrangement. This
gave me a sense of satisfaction and balance in work/life.

After this experience, I continue working with other clients with option of
partial remote work.

------
frogpelt
> "few people want to move there".

It's like that Yogi Berra saying, "Nobody comes here anymore. It's too
crowded."

~~~
wolco
But it's true. No one moves here anymore because it is crowded. People moved
before it was crowded.

------
DenisM
Any suggestions for remote brainstorming with whiteboard and all that?

I would like a large-ish collaborative drawing surface, and ability to see the
faces of my collaborators (2-3 people), as well ability to request and grant
control of the board.

So much of our design came out of impromptu design sessions, I don't see a
future without it.

------
LiterallyDoge
Partial remote is optimal for me, both in quality and speed of how I work.
Even if it wasn't at home, I can't stand being in the same physical space for
that long, I burn out. Kinesthetic learning something something something
productivity efficiency sh ./buzzwords.sh

------
l8again
To me if you are in the bay, and have one office up in SF and another one down
in PA, you are still "distributed" / "remote" or whatever you want to call it.
Once you have two offices, it doesn't matter if its 50 miles or 500 miles.

------
tgsovlerkhgsel
Misleading clickbait title - pretends to be against remote work, actually
promotes a different form of remote work.

------
ahel
blairreeves.me uses an invalid security certificate. The certificate is not
trusted because it is self-signed. The certificate is only valid for . Error
code: MOZILLA_PKIX_ERROR_SELF_SIGNED_CERT

------
LaGrange
ITT: people who didn't read the article beyond the clickbaity title. ITA:
someone's trying to coin a new buzzword.

I don't even mind the buzzword, it maybe even captures the point of companies
such as 37 Signals better than "remote." But I am bothered by the "fault
tolerance" section. Because it pretty much boils down to "it's easier to find
a scab." In fact, the term might be a bit unfair to the "replacement" worker,
as it's unlikely they have the means to find out that the previous employee
has left for reasons they're comfortable with.

This is just another time when I'm worried that "distributed" work might be a
double-edged sword if it ever becomes truly common. I still think it's worth
it — as an autistic person I _really_ appreciate being in control of how and
when I socialise and the amount of stimuli I receive — but it's not all roses.

------
dana321
Exactly, remote from where? Working from home is a better term.

------
sergiotapia
Doesn't matter what you call it, eventually you'll find yourself being left
out of some decision making if you're remote.

Accept it as the trade-off like I have. It's just the cost of doing business.

~~~
sigstoat
> Doesn't matter what you call it, eventually you'll find yourself being left
> out of some decision making if you're remote.

the only companies where everyone is involved in every decision they want to
be involved in are <3 people.

~~~
sergiotapia
That number is more like 7 in my experience.

------
seymour333
Semantic pedantics and the developers who love them

------
ricardoreis
No, it isn't simply bad or unworkable. It's a _tradeoff_ , with both positive
and negative aspects to consider.

~~~
mooreds
Actually the tl;dr for me was "focus on distributed work, not remote work".

The name matters.

------
choot
I've been remote:

1\. I now get more sleep

2\. I see my kids playing, i often take 5 minute break to watch them play and
this motivates me more

3\. I usually bring down my pace upto the 5th slowest employee in the team.
(40 people in our team)

4\. I don't try to do a lot. If a task is estimated as 2 hours and i did that
in 10 minutes, i go to gym or roam around the market, till 2 hours have gone.
Then i report the task as completed.

We use discord, somtimes i record the "i am working noise, keyboard chatter
etc.." on a recorder and leave it on my desk playing when i leave.

People end up thinking that i am at the desk working.

This motivates other people to work, so don't seee anything wrong with this

~~~
kierenj
Hope it's for a big faceless company who you hate, then? You can't imagine how
wilfully disruptive, disrespectful and generally dickish this comes across.
I'd urge you to get a job you actually like or try to make a difference in the
world. What a waste. So rude, disrespectful, dishonest. Why? Edit: re-reading
this, it sounds fairly rude in itself. I admit I was dumbstruck by this but
don't mean to cause as much offence as came across. Isn't it so incredibly
offensive to do this to a team of people who are labouring to build something
great (presumably)?

