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.
Remote working might not be for everybody.. and that is okay. There are plenty of people who cannot make themselves go to the gym on their own, they won't travel alone, etc. And plenty of people who do.
> It's not just that I don't trust myself, I don't trust other people too.
This sentiment seems to say that you don't trust your colleagues in general, and that doesn't really make a difference remote or at the job. There are plenty of "chair warmers" at every office...
That's definitely so. In the same way as 5% (read in some study quite long ago) of us are capable to manage other people.
Remote work requires self-discipline/determination to reach end result. Looking on developers I know personally I would estimate 30-20% of them are capable to do remote work.
Actually that is not about just remote strictly speaking. In office those 70%-80% require tight supervision/mentoring/other forms of motivation.
What is the difference of working remotely and working in office with your headphones on, only using slack to communicate? I know several places like that.
I’ve worked full time remotely for the last 6 months it’s been absolutely wondrous. I would hate to have to commute and go back to an office.
This is currently the main impediment to a remote (distributed) organization I'm sure. I'm however also convinced it's a problem that will eventually be overcome, as savings/benefits of a distributed organization become evident while broadband infrastructure continues to penetrate the remotest (and cheapest) of places, and as new generations becomes accustomed to it. FWIW.
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.
Responding here since the comment I was originally responding to was deleted.
> grace us with their presence.
> someone deliberately absent is insulting.
It seems you and the parent comment are conflating working from home/remote with playing hookey, which might be the case for your co-workers/organization and that sucks, but for a lot of companies that's not how it really works.
For example, my organization is spread out across the country, so even if someone on my team isn't working from home, they are still working remotely (from my perspective). This means as an organization, we have to establish communication channels to avoid the pain points you mentioned. I've been in "whiteboard" architecture discussions without being face-to-face with every person on my team and I would argue our way of accommodating remote teams is far superior to your in person discussions for the simple fact that we record all of our meetings and they can be reviewed by anyone at anytime.
Maybe recording these types of meetings (or all) might be something for you and your organization to consider? It seems like it would make you a lot happier and it is very beneficial to come back to a recording of this type of meeting months later and remember why you decided on a certain direction.
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.
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.
I don't see any reason to conclude that the parent is the problem. But if lots of people just disappear for days to weeks for no reason (that you're aware of), that's a problem with co-workers and management, not remote work in general. Yes, remote work probably makes slacking easier, but it's the slacking that's the issue, not the remote work.
